[33] The difficulties of the writer who is not a writer are great. I sent this chapter to two literary friends, one of whom, with the help of a globe, disputed my accuracy in a learned ethnological disquisition with which he favoured me. The other warned me to be even more obscure and sent me the following verses, addressed by 'Cynicus' (J.K. Stephen) to Shakespeare, "You wrote a line too much, my sage, Of seers the first, the first of sayers; For only half the world's a stage, And only all the women players." [34] These qualities, as will be explained later, happen to have a special economic value in the farming industry, and so are available for the elevation of rural life, with whose problems we are now so deeply concerned in Ireland. Their applicability to urban life need not be discussed here. But my study of the co-operative movement in England has convinced me that, if the English had the associative instincts of the Irish, that movement would play a part in English life more commensurate with its numerical strength and the volume of its commercial transactions, than can be claimed for it so far. [35] _La Psychologie de la Foule_. [36] July 27th, 1903,--His Majesty thus confirmed the striking utterance of imperial policy contained in Lord Dudley's speech to the Incorporated Law Society, on the 20th of November, 1902. His Excellency, after protesting against the conception of empire as a 'huge regiment' in which each nation was to lose its individuality, said--"Lasting strength, lasting loyalty, are not to be secured by any attempt to force into one system or to remould into one type those special characteristics which are the outcome of a nation's history and of her religious and social conditions, but rather by a full recognition of the fact that these very characteristics form an essential part of a nation's life; and that under wise guidance and under sympathetic treatment they will enable her to provide her own contribution and to play her own special part in the life of the empire to which she belongs." PART II. _PRACTICAL_. "For a country so attractive and a people so gifted we cherish the warmest regard, and it is, therefore, with supreme satisfaction that I have during our stay so often heard the hope expressed that a brighter day is dawning upon Ireland. I shall eagerly await the fulfilment of this hope. Its realisation will, under Divine Providence, depend largely upon the steady development of self-reliance and co-operation, upon better and more practical education, upon the growth of industrial and commercial enterprise, and upon that increase of mutual toleration and respect which the responsibility my Irish people now enjoy in the public administration of their local affairs is well-fitted to teach."--_Message of the King to the Irish People_, 1st August, 1903. CHAPTER VII. THE NEW MOVEMENT: ITS FOUNDATION ON SELF-HELP.