But again it may be said that though the Councils have thus become political bodies, they have conducted their business so admirably that their conduct is a powerful argument to show that a Nationalist Parliament will be equally practical and liberal. This is the view put forward by Nationalist orators and their humble follower Mr. Birrell, who in November 1911, informed his friends at Bristol that the Irish had shown a great capacity for local government and that from what people who had seen a great deal of the south and west of Ireland told him there was no fear of persecution or oppression by the Catholic majority of their Protestant fellow-subjects. In support of this, various facts are adduced, which it is well to examine in detail, remembering the poet's words that "A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies." One of the greatest powers possessed by the County Councils is the exercise of patronage. It would probably be generally admitted in any country but Ireland that there, if anywhere, religion and politics should be excluded, and men selected only for their qualifications. The Nationalists, wishing to demonstrate the fairness of the Councils which hold their views, contrast the bigotry shown by the Unionist Corporation of Belfast with the liberality of similar bodies in other parts of the country. And certainly the figures they adduce, when addressing audiences in England or writing for English readers, are very striking. Thus Mr. Birrell said at Skipton in November 1911 that he had been told that in the great Unionist City of Belfast there was only one Roman Catholic in the employment of the Corporation, and he was a scavenger. (It will be observed that here, as in many of his speeches, he carefully used the expression "he had been told"--so that what he said may be literally true, even though when he heard the statement he knew that it was false.) And Stephen Gwynn, M.P., in his "Case for Home Rule," says: "In Belfast, Catholics are a third of the population; but the Corporation pays £51,405 in a year in salaries, of which only £640 goes to Catholics." And about the same time as Mr. Birrell's oration, Mr. Redmond, speaking at Swindon, said that in Galway, Cork, Westmeath and King's County (where Roman Catholics form the large majority of the population) Protestants held 23 per cent. of the salaried appointments in the gift of the Councils.