to countenance a system which ignores us.... By turning their attention to the practical development of industries in Ireland and pledging themselves to a policy of practical support and preference for the products of Irish labour, our people can undoubtedly advance the social condition and prosperity of the country; but while they are hoping against hope for some vague indefinite assistance from Westminster, a genuine manly effort in this direction is impossible." If the Parliamentary Party was charged with futility and lack of dignity, other Irish movements were criticized with a similar candour. Even the Gaelic League did not win the entire and unqualified approval of the national Mentor. The "persistent labouring of the fact that the language question is non-political" was held to savour of a certain lack of candour and of courage. The Gaelic movement (it was said) had for its aim "the intensifying of Irish sentiment, the preservation of Irish ideals": it aroused enthusiasm "by awakening memories hot with hate and fierce with desire of vengeance on the foreigner." It was asserted that "as a factor towards freedom, and as such _alone_, the people will respond to its claims upon them: for them culture has no charms"; and the League was bluntly told that it could not continue to pursue its policy of aloofness. "With politics," wrote William Rooney (who seems to have held a unique position of authority and trust in the new movement up to the time of his early death), "as at present understood, and which, after all, mean nothing but partisanship, the Gaelic League has rightly had nothing to do; but with politics, in the sense of some public policy aiming at the reincarnation of an Irish nation, it cannot refuse to meddle." The Gaelic League, like the Parliamentary Party, pursued its way undisturbed: but the criticism was not unmarked. And the Catholic clergy (so often represented as immune from the criticism of all good Irish Nationalists) were faithfully (and not always tenderly) taken to task when they wandered from the straight path; it was said that they took no effective steps to arrest emigration: that they "next to the British Government" were "responsible for the depopulation of the country": that they failed to encourage Irish trade and manufactures: that the priests "made life dull and unendurable for the people": that the Hierarchy had backed the Parliamentary Party against the Nationalists of '48 and '67: that they were apathetic on the question of the language. It was asserted that the priesthood with their exaggerated caution with regard to the natural relations of the sexes had "brought a Calvinistic gloom and horror into Ireland"; "To-day the land is dotted with religious edifices but the men and women whose money built them are fleeing to America to seek for bread." "It is high time this monstrous hypocrisy should be faced and fought. While the country is making a last fight for existence its people are being bled right and left