I know my countrymen, both of north and south, for I am of both; and they know me. Isaac Butt once asked me to lead the Home Rule party; because, he said, my brother Waterford was widely respected and popular, and was thoroughly acquainted with the Irish question, of which I also had a sufficient knowledge. I might have accepted the invitation, had I believed that Home Rule was what my countrymen needed. But it was not. The settlement of the land question was and is the only cure for Irish ills. Mr. Wyndham with his Land Act did more for Ireland than any Government that ever was; and I say it, who have lost a great part of my income under the operation of the Act. Not that the Irish would have obtained the Wyndham Act, had they not been incorrigibly intractable. By {343} demanding a great deal more than they wanted, which they called Home Rule, they got what they did want, which was the land. Their avidity for the land never diminished; whereas the cry for Home Rule died down; until, by one of the inconsistencies of Irish politics which so bewilder the Englishman, it was revived by John Finton Lalor and Michael Davitt, who welded the two aspirations together. In order to rid themselves of the Home Rule spectre, the English Government conceded the land. And then, owing to another unexpected twist, they found the spectre wasn't laid after all. For the English had not learned that so long as they permit Ireland to be so superbly over-represented, so long will they have trouble. Sure, they'll learn the lesson some day, if God will; for there's no lack of teaching, the way it is. In the meantime, it is hard for the English people to argue against what appears to be the demand of the majority of the Irish people. But so far was the Government in power in 1912 from understanding or attempting to understand Irishmen, that the defence of the Home Rule Bill was constantly relegated to two eminent descendants of an interesting Asiatic race; who, however distinguished in their own walk of life, could never in any circumstances know or care anything whatsoever about Ireland. The Ulstermen, at least, resented the proceeding. One of the Nationalists attacked me with great ferocity in the House. He accused my family for generations past of having committed atrocious crimes, and asserted that I myself had entered Parliament for the sole purpose of escaping active service in case of war with a foreign Power. "Why did you say all those things?" said I to him in the lobby afterwards. "Sure, Lord Char-less," says he, "ye're an Irishman, and ye'll understand I didn't mean a word of it."