IRISH DISAFFECTION. 61 



farther you go back in the present century, the 

 greater and more widespread was such disaffection. 

 Even thirty years ago, in O'Connell's Kepeal agita- 

 tion, the movement was out of all measure greater 

 than it is now. Less than twenty years before that, 

 there was positive insurrection in many parts. In 

 truth, peaceful progress has been steadily advancing 

 and bearing its sure fruit, only men cannot learn 

 that generations, not years, are needed for a people to 

 emerge from the state of abject barbarism in which 

 Ireland was sunk in the eighteenth century. 



Lately we have had Fenianism. It was really a 

 reflex product of American social and political ideas. 

 It did not deserve anything like the importance that 

 was given to it. It never touched the true industrial 

 classes in Ireland, except town artisans and some of 

 the labourers. But no sooner had it exploded than 

 it was worked for their own ends by Irish politicians. 



It should never be overlooked that Irish poli- 

 ticians live by using every sort of disaffection and 

 discontent that may exist in the country for their 

 own purposes, even though they may not have sym- 

 pathised and may not still sympathise with the 

 particular disaffection itself. Home Kule has now 

 been started. It is nothing but Kepeal under another 

 name. If it did not mean that, nobody would care 

 for it. If it was not Kepeal, it would be only a 

 bigger Grand Jury with more power of jobbing for a 

 few. But being what it is, Kepeal, it absorbs 



