Farming with a Pen 13 



result, the same conclusion on evidence in view. 

 It is well known that I have wronged no man, not 

 even my worst enemy ; as well admitted that I 

 have done something for all, much for some, and 

 sometimes most for the man that robbed me. 

 Why, then, an enemy ? From information 

 received, I know that I am strongly suspected of 

 having a conscience, the one crime never to be 

 forgiven. 



So far as I can trace the history of my guilt in 

 this, the suspicion started in the following manner. 

 Years ago, while I was yet new to my country, we 

 got up an " Industrial Revival." With due energy 

 and attention to business, we more or less revived 

 everything but industry, which, wisely shy of our 

 wild ways and of our confidence in the virtue of 

 falsehood, went on in its own shrewd course, 

 neither expanding to the cult of our crude inflation 

 nor contracting before the menace of its dominion. 

 In Ireland, we were going to produce at home 

 our own food, our own clothes, our own shelter, 

 &c. Wishing to have our programme of produc- 

 tion normal and symmetrical, neither overvaluing 

 trifles nor excluding essentials, I had myself the 

 misfortune to propose that we should produce at 

 home also our own Conscience, instead of inces- 

 santly borrowing the official counterfeit from 

 foreign sources at deadly rates of usury. It 

 seemed to me in my innocence that a really great 

 nation, defying the world in the moral symmetry 

 of her inherent power, had as much need to grow 

 conscience as cabbage ; but from the day I 



