14 My Little Farm 



delivered that almost childishly plain truth, I 

 found all eyes watching me asquint, and most 

 men drawing apart, as if I had been suddenly 

 transformed into a tiger. To this day, I have 

 never been able to discover how I was wrong, 

 and yet not one of my masters ever attempts 

 to rescue me from my alleged error. It would 

 add greatly to my comfort, and somewhat 

 to my cash, if some superior person would show 

 me how a nation can be the better for pro- 

 viding her conscience by import only, at frightful 

 expense, while the native product, free of charge 

 and of vastly superior make, is persistently sup- 

 pressed, with Government, " religion " and 

 revenue co-operating for the suppression. The 

 real greatness of modern nations dates in every 

 case from the day they insisted on Home Rule in 

 Conscience. 



I am not discussing conscience in- any polemic 

 or theological sense of the term, but simply as an 

 industrial factor, for its value in trust and duty 

 in the application of capital and labour to produc- 

 tion. No industry of any sort can proceed far 

 without it. The greater the scope of the enter- 

 prise, the larger the element of delegation and 

 trust. Nothing extensive in industrial production 

 is achieved by the man who can venture no 

 farther than his own eye may at all times see. 

 Indeed, the point of large expansion is reached 

 only when he can transfer his authority with 

 confidence in an honest result. How can anything 

 of the kind be attempted in the Irish conditions 



