My Visitors 145 



above their value, where an Irishman in every 

 way superior has not the smallest chance, especially 

 in the Irishman's own country. I have found 

 them in many instances astonishingly ignorant of 

 their work, but able to manage their managers so 

 skilfully that they enjoyed a high reputation in it 

 and a practically mdefinite fixity of tenure. The 

 whole world has found in them a genius for 

 informal but effective combination among them- 

 selves to " help each other on," at the neighbour's 

 expense, while the Irish temper, on the other hand, 

 keeps us quarreling among ourselves, and advertis- 

 ing our vices to the world ; so that a foreigner 

 knowing worse than nothing about Ireland 

 might come among our factions, play one of them 

 off against another, and get himself made the 

 official head of our only great industry, in a countrj 

 over endowed in university education, and where 

 something like three-fourths of the population 

 depends on the products of the soil. 



This Irish Department has at least one aspect 

 of strength : it can sometimes get things done in 

 spite of those at its head, and it employs many men 

 as good as could be found anywhere, though I 

 regret to confess that the best of these have come 

 to us from other countries, and that we were in- 

 capable of producing the like of them at home 

 I have no sympathy with the " Irish idea " of a 

 prohibitive tariff against imported character, a 

 notion the more silly so long as the Irish will not 

 allow each other leave to think, and can raise native 

 talent for export only. Like all native races de- 



K 



