My Irish Conservative Home Ruler would have gone on indefinitely, furnishing excellent matter, for he improved as he warmed up, but unhappily a priest called on him to make some purchase, and he had to leave me without much notice. "Over the way," he said. "Trip across to the opposite shop, and you'll find another Tory Home Ruler."
As I "tripped" across I thought of the Pills and Ointment man who amassed a colossal fortune by fifty years' advertising of the fact that wonders never will cease. Mr. Overtheway was not quite so Tory as might be supposed, after all. He said:--
"I have no objection to Home Rule, but, although a Catholic, I have the greatest objection to Rome Rule, which is precisely what it means. I object to this great Empire being ruled from Rome. The greatest Empire that the world ever saw to be bossed by a party of priests! Do the English know what they are now submitting to?
"Let me put the thing logically, and controvert me if you can.
"If Mr. Gladstone wished to go to war to-morrow, is he not at the mercy of the Irish Nationalist party? Could he get votes of supply without their aid? In the event of any sudden, or grave emergency, any serious and critical contingency, would they not hold the key of the position, would they not have the power to make or mar the Empire? Surely they would. And are not these men in the hands of the priests? Surely they are. That is a matter of common knowledge, as sure as that water will drown and fire will burn. A pretty position for a sensible man like John Bull to be placed in by a blethering idiot, who can argue with equal volubility on either side, but with more conviction when in the wrong. Bull must have been drunk, and drunk on stupid beer, when he placed his heart strings between the finger and thumb of a quack like that, who, whatever the result, whether we get Home Rule or not, has ruined the country for five-and-twenty years.
"Yes, I am a Home Ruler. But for heaven's sake don't thrust self-government on an unfortunate country that is not ready for it. That country cries for it, you say. The snuffling old air-pump across the Channel says the same thing. Says he: 'Beloved brethren, I greet you. I fall on your neck and kiss your two ears, and give you all you ask. For why, beloved brethren? Why do I this thing. Let us in a spirit of love enquire. Because it is the wish of the country; because it is the aspiration of the people; because I feel a deep-seated, internal affection for your beautiful land, in whose affairs, during my eighty-four years' pilgrimage in this vale of tears, I have, as you know, always shown the strongest, the warmest, the most passionate interest, and on whose lovely shores I have during my seven dozen years spent (altogether) nearly a week. It has been said that I have never been in Ulster, and that, therefore, I am unable to appreciate the situation. An atrocious falsehood. I have spent two hours (nearly) in the northern province, having landed from Sir Somebody's yacht to see the Giant's Causeway. I have studied the Irish question by means of mineral specimens gathered from the four provinces, and I am, therefore, competent to settle the Irish question for ever. Do you know a greater man than myself? I confess I don't. Bless you, my children. You ask for Home Rule. Enough. The fact that you ask proves a Divine right to have what you ask for. You are a people rightly struggling to be free,' says owld Gladstone. 'Hell to my sowl,' says he, 'but that's what ye are,' says he.