They will, I feel sure, come to realise that the passing of the dictatorship, which to outward appearances left the people as "sheep without a shepherd, when the snow shuts out the sky," in fact turned the thoughts of Ireland in some measure away from England into her own bosom, and gave birth there to the idea of a national life to which the Irish people of all classes, creeds, and politics could contribute of their best.
I sometimes wonder whether the leaders of the Nationalist party really understand the full effect of their tactics upon the political character of the Irish people, and whether their vision is not as much obscured by a too near, as is the vision of the Unionist leaders by a too distant, view of the people's life.

Everyone who seeks to provide practical opportunities for Irish intellect to express-itself worthily in active life--and this, I take it, is part of what the Nationalist leaders wish to achieve--meets with the same difficulty.

The lack of initiative and shrinking from responsibility, the moral timidity in glaring contrast with the physical courage--which has its worst manifestation in the intense dread of public opinion, especially when the unknown terrors of editorial power lurk behind an unfavourable mention 'on the paper,' are, no doubt, qualities inherited from a primitive social state in which the individual was nothing and the community everything.

These defects were intensified in past generations by British statecraft, which seemed unable to appreciate or use the higher instincts of the race; they remain to-day a prominent factor in the great human problem known as the Irish Question--a factor to which, in my belief, may be attributed the greatest of its difficulties.
It is quite clear that education should have been the remedy for the defects of character upon which I am forced to dwell so much; and I cannot absolve any body of Irishmen, possessed of actual or potential influence, of failure to recognise this truth.

But here I am dealing only with the political leaders, and trying to bring home to them the responsibility which their power imposes upon them, not only for the political development but also for the industrial progress of their followers.