The Irish standard., 1903-11-28

under such circumstances know of
no obligation which should compel me
to wreck whatever remains Of my
health and peace of life in the service
of a party which, have some reason
to believe, may have better chance
of reuniting its ranks if disembar-
rassed of my presence.
There is limit to the endurance
even of a man younger and more ro-
bust and more gifted than 1, fighting
almost single-handed against impos-
! sible odds; and frankly the limit has
been reached and passed in my case.
have trodden the wine press alone
about as long as poor human nature
could hold out. This brings me to the
third course, which, after anxious de-
liberation, l have made up my mind
to adopt, and that is to resign without
delay my seat in Parliament, and on
the governing body of the United Irish
League, and to leave fair stage for
whatever alternative policy our as
/ &lilants may be prepared to lay be-
fore the country; that is, the usual
constitutional course when the opposi-
ton has made the situation impossible
for those responsible for public af.
fairs. No man has the right to i'm
peach Il public policy in most criti-
cal hour unless he is prepared to take
OIL his own shoulders the responsibility
which he has made too heavy for
others. l am bound to assume that
those who have deliberately baftled
the plans of the national directory
will not show themselves unequal to
that responsibility.
a country united upon any policy,
were it even an anti-conciliation pol.
icy, is better than divided Ireland.
|, ut all events, am not going to stand
i'll the way. In my own clear judg-
ment one disastrous effect of the cam
paign against the existing policy has
been to shift the tenants lines from
an impregnable and irresistible de-
mand for an honest Ashbourne equiva-
lent to an unreal and indefensible de-
mand which will only encourage the
landlords to despise the peoples power
and probably drive the disheartened
tenants to close with little more than
half the reduction they might other
wise to certainty obtain. The
second effect is that, whereas the
Irish landlords had been separated in
to two different distinct organizations,
with separate views and interests, the
Freeman and it's friends have, l am
sorry to say, succeeded in reuniting
them by their specially bitter and in
discriminate attacks upon those land
lords who showed any trace of good
feeling toward their countrymen. A
third effect is that just when we had
succeeded in convincing England that
the Irish minority were more than
safe in the hands of their country
men, and that consequently her last
serious scruple as against home rule
had been dispclled, the enemies of
home rule have been furnished with
the telling Though, as believe, alb
solutely untruthfuD cry that the very
word Cancellation has become q
word of scoffing and revolt in Ireland
My convictions being, rightly OF
wrongly, what they are, l can be no
party to any programme that is found
ed upon such lines, but neither will
be a party to offering any impeachment
whatsoever to those who may see in
such n policy superior craftsmanship
and a superior courage. AS my con
tinued editorship of the Irish People
would inevitably lead to a continuance
of the public controversies which
from every point of view had better
come to Il complete end, l have made
up my mind to cease the publication
of that paper after the present weeks
issue, and thus leave to those who
may lead the country OH different lines
that unfcttered freedom of actor
which has, unfortunately, not beer
accorded to those hitherto responsible
in Il situation of critical delicacy ant
difficulty. There is one point OF
which what l have written above
must not be misrcprcsented. While
the bulk of the landlords on the one
side, and the Freeman and it's friend.
on the other, are to my poor thinking
culpably wrong in their attitude to
ward the new Land Act. the Irish ten
nntry, on the other hand, have dis
played the most amazing moderation
and have put forward none but de
mands of the most incontrovertibl,
Justice. When we remember upOl
what winter of frightful agricultural
disaster the new act has fallen, ant
low many indictments and tempta
tiOnS have beset the farmers to gras]
ut an imaginary lbs. in the instea(
OF the barely adequate but obtainabl
, S., their good sense and self-restrain
have justified all that their warmes