of the purchase money only L181,256.  And be it noted what these unfortunate and misguided Mayo men have to be grateful for:  that they have remained for all these years, since the Act of 1903 was placed on the Statute Book, under the old inexorable rent-paying conditions, whilst down in Cork the tenants are almost to a man the proprietors of their own holdings, owning their own improvements, knowing that every year that passes brings the time nearer when their land will be free of annuities, and having all that sweet content and satisfaction that flow from personal ownership.  Up in Mayo, in a famous speech delivered at Swinford, 12th September 1906, three years after the Land Purchase Act was passed, Mr Dillon declared: 

“Attempts have been made to throw the blame on Michael Davitt, The Freeman’s Journal and myself, and it has been said that we have delayed the reinstatement of the evicted tenants and obstructed the smooth working of the Act more than we have done.  It has worked too smoothly—­far too smoothly, to my mind.  Some men have complained within the past year that the Land Act was not working smooth enough.  For my part I look upon it as working a great deal too fast.  Its pace has been ruinous to the people.”

There, in a nutshell and sufficiently stated, are the two policies.  Mr O’Brien wanted to expedite land purchase by every means in his power, but he wished that the tenants should have proper advisers and should act under the skilled guidance of their own organisation, so that they may make no bad bargains.  Mr Dillon, on his part, sought to kill land purchase outright, but why he should have had this mad infatuation against the most beneficent Act that was passed for Ireland in our generation, I am at a loss to know, if it is not that he allowed his personal feeling against Mr O’Brien to cloud the operations of his intellect.  It is a curious commentary, however, on the good faith of the Party leaders, that whilst Mr Dillon was making the speech I have quoted to his constituents at Swinford, his bosom friend and confidant, Mr T.P.  O’Connor, who was seeking the shekels in New York, was telling his audience that “the Irish landlords were on the run, and, if they continued to yield, in fifteen years the very name of landlordism would be unknown.  I say to the British power:—­after seven centuries we have beaten you; the land belongs now to the Irish; the land is going back to the old race.”

What is one to say of the manhood or honour of the men who spent their days denouncing the policy of Conciliation in Ireland, but who, when they went across the Atlantic, and wanted to coax the money out of the exiles’ pockets, spoke the sort of stuff that Mr O’Connor so soothingly “slithered” out at New York?