As an excellent antidote to Colonel Seely's sentimental travesty of
facts we may briefly notice the speech delivered by Sir Edward Carson on the following day. In 1893 England was asked to grant Home Rule because Ireland paid too much to the British Exchequer ; in 1911 the same demand was made because the British Exchequer contributed too much to Ireland. The first duty of the Unionists would be to restore and complete land purchase, which had been checked by the Act of 1909, and the next would be to stop political interference with the Department of Agriculture. There were grievances, but there was no need to break up the United Kingdom to settle them. The weakening of the Home Rule demand was shown by Mr. Redmond's confession that but for American dollars he could not have carried on his campaign, and the real goal he aimed at was revealed by his assertion that the people of Ireland would prefer to be badly governed under Home Rule than well governed under the Imperial Parliament.
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