Mr. Timothy Healy, addressing a large meeting at Longford last
Sunday, professed an opinion which may be taken as some gauge of his political knowledge of this country. "As to the House of Lords," he said, " in his judgment, their opposition would disappear like mist before the sun, the moment her Majesty's Government showed themselves determined to deal with the question. So long as the Government took the Lords quietly, the Lords would take the Government laughingly. Something would have to be done to save the Irish cause and Home-rule. It was no answer to say that there were difficulties in the way. They must insist on the battering-ram being applied to the doom of the Upper House, and propelled by a united Ministry with the people at its back." But as Mr. Healy knows perfectly well that the people are not at its back, and that even counting Ireland at its full proportion, the representatives of the people show only about 62i per cent, for Home.rule to 47? per cent. against it, where is the force to apply the battering-ram, especially when we con- sider that the Government themselves are so fully conscious of the unpopularity of the Home-rule cause that they do all in their power to mask their ulterior purpose under the outward show of a noisy quarrel with the House of Lords P
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