Nevertheless, we are not at all sure that Mr. Healy,
who would be very slow to make such a blunder as Sir Richard Webster's, is not overdoing his ostentatious display of animosity towards England when he boasted as he did on Thursday night that " the more oppression cost in Ireland the better he was pleased. He would not cross the floor of the House to save the British Treasury a million of money. The more it cost the country the better he was satisfied." That is a boast in- tended to win him popularity in Ireland. But will it do so ? The cost he refers to is the cost of the Land Commission incurred in adjudicating on the reduction of Irish rents. Now, the Irish are a very shrewd people, and though they like to have their rents reduced, and like it all the better if England, and not Ireland, is made to pay for it, we do not in the least believe that they take unlimited delight in bleeding England. They know that sooner or later they must come to terms with England, and we believe that they are beginning to appreciate the wisdom of approaching such an under- standing and the folly of all this bravado of eternal hostility.
Previous page
