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Stephen said one day to Madden:



— I suppose these hurley-matches and walking tours are preparations for the great event.



— There is more going on in Ireland at present than you are aware of.



— But what use are camans?

camans

— Well, you see, we want to raise the physique of the country.



Stephen meditated for a moment and then he said:



— It seems to me that the English Government is very good to you in this matter.



— How is that may I ask?



— The English Government will take you every summer in batches to different militia camps, train you to the use of modern weapons, drill you, feed you and pay you and then send you home again when the manoeuvres are over.



— Well?



— Wouldn't that be better for your young men than hurley-practice in the Park?



— Do you mean to say you want young Gaelic Leaguers to wear the redcoat and take an oath of allegiance to the Queen and take her shilling too?



— Look at your friend, Hughes.



— What about him?



— One of these days he will be a barrister, a Q.C., perhaps a judge — and yet he sneers at the Parliamentary Party because they take an oath of allegiance.



— Law is law all the world over — there must be someone to administer it, particularly here, where the people have no friends in Court.



— Bullets are bullets, too. I do not quite follow the distinction you make between administering English law and administering English bullets: there is the same oath of allegiance for both professions.



— Anyhow it is better for a man to follow a line of life which civilisation regards as humane. Better be a barrister than a redcoat.



— You consider the profession of arms a disreputable one. Why then have you Sarsfield Clubs, Hugh O'Neill Clubs, Red Hugh Clubs?



— O, fighting for freedom is different. But it is quite another matter to take service meanly under your tyrant, to make yourself his slave.



— And, tell me, how many of your Gaelic Leaguers are studying for the Second Division and looking for advancement in the Civil Service?



— That's different. They are only civil servants: they're not...



— Civil be damned! They are pledged to the Government, and paid by the Government.



— O, well, of course if you like to look at it that way...



— And how many relatives of Gaelic Leaguers are in the police and the constabulary? Even I know nearly ten of your friends who are sons of Police inspectors.



— It is unfair to accuse a man because his father was so-and-so. A son and a father often have different ideas.



— But Irishmen are fond of boasting that they are true to the traditions they receive in youth. How faithful all you fellows are to Mother Church! Why would you not be as faithful to the tradition of the helmet as to that of the tonsure?



— We remain true to the Church because it is our national Church, the Church our people have suffered for and would suffer for again. The police are different. We look upon them as aliens, traitors, oppressors of the people.



— The old peasant down the country doesn't seem to be of your opinion when he counts over his greasy notes and says "I'll put the priest on Tom an' I'll put the polisman on Mickey."



— I suppose you heard that sentence in some 'stage-Irishman' play. It's a libel on our countrymen.



— No, no, it is Irish peasant wisdom: he balances the priest against the polisman and a very nice balance it is for they are both of a good girth. A compensative system!



— No West-Briton could speak worse of his countrymen. You are simply giving vent to old stale libels — the drunken Irishman, the baboon-faced Irishman that we see in Punch.

Punch

— What I say I see about me. The publicans and the pawn-brokers who live on the miseries of the people spend part of the money they make in sending their sons and daughters into religion to pray for them. One of your professors in the Medical School who teaches you Sanitary Science or Forensic Medicine or something — God knows what — is at the same time the landlord of a whole streetful of brothels not a mile away from where we are standing.



— Who told you that?



— A little robin-redbreast.



— It's a lie!



— Yes, it's a contradiction in terms, what I call a systematic compensation.





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