And (still keeping to the sternly practical point of view) that would, for the time being at least, spell absolute ruin to the industrial North.

The practice of boycotting, again, is the very antithesis of industry--it creates an atmosphere in which industry and enterprise simply cannot live.

The North has seen this practice condoned as a desperate remedy for a desperate ill, but it has seen it continued long after the ill had passed away, used as a weapon by one Nationalist section against another, and revived when anything like a really oppressive or arbitrary eviction had become impossible.

There seems to have been in Nationalist circles, since the time of O'Connell, but little appreciation of the deadly character of this social curse; and the prospect of a Government which would tolerate it naturally fills the mind of the Northern commercial man with alarm and aversion.
Again, the democratisation of local government which gave the Nationalist leaders a unique opportunity of showing the value, has but served to demonstrate the ineffectiveness, of their political tactics.
North of Ireland opinion was deeply interested in this reform, and appreciated its far-reaching importance.

Elsewhere, I think it will be safe to say, people generally were indifferent to it until it came, and the leaders seemed to see in it only a weapon to be used for political purposes.