Above all, he was sensitive for the reputation of his country in the eyes of the world, and the spectacle of Irishmen heaping vilifications on each other always filled him with distaste.

Whether the taunts passed between Nationalist and Unionist or Nationalist and Nationalist made little difference to his feeling.

With him it was no empty phrase that he regarded all Irishmen in equal degree as his fellow-countrymen.
In 1902 he was once more a party to a continued effort made by Irishmen outside of party lines to solve a part of the national difficulty.

The policy of land purchase had proved its immense superiority over that of dual ownership and had even been introduced on a considerable scale.

But its very success led to trouble, because on one side of a boundary fence there would be farmers who had purchased and whose annual instalments of purchase money were lower than the rents paid by their neighbours on the other side of the mearing.