For the last twenty years, at least, Ireland has been represented, or misrepresented, by eighty and more politicians, nominated in the main by Mr.Parnell.

No one supposes for a moment that the Nationalist leaders who appeared before and were condemned by the Special Commission are fair samples of the Irish people.

They are, take them at their best, reckless agitators.
They were chosen by their patron, Mr.Parnell, not on account of their worth or talent, but because they were apt instruments for carrying out a policy of parliamentary intrigue, reinforced by a system of lawless oppression.[37] These men are the product of a revolutionary era; they no more represent the virtues and the genius of the Irish people than the demagogues or fanatics of the Jacobin Club represented the genius and the virtues of the French nation.

We all know that Ireland abounds in citizens of a very different stamp.

She has never lacked among her sons, and does not lack now, men of virtue, of vigour, and of genius.
Throughout the length and breadth of the country you will find hundreds of men of merit--landlords whose lives have been honourable to themselves, and a blessing to their tenants; merchants as honest and successful as any in England or in Scotland; small landowners and tenant farmers who have paid their rent and paid their way, who have cultivated their land, who have never insulted or boycotted their neighbours, and have never been driven by intimidation into meanness and fraud.