Part 14 (1/2)

”Hm-m-m!” grunted the salesman sceptically.

”I'll admit,” went on the other, ”that there are and always have been many Irishmen only too eager to take alms--more shame to them. There have always been many ready to sell themselves for a good position under government, and to sell their country too, if need be. We have our share of patriots, but we have more than our share of traitors, I sometimes think. But it isn't by them the country should be judged. What true Irishmen want is the right to stand alone like men and fight their own battles, and in fighting them, the north and south will forget their foolish quarrel and become friends again as they should be. They aren't half as far apart, even now, as some would have you believe. Most of this talk about Ulster is the black work of men who make their living out of it, who care nothing for Ireland, and take advantage of every little by-election to stir the fire and keep the pot bubbling.”

I remarked that this ceaseless agitation over elections was unknown in America, where all the elections were held on one day, after which there were no more elections for a year.

The priest stared at me in astonishment.

”Did I understand you to say,” he asked, ”that the elections all over your country are held on the same day?”

”Yes,” I said; ”on a day early in November, fixed by law.”

”I don't see how you manage it.”

”It isn't hard to manage--it's really very simple.”

”But where do you get enough police?”

”Enough police?”

”Yes. Here in Ireland, when we have an election, we have to send in the police from all the country round to keep the peace. If we tried to have all our elections on one day, there would be riots everywhere.”

”What about?” I asked.

”I don't know--the people wouldn't know themselves, most likely; but there's many of them would welcome the chance for a s.h.i.+ndy, if the police wasn't there. Isn't it the same in America?”

I told him I had been an election officer many times, but had never seen any serious disorder at the polls.

”Aren't there many riots next day?” he asked.

”Why,” I said, ”the day after election is the quietest day in the year.

Everybody goes to work as though nothing had happened.”

”I don't think there is much danger of riots,” put in the salesman, ”but we couldn't have your system over here because with us a man has a right to vote wherever he owns property and pays taxes, and if all the elections were held on one day, he couldn't get around.”

”Ah, yes,” nodded the priest; ”I did not think of that. How do you manage it in America?”

”With us,” I explained, ”every man has one vote and no more.”

Again his eyes goggled.

”Would you be telling me,” he gasped, ”that your millionaires, your men of vast properties, have no more votes than the poor man?”

And when I told him that was so, I think he was by way of pitying our millionaires, as men deprived of their just rights--as, perhaps, in some respects, they are.

And then the salesman told me that he had been to America, as far west as Kansas, where he had visited some friends. He had gone over, he said, with that sort of good-natured contempt for everything American so common in England, but he had come away convinced that there was no country on earth to match it.

”The only thing I saw to criticise in America were the roads,” he added.

”Why don't you take a leaf from Lloyd George's book? He has put a tax of three-pence a gallon on gasoline used by pleasure cars, and this tax goes into a fund for the upkeep of the highways, proportioned according to the number of cars in each county. Gasoline used in commercial cars pays a tax of three-ha'-pence a gallon. A great sum is collected in this way, and the upkeep of the highways is thrown upon the people who do them the most damage. If you'd do the same in America, your roads would soon be as good as ours; and n.o.body could complain that the tax was unjust.”