Mr. Lewis Jones has always taken a strong interest in politics, and his present opinion is remarkable. "I came to Ireland a Gladstonian, a Home Ruler, and, what is more, a bigoted Home Ruler. How the change to my present opinion was brought about I hardly know. It was not revolution, but rather evolution. No-one can remain a Home Ruler when he understands the subject. The change in myself came about through much travelling all over the country and mixing with the people. I do not blame the English Home Rulers a bit. How can I do so, when I myself was just as ignorant? Had I remained in Liverpool I should have remained a Home Ruler. I am certain of that. Unless you actually live in the country you cannot gauge its feeling, and the Irish people are very difficult to understand. I have always got along with them famously, and I shall take ninety per cent. of our workmen with me to England. No, Home Rule has nothing to do with the removal of the works.
"My cousin and I worked like horses to get in Mr. Neville for the Exchange Division of Liverpool. We actually won, for by a piece of adroit management we polled a number of votes which would certainly have remained unpolled, and we polled them all for our man, who won by a very small majority, eleven, I think. I would willingly go to Liverpool to undo that work, as I now see how completely I was mistaken in my views of the Irish question. I was always a great Radical, and such I shall always remain; but as a Radical I am bound to support what is best for the masses of the people, and I am convinced that Home Rule would reduce the country to beggary. Bankruptcy must and will ensue, and with the flight of the landowners and the destruction of confidence, employment will be unobtainable. Who will embark capital in Ireland under present circumstances?"
A financial authority told me that poor Ireland has thirty-six millions of uninvested money lying idle in the banks. The Irish not only lack enterprise, but they will not trust each other. Great opportunities are lying thickly around, but they seem unable to avail themselves of the finest openings. Mr. Smith, of Athlone, makes twelve and a half miles of Irish tweed every week, and sells it rather faster than he can make it. He commenced with two shillings a week wages, and now he owns a factory and employs five hundred people. A Black Protestant, of course. Mr. Samuel Heaton, of Bradford, is about to go and do likewise. I went over his place an hour ago, and this is what he said:--"This was a flour mill which cost £10,000 to build. The machinery would cost £10,000 more, I should think. It did well for many years, and then it was left to three brothers, who disputed about it until the concern was ruined as a paying business, and the place was allowed to lie derelict. The water power alone cost them £100 a year, and goodness knows what these splendid buildings would be worth. The Board of Works had got hold of it, and it was understood that anybody might have it a bargain, but nobody came forward. I offered them £30 a year for the whole of the buildings, the waterpower, and the dwelling house hard by, also that other immense building yonder, which might prove handy for a store-house; and my offer was accepted. I took all at that rent for sixty years, with six months' free tenancy to start with, and I was also to have a free gift of all machinery and fittings in the place. Here we are going nicely, only in a small way, but we shall do. We make blankets, tweeds for men's suits and ladies' dresses. When the Athlone people saw us knocking about they were surprised they had never thought of it before. There are hundreds of derelict flour mills going to ruin all over the country, and the owners would gladly let anyone have them and grand water power for nothing for two or three years, just to get a chance of obtaining rent at some future day. We work from morning till night, and neither I nor my sons have ever tasted a spot of intoxicating liquor. Now there are many small mills going in the country, the proprietors of which go on the spree three days a week. If they can do, we can do. This is going to be a big thing. The only difficulty I have is to turn out the stuff. Irish tweeds have such a reputation that we simply cannot meet the demand. Mills and water power may be had for next to nothing, but the Irish have no enterprise, and the English are afraid to put any money in the country under present circumstances."