Mr. O’Reilly was perfectly frank and unashamed.
‘The other drapery house in the town is owned by a Scotchman, and of course it pays more or less to keep on saying that I am Irish. Besides, I mean to stand for the Urban Council in March, and those sort of ads. are useful at an election, even if they are no good for business.’
‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ said Hyacinth, shirking a discussion on the morality of advertising: ‘I’ll let you have a dozen shawls at cost price, and take back what you can’t sell, if you give me your word to do your best for them.’
Similar discussions followed the display of serges and blankets. It appeared that nice-looking goods could be sent over from England at lower prices. It was vain for Hyacinth to press the fact that his things were better. Mr. O’Reilly admitted as much.
‘But what am I to do? The people don’t want what is good. They want a cheap article which looks well, and they don’t care a pin whether the thing is made in England, Ireland, or America. Take my advice,’ he added as Hyacinth left the shop: ‘get your boss to do inferior lines—cheap, cheap and showy.’
So far Mr. Hollywell’s opinions were entirely justified. The appeal of the patriotic press to the public and the shopkeepers on behalf of the industrial revival of Ireland had certainly not affected the town of Clogher. Hyacinth was bitterly disappointed; but hope, when it is born of enthusiasm, dies hard, and he was greatly interested in a speech which he read one day in the ‘Mayo Telegraph’. It had been made at a meeting of the League by an Ardnaree shopkeeper called Dowling. A trade rival—the fact of the rivalry was not emphasized—had advertised in a Scotch paper for a milliner. Dowling was exceedingly indignant. He quoted emigration statistics showing the number of girls who left Mayo every year for the United States. He pointed out that all of them might be employed at home, as milliners or otherwise, if only the public would boycott shops which sold English goods or employed Scotch milliners. He more than suspected that the obnoxious advertisement was part of an organized attempt to effect a new plantation of Connaught—‘worse than Cromwell’s was.’ The fact that Connaught was the only part of Ireland which Cromwell did not propose to plant escaped the notice of both Mr. Dowling and his audience. The speech concluded with a passionate peroration and a verse, no doubt declaimed soundingly, of ‘The West’s Awake.’
Hyacinth made an expedition to Ardnaree, and called hopefully on the orator. His reception was depressing in the extreme. The shop, which was large and imposing, was stocked with goods which were obviously English, and Mr. Dowling curtly refused even to look at the samples of Mr. Quinn’s manufactures. Hyacinth quoted his own speech to the man, and was amazed at the cynical indifference with which he ignored the dilemma.
‘Business is one thing,’ he said, ‘and politics is something entirely different.’
Hyacinth lost his temper completely.
‘I shall write to the papers,’ he said, ‘and expose you. I shall have your speech reprinted, and along with it an account of the way you conduct your business.’