THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 ABOUT ULSTER
 
 ABOUT ULSTER 
 
 BY 
 
 E. L YNN L IN TON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ABOUT ICELAND" 
 
 IfUtlnieit ft Co. 
 
 1 8, BURY STREET, LONDON, W.C. 
 1892
 
 ABOUT U L S T E R 
 
 eo LELAND, speaking of the introduction of " civility " 
 : into Ireland by the Plantation of Ulster, says, these 
 ie six northern counties comprised " a tract of country 
 3 covered with woods, where robbers and rebels found a 
 secure shelter, desolated by war and famine, and des- 
 tined to be waste without the deliberate and vigorous 
 interposition of the English Government." 
 
 What was true in the seventeenth century would 
 be true in the nineteenth and twentieth, were those 
 
 5 "traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown," the 
 Home Rulers, to gain the upper hand and carry out 
 
 ,_, their theories into practice. All the w r ay that Ulster 
 o has made by the industry, enterprise, self-control, and 
 
 6 common-sense of her inhabitants would be lost were 
 her hereditary foes to have the government of her 
 affairs were leave given to the thriftless and impe- 
 cunious South to tax at will the prosperous and hard- 
 en working North were the historic tables to be turned 
 |= and, instead of the past persecution of Catholics by 
 : Protestants, the future power of oppressing, and, so 
 "^ if possible, rooting out Protestantism be vested in the 
 
 891)709
 
 Catholic priests. The situation is one of the gravest 
 peril to the North ; and Ulster does well to place 
 herself in an attitude of defence, and show that she 
 is alive to the danger by which she is threatened, and 
 that come what may her spoliation and oppression 
 will not be an easy walk-over. 
 
 The Irish question is in no sense a new one. For 
 over fifty years it has stopped the way ; and things 
 said and written by competent men in the forties, and 
 before, are as applicable to the present moment as 
 they were to their own time. In 1847 Nassau Senior 
 summed up the moral evils existing in Ireland as " in- 
 security, ignorance, and indolence." Go down to the 
 South and you will find exactly the same state of 
 things now in 1892. Of the insecurity of life and 
 property we need hardly speak. It is not necessary 
 to prove the existence of storms, of venomous beasts, 
 of foul vapours, and as little that of moonlighters, 
 assassins, cattle-maimers, and the rest of the methods 
 by which Home Rule is advocated in Kerry and else- 
 where. Of ignorance there remains still the full tale 
 of illiterate voters who scarce know their right hand 
 from their left, and who make their mark at the 
 polling-booths according to the bidding of the 
 priest, without the slightest knowledge of what they 
 mean or what this candidate or that other means. 
 Of indolence the masterless men lounging and 
 loafing about the lanes, leaning over fences, half 
 sleeping away their time throughout the livelong day, 
 leaving the land to take care of itself, and thinking 
 that thev have done all that thcv ought to do when
 
 they have scratched the surface of the soil and lazily 
 dropped in the seed of this indolence two or three 
 days alone in some wilderness of beauty, neglect, 
 squalor, and unused capacities will convince the most 
 sceptical. Nassau Senior wrote fifty odd years ago> 
 and his words live as if uttered yesterday. A genera- 
 tion has come and gone since then, but the facts 
 remain unaltered, and the same ethnic qualities pro- 
 duce the same economical results. 
 
 What can be truer, too, than this utterance ? 
 Any Unionist of the present day might repeat and 
 adopt it as exactly expressing the present situation. 
 
 "Among the parties which distract Ireland, the 
 most active, and (in proportion to its numbers) the 
 most powerful, is the revolutionary party a party to 
 which we know no counterpart in the history of these 
 islands. All other parties (we are speaking now not 
 of mere demagogues, or agitators for individual 
 and personal purposes, but of parties) seek as their 
 ultimate object the public good, however they may 
 mistake the means of promoting it. The Chartists 
 and the Ultra-Tories, the Anti-Corn Law League 
 and the Farmers' Friends, all really believe that their 
 success would be a public blessing. But the object 
 of the Irish revolutionary party is not the general 
 welfare of the L'nited Empire ; it is not even the 
 general welfare of Ireland, either as part of the 
 United Empire or as a separate Republic ; their real 
 objects are to overthrow the Protestant Church, to 
 confiscate the Protestant estates, and to retaliate on 
 the Protestant party the injuries and insults of cen-
 
 8 
 
 turies. As they know that this cannot be effected 
 under a British Sovereign, they strive to separate 
 themselves from Britain ; as a means of effecting 
 that separation they strive to repeal the legislative 
 union ; and as a means to that repeal they strive to 
 make the United Government work ill.' 
 
 Another extract is as pertinent. In a certain sense 
 it is a repetition of the foregoing ; but things some- 
 times gain force by repetition, and this sentiment or 
 prophccy of Nassau Senior's is one of them : 
 
 "The most numerous of the Irish parties desires 
 that the existing institutions of the empire may work 
 ill. It is delighted by the prospect of war, and glories 
 over the probabilities of defeat." (Some of us may 
 remember the savage gloating of certain Irish news- 
 papers over the difficulties of the Crimean \Yar and 
 the horrors of the Indian Mutiny. " England's ex- 
 tremity, Ireland's opportunity," is a well-known 
 phrase.) " It opposes whatever is likely to be 
 useful, because it is likely to be useful, and re- 
 jects with loathing whatever is tendered to it as a 
 favour or a grace." ( Vide the abuse heaped on Mr. 
 Balfour by the Home Rulers for all that he has 
 planned or done for the relief of distress or the settle- 
 ment of disquiet.) " Colleges for secular instruction it 
 denounces as godless, and schools in which Protestants 
 and Catholics may meet are seminaries of infidelity, 1 
 
 1 " Bigots \\ill be surprised to learn that O'Connell was in favour of 
 united secular and of separate religious teaching for the Irish. It is 
 singular that the two most powerful Churches, the Roman Catholic, 
 and longo inteii'allo the English, are scared from their propriety by
 
 and a provision for its clergy is a bribe. It agitates 
 for the sake of agitation, and selects for its avowed 
 object an unattainable end, because it is unattain- 
 able because its mischief cannot be tested by 
 experience or its stimulus deadened by possession." 
 
 All this is as true as the sun of to-day ; but when 
 Nassau Senior said of O'Connell that he was not to be 
 reckoned among the sincere Repealers, being a man 
 of too much political sagacity not to be aware that 
 Repeal, even if obtained, must produce separation 
 that separation would be followed by war between the 
 North and South and between the South and England 
 he had not foreseen the day of traitors in our own 
 camp, of responsible statesmen basely trafficking with 
 treason-felons, murderers, and rebels, while as basely 
 deserting their Protestant and loyal fellow subjects 
 of the North responsible statesmen who for the sake 
 of place and party would fling these Protestants 
 under the iron heel of Rome and subject these loyalists 
 to the dominion of the Nationalists. Nor, when 
 Macaulay ridiculed the idea of a separate legislature 
 for Wales as the analogue which disposed of that 
 for Ireland, did he foresee the time when the silliest 
 fad that was ever hatched in the mare's nest among 
 the reeds would boast of a certain number of followers 
 when "Federation" had its accreditedsociety,and Home 
 
 even the ghost of dissent. But the melancholy fact remains that 
 the Irish, through want of education, are in the best condition to receive 
 the lies sown broadcast by her agitators." England's Duty to Ireland 
 as Plain to a Loyal Irish Roman Catholic, by Thomas Maguire, 
 LL.D., D.Lit.
 
 10 
 
 Rule for \Yales was gravel}' held as part of a quite 
 possible programme not drawn up in Harwell and 
 not treated as treasonable. 
 
 All the objections formulated by Macaulay in 1833 
 hold good to this hour. Save for one or two topical 
 allusions, the speech he made on the address in 
 answer to the King's speech in that year might stand 
 as a well-reasoned and statesmanlike argument against 
 the Nationalists and their English allies of to-day ; 
 and when Earl Russell, twenty years later, said, " I 
 own I can see no hope that Ireland would be well 
 and quietly governed under the dispensation of Home 
 Rule," he carried on the traditions of this wise states- 
 manship which judges by facts and looks ahead on 
 the ground of that which has been proven, and does 
 not let itself be guided by sentimental theories and 
 seduced by fine phrases. 
 
 Those fine phrases, what have they done ? Where 
 is the difference between the iridescent bubble labelled 
 " Union of Hearts " if but Home Rule is granted, and 
 O 'Council's brilliant prophecy of universal peace and 
 goodwill to follow on the " amalgamation of the 
 people of Ireland with the people of England" ? " I 
 beg to state," he said, " that I am thoroughly con- 
 vinced that the object of the Catholic clergy and laity 
 in Ireland is sincerely and honestly to concur with 
 the Government in every measure that shall increase 
 the strength of the Government in Ireland, so as to 
 consolidate Ireland with England completely." 
 Catholic emancipation was a righteous necessity. No 
 one would wish to <jo back on this act no one refuses
 
 II 
 
 to acknowledge the absolute equality of Catholics 
 with Protestants, and the right they have to all the 
 privileges of perfect citizenship. Yet those brilliant 
 prophecies of peace and goodwill have resulted in 
 evermore embittered strife, in evermore angry dis- 
 cord, in ever wider and more unreasonable demands, 
 and in the gradual growth of the Catholic section, 
 beginning with prayers for release from its own bonds 
 and going on to the evident desire and design to 
 impose bonds on the opposite party. The promises 
 of contentment made by O'Connell, and probably 
 believed in by him, have fulfilled themselves in Par- 
 liamentary obstruction and agrarian outrage, in the 
 Plan of Campaign and the Land League, in New 
 Tipperary and cruel boycotting, in cattle-maiming, 
 midnight murder, and the assassination of Lord 
 Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Bourke. Of all the 
 outrages perpetrated by the miscreants who were 
 hounded on to crime by their more guilty leaders, 
 how many were perpetrated by Protestants ? True, 
 Parnell was a Protestant, and Parnell had his hand on 
 the piston here and the brake there. But the 
 Nationalist movement is essentially a Romanist move- 
 ment ; and those who uphold the law and vote for 
 order and peaceable government are mainly Protest- 
 ants. 
 
 The truth is, the Roman Catholic Church is ever a 
 standing menace to civil liberty both in countries 
 where Catholicism is the national religion, as in 
 France and Italy, and in those where she is struggling 
 for pre-eminence, as now in Ireland. She is like that
 
 12 
 
 weak and insignificant little fish of the Arabian 
 Nights' Tales. Dying by reason of its narrow prison, the 
 little fish asks for only a modest basin where it may 
 swim more freely. Its prayer granted, it grows and 
 grows, ever seeking for wider space, till at last it 
 fills the whole sea and devours the weak and credulous 
 sympathiser who set it free. So with the Catholic 
 Church, specially in Ireland. From the "amalgama- 
 tion " to follow on emancipation she has passed into 
 the demand for virtual supremacy into the rejection 
 of all claims to even equality by those who so lately 
 were her superiors into the assumption of political 
 command and the absolute control of the ballot-box 
 and the voting-paper. 
 
 Save perhaps under the theocratic rule of ancient 
 Egypt, the world has never seen such a close organi- 
 sation as that of the Roman Catholic Church. When 
 predominant, surely has the world never seen a rule 
 so inimical to intellectual enlightenment or civic 
 freedom. Every new fact in science, from Galileo's 
 time onwards, has been established only after a hand- 
 to-hand struggle with the Church. Some she has 
 not acknowledged even yet ; and at no time and in no 
 country has she recognised the rights or duties of a 
 citizen as in any way equal in importance or righteous- 
 ness with the duties and obligations of a churchman. 
 The Church comes first, a man's country next ; but 
 the Pope heads the lawful sovereign, and the tiara is 
 greater than the crown. And it is to this Church, 
 insatiable in her lust for power, unresting in her efforts 
 for supremacy, contemptuous of civil liberties when
 
 13 
 
 opposed to her demands, blind and deaf to scientific 
 truth when she fears the results of knowledge to this 
 Church the sworn foe of Protestantism, and, in Ireland, 
 the unrelenting foe of England to this forger of chains 
 to which we ourselves will not submit, we propose to 
 hand over the free and prosperous North to deliver 
 up our natural brethren to their enemies and our own. 
 
 If it could be shown that the Roman Catholics and 
 Nationalists were more industrious and enlightened 
 than the Protestant and loyal men of Ulster, the 
 Home Rule sympathisers in England might have 
 something to say for themselves. They might argue 
 on the ground of "the best to lead." But when 
 the contrary is the fact when Ulster is prosperous 
 and the South is impoverished ; when the fertile 
 fields of Armagh and Fermanagh are well farmed 
 and those of Kerry and her neighbours are simply 
 brutalised by bad management ; when the Protestant 
 workmen of the North are well educated, and the 
 Catholics of the South are illiterate, how can we say 
 that the one is even equal to the other ? Still less can 
 we say that, on the principle of the best to lead, the 
 South should overpower the North. 
 
 There have ever been two Irelands the North 
 and South ; and though the South has the numerical 
 majority, the North has the brains, the industry, and 
 the wealth thereby created, which give the rightful 
 preponderance. "One man one vote" may be all 
 very well as an ideal proposition based on abstract 
 justice. And if all things were equal it would work 
 well enough. But to say that the ignorant bog-
 
 u 
 
 trotter, who knows nothing by himself, who votes as 
 he is told by the priest, and who sometimes does not 
 know even the name of the candidate for whom he 
 votes to say that such a one counts for as much in 
 civic value as the intelligent workman who thinks for 
 himself, or as the responsible and far-seeing employer 
 of labour, some hundreds strong, is to talk rubbish 
 that is not contemptible simply because it is mis- 
 chievous. The Home Rulers bring forward their 
 numerical majority as their mainstay, their uncon- 
 querable reason why. But they know, and we all 
 know, how purely fallacious the argument is, and 
 how, though an arithmetical truth, it is made to sub- 
 serve the purpose of a political lie. A hundred of 
 these illiterate voters led to the poll by the parish 
 priest have not the moral nor the civic value of one 
 independent and understanding man in Ulster. 
 Politically they count, because we go by numbers, 
 not individual worth. But when we arc considering 
 the claims to consideration of this cry for Home 
 Rule, to give attention to the mere fact of numerical 
 superiority is to falsify the true issue and to darken 
 counsel by the admission of fraud and word-juggling 
 as solid argument. 
 
 Reduced to its elements, the National Aspiration, 
 of which we hear so much, comes to a very mean and 
 meagre thing. Take away the endeavour of the 
 Roman Catholic Church for supremacy and absolute 
 political power, the personal ambition of a crowd of 
 needy adventurers who want to find in the excite- 
 ment of politics and the emoluments of place the
 
 fortune they will not set themselves to win by hard 
 and monotonous work ; take away hereditary hatred 
 of England and local jealousy of Ulster, and we come 
 down to a residuum not worth much as a cause why 
 an empire should be disintegrated and society con- 
 vulsed. The Irish cry for Home Rule has been made 
 more formidable than itself warrants by the English 
 sympathisers who, for generous sentiment on the one 
 hand and party purposes on the other, have enlarged 
 a scrannel pipe into a far-sounding bugle, and added 
 factitious strength to a tottering cause. 
 
 What is it that the Irish need ? That is not saying 
 What is it that a certain portion of them desire ? The 
 whole question lies in the difference between these 
 two words. Wherein are they worse off than we, 
 their English fellow subjects ? A man with the pre- 
 tentions to leadership of Mr. John Morley is not 
 ashamed to speak of the " inequality " between the 
 English and the Irish, and the disgrace to us that in 
 spite of promises and enactments it should be so. 
 Where does this inequality lie ? So far as one can 
 see, the great inequality between the two countries 
 lies in the facts that the Irish pay fewer taxes and 
 lighter than we do that the Irish landlord has been 
 made a political cock-shy, practically persecuted by 
 successive reductions, and in many cases wholly 
 ruined for the satisfaction of the tenant and that 
 the Irish tenant is favoured more than any other 
 tenant in any other country of the civilised world. 
 
 If "coercion " is still necessary, what makes it so? 
 Are crimes to go unpunished that English sentiment-
 
 i6 
 
 ality may not be affrighted by an ugly word ? If 
 Irish land leaguers would wholly leave off moonlight- 
 ing, cattle-maiming, boycotting, assassination, and 
 the whole roll-call of agrarian and political crimes 
 which have made certain parts of the country a very 
 hell upon earth, " coercion " would wholly cease to 
 exist. At this present time, when, thanks to Mr. 
 Balfour, the land is so much more tranquil than it 
 has been, coercion is almost a dead letter. The 
 Home Rulers, both here and in England, revive the 
 word for the sake of inflaming party passion ; but 
 the thing is almost dead because crime has almost 
 ceased. When Irishmen regard life as something to 
 be respected, no matter what the political opinions 
 held by this or that may be, and law as something to 
 be obeyed, boil gre mal grc, coercion will have no 
 locus standi and will fall to pieces of itself. But 
 while landlords are shot or boycotted for evicting 
 non-paying tenants, and men are shot or boycotted 
 for taking an evicted farm, there must needs be special 
 enactments to meet these special conditions. And 
 the sympathy which Mr. Morley and his kind feel 
 for the poor dear murderers cooling their hot blood 
 in a prison-cell might better be transferred to the 
 murdered lying cold in their graves so long before 
 their time. 
 
 The real crux in this question of Home Rule is in 
 the Protestant population generally and the condition 
 of Ulster specifically. Were Ireland universally 
 Roman Catholic the question would lie in a nutshell, 
 and all that England would have then to do would
 
 be to keep a few sharp cruisers, with a torpedo boat 
 or two, as safeguards against surprises. If Parnellites 
 and Nationalists liked to break one another's heads 
 and call one another bad names, that would be their 
 affair, not ours; and the fun of the fair would be free 
 to them for as long as they liked. But when we come 
 to Ulster and the Protestants scattered throughout 
 the country, we have our duty as the mother country 
 as the Imperial Centre, from which not all the argu- 
 ments of Mr. Tim Healy nor Mr. Gladstone, Mr. 
 Sexton nor Mr. Morley, can free us. We have no right 
 to leave these our co-religionists and loyal brethren 
 to be persecuted and destroyed by their enemies, as 
 without the shadow of doubt they would be. The 
 boast of the Church is " semper eadem " that Church 
 so useful to the individual needing moral guidance 
 and spiritual help, so harmful to the community 
 whose life should be one of civic freedom and manly 
 independence ! And where the Roman Catholic Church 
 is predominant and above the laws, as she would be 
 in Home-Ruled Ireland, she has ever been and ever 
 will be a cruel and a persecuting Church. " Semper 
 cadem " ! The burnings and massacres which received 
 her sanction in the days gone by would receive her 
 sanction still, had she the force to ordain or condone 
 without subjecting herself to a superior legal power. 
 Here, in Ireland, where she would be supreme under 
 Home Rule, no Protestant's life would be safe, and 
 that tragedy in Phoenix Park would not want for 
 repetitions. 
 
 This is no wild assertion made in the air. Turn 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 back to any of the accounts given by Irish sympa- 
 thisers of things which the local priests have said 
 and done during election times and the like, and 
 then see what a total absence of fairness, moderation, 
 or morality these leaders of the people show. It is 
 not too much to say that when, or if, England 
 abandons her own people in Ireland not one of the 
 scattered handfuls of Protestants to be found in 
 Catholic districts would escape with their lives, 
 " Root out the accursed thing," has ever been 
 the law that Rome has promulgated and her chil- 
 dren have obeyed ; and what has been would be 
 again. In Ulster, where they are a compact 
 body, the Protestants would be simply taxed to 
 spoliation and ruin. The temptation would be too 
 great to forego and the loot too rich to leave un- 
 touched. If Ulster did not know how to defend 
 herself by her own strong arm she would be made 
 the mere prey of the spoiler. This she knows, and 
 for this she assembled that memorable Convention 
 on the i /th of June. 
 
 Nothing in history surpasses the solemn signifi- 
 cance of this Convention. In it was no boyish or 
 unstable enthusiasm, no bluster, no rant, no fustian. 
 Largely composed of elderly men who understood 
 the full value of the responsibilities they assumed, 
 the pervading sentiment was one of deep resolve, 
 of unalterable determination. They knew they were in 
 face of a great and real danger a danger by which 
 their homes, their civic liberties, their wealth, their very 
 lives were and arc menaced. In the prayer by which
 
 19 
 
 the meeting opened, and in the hymn which was as a 
 solemn oath binding them in one accord, one sacred 
 vow of brotherhood and mutual fidelity in the self- 
 control which some of their opponents have sneered 
 at as " want of enthusiasm " in the strong avowal 
 which others have called " bluster " and tried to 
 reduce to the level of their own washy hysterics in 
 all the gravity of their cause and the grandeur of 
 their protest, we turn as it were a page of old-time 
 history when men had to fight for their liberties more 
 strenuously than they do now, and when God stood 
 nearer man's life than now. The profound order of 
 that large assembly of some fourteen thousand 
 persons was as the sign of the law-abiding temper 
 of the Ulster men at large. The self-controlled 
 silence in which speaker after speaker was listened 
 to, testified to their capacity for rule because of their 
 capacity for self-government. The burst of pent-up 
 enthusiasm with which the more telling points and 
 the peroration of each speech were received proved 
 how near to the heart of every man here lay the 
 cause he had come to defend. From first to last the 
 whole thing was instinct with sincerity, and as dif- 
 ferent from the frothy politics of party as a living 
 tragedy is different from a stage play. 
 
 It was a protest no Government can afford to 
 neglect. Those fourteen thousand earnest men had 
 needed no wire-puller to bring them into line. The 
 grand burst of "Ayes" when asked if they still 
 wished to remain English citizens and did not wish 
 to be cut off from the imperial mother and made a
 
 20 
 
 province apart, rose up in one full volume of assent 
 which should have convinced the most contemptuous 
 sceptic and stirred the coldest heart. Perhaps even 
 those one or two inimical press-men, who came as 
 spies and reported as traitors, were more moved than 
 they cared to own. Whether so or not, they fulfilled 
 their mission by belittling the grandest political 
 movement of our days, and the Able Editors in 
 London and that smug young shopman' translated 
 from the counter to the world of letters, wrote their 
 smart little sarcasms and polished up their neat little 
 epigrams all to prove the Ulster men no better than 
 blustering schoolboys, and worthy of the Grand Old 
 Leader's memorable epithets. The low-class press 
 in London is at the best a contemptible affair, but 
 surely never was it more contemptible than when 
 dealing with this Ulster Convention in an inimical 
 sense. Those smart young Able Editors the very 
 spawn of journalism sitting in jaunty judgment on 
 these grave and stalwart men face to face with danger 
 and resolute to resist oppression these restricted 
 Cockneys who measure all life and all thought by the 
 utterances of certain hysterical High Priests herald- 
 ing a brand-new morality and a quite spick and span 
 regenerated humanity they to pretend to fathom 
 the depths to which the men of Ulster are stirred 
 and carelessly to pronounce it "shallow"! If 
 certain ape-like and fantastic tricks played by 
 man make the very angels weep, there must have 
 been a copious flood of heavenly tears when the 
 papers, conducted by these Able Editors, were
 
 21 
 
 launched the next day, and the measuring-tapes of 
 some of the flimsiest intellects that ever floated on the 
 top of absolutely bottomless vanity fluttered in 
 broad sheets about the Strand. 
 
 The main desire of the wiser men of all parties, 
 and of the Ulster men perhaps more than the rest, 
 is to be let alone. Ireland has been the corpus vile 
 whereon all manner of political experiments have 
 been tried. Suffering as she does from want of 
 capital and want of remunerative employment other 
 than the land, we have done our best, we in England, 
 by our successive and unsettling enactments, to pre-" 
 vent the influx of capital and the establishment of 
 industries, by creating the sense of governmental in- 
 security. Fifty years' rest from interference and un- 
 necessary legislation would do far more to create a 
 prosperous Ireland than all the Home Rule panaceas 
 that could be invented. 
 
 The mischief of mischiefs has been in this incessant 
 tinkering. In 1870, 1881, and 1885, Parliament 
 passed Land act after Land act, all in favour of the 
 tenant and to the prejudice of the landlord, by which 
 a feeling of insecurity has been created in the latter, 
 that has stopped enterprise and improvements. That 
 feeling of insecurity has extended to others than these 
 landowners, and even Belfast herself has suffered from 
 it. Instead of establishing manufactories by which the 
 "congested districts" might be drained. Parliament 
 has done its best to crystallise the evil of small hold- 
 ings holdings, say, at thirteen shillings a year, which 
 give no man an adequate living. In Scotland or
 
 England men do not buy land beyond its market 
 value, but in Ireland fancy prices are given for poor 
 little bits of bog or stone which do no more to make 
 a man's real living than the villa and suburban 
 garden. Here again Nassau Senior speaks fifty years 
 ago with the voice and in the words of to-day. 
 
 " In a country, in which every one who can find a 
 landlord to accept him can be a farmer, and scarcely 
 any one can be a labourer ; where the three only 
 alternatives are the occupation of land, beggary, or 
 famine ; where there is nothing to repress competition 
 and everything to inflame it, the treaty between land- 
 lord and tenant is not a calm bargain, in which the 
 tenant, having offered what he thinks the land worth to 
 him, cares little whether his offer be accepted ; it is a 
 struggle like the struggle to buy bread in a besieged 
 town, or to buy water in an African caravan, it is a 
 struggle in which the landlord is tempted by an 
 extravagant rent ; the agent by fees or bribes ; the 
 person in possession by a premium to take him to 
 another country ; and rivals are scared away by 
 threats and punished by torture, mutilation, and 
 murder." 
 
 How strangely the Irish question continues in the 
 old groove may be seen also by these extracts 
 from a letter of Burke to Dr. Hussey, written from 
 Bcaconsficld so long ago as May iSth, 1795. "The 
 language of the day," he says, " \vcnt plainly to a 
 separation of the t\vo kingdoms. God forbid that 
 anything like it should ever happen ! They would 
 both be ruined by it, but Ireland would suffer most
 
 23 
 
 and first. The thing, however, is impossible. It is 
 a foolish language, adopted from the United Irish- 
 men, that their grievances originate from England. . . . 
 In the name of God ! what grievances has Ireland, as 
 Ireland, to complain of with regard to Great Britain ? 
 unless the protection of the most powerful country 
 upon earth, giving all her privileges, without excep- 
 tion, in common to Ireland, and reserving to herself 
 only the painful pre-eminence of tenfold burdens, 
 be a matter of complaint ! The subject, as a subject, 
 is as free in Ireland as he is in England ; as a 
 member of the empire, an Irishman has every 
 privilege of a natural-born Englishman, in every 
 part of it, in every occupation, and in every branch 
 of commerce. No monopoly is established against 
 him anywhere ; and the great staple manufacture of 
 Ireland is not only not prohibited, not only not dis- 
 couraged, but it is privileged in a manner that has no 
 example." (Substitute for " manufacture " " tenant," 
 and we have the same thing now as then ) " That 
 Ireland would in that case [the dissolution of the 
 Union] come to make a figure amongst the nations? 
 is an idea which has more of the ambition of in- 
 dividuals in it than of a sober regard to the happiness 
 of a whole people. . . . Ireland constitutionally is in- 
 dependent ; politically she can never be so. It is a 
 struggle against nature. She must be protected, 
 and there is no protection to be found for her but 
 cither from France or England. . . . Should the Catho- 
 lics alienate from them the Protestantsthey would 
 have to choose men of desperate property and of no
 
 2 4 
 
 property, and men of no religion and no moral 
 principles." 
 
 All this might have been said yesterday. 
 
 Well ! this being so, what do we find in Belfast, the 
 commercial capital of the North ? Here this tre- 
 mendous evil of the land and land only as a man's 
 portion has been done away with by the establishment 
 of trades and manufactories. In Belfast is ample 
 employment for every one. The men can go to the 
 shipbuilding yard in Queen's Island, the women and 
 children to the linen manufactories. Clean, quiet 
 industrious, prosperous, Belfast has worked hard, 
 minded her own business, and thriven in proportion to 
 her industry and abstention from political excitement. 
 The following table shows a little of the advance that 
 has been made in the last forty years, an advance 
 wrought for and gained by herself alone without help, 
 subvention, or any kind of aid from England. 
 
 COMPARATIVE PARTICULARS BELFAST 1850 or 1851 
 WITH UKI.FAST 1890 OR 1891. 
 
 Number of Vessels entered and left 1851 1890 
 
 Del fast Harbour 5,oi6 8.005 
 
 Tonnage 650,138 1,840,666 
 
 1851 1891 
 
 Customs Revenue ,369,416 ,2,247,528 
 
 1850 1892 
 Number of Houses in IJoruu^li 15,000 56,000 
 
 1851 1892 
 Vnluntiuii of !!<>r .ii^li /'^)-7.i /.~737>Si6 
 
 1851 1891 
 
 Population 100,301 2 73>55 
 
 i 850 i 89 i 
 
 Number of Spindles 326,008 834,907
 
 25 
 
 1851 1891 
 
 Number of Power Looms 138 26,790 
 
 1851 1891 
 
 Number of Shipbuilding Yards 3 small yards 3 extensive 
 
 for building yards 
 
 wooden vessels 
 
 I Acreage ,, ,, About two acres 102 acres 
 
 Number of Hands employed About 150 9,800 
 
 I Annual Tonnage launched 100 to 200 tons 91,877 
 
 1851 1891 
 
 Number of Banks 3 Local and 3 Local with 
 
 3 Dublin 5 Branches 
 
 and 3 Dublin 
 
 Volume of Business in Banks 3 Local 
 
 ^14,293,397 
 
 The " Volume of Business in Banks" for 1891 is the total of the 
 three local banks only, viz., Belfast Bank, Ulster Bank, and Northern 
 Bank. 
 
 It is a good account of themselves which these " un- 
 degenerate Englishmen" can give these stalwart sons 
 of Ulster sprung from Scotch and English ancestors 
 God-fearing, law-abiding, industrious, well-famed, 
 whom their Nonconformist brethren in England have 
 deserted joining with the most unscrupulous of the 
 Radical and Home Rule party in their plot to deliver 
 up these Irish Protestants into the hands of Rome to 
 make this intelligent race l subservient to the priest - 
 
 1 In the last General Election, 1885, the proportion of illiterates 
 to the population were in Belfast 6 per cent. ; in Cork City 14 per 
 cent. ; in County Antrim 8 per cent. ; in County Cork 40 per cent. 
 In 1891 the percentage of illiterate persons five years of age and 
 upwards was as follows : 
 
 "Co. ANTRIM. 17,524 persons, or 9'5 percent. Of these 7,381 
 were Roman Catholics, 4,253 Protestant Episcopalians, 5,349 Presby- 
 terians, and the remainder other denominations. 
 
 "BELFAST CITY. 19,598 persons, or 87 per cent. Of these
 
 26 
 
 directed will of men who cannot write their own 
 names to submit this prosperous city of Belfast to 
 
 8,666 were Roman Catholics, 6,134 Protestants, 3,765 Presbyterians; 
 the remainder as above. 
 
 "Co. DOWN. 26,375 persons, or II per cent. Of these 14,081 
 were Roman Catholics, 6,039 Protestants, and 5,262 Presbyterians ; the 
 remainder as ab jve. 
 
 "Co. DERRY. 19,503 persons, or 14 per cent. I3>39i Roman 
 Catholics, 3,206 Protestants, 2,726 Presbyterians ; the remainder as 
 above. 
 
 "Co. ARMAGH. 23,984 persons, or 18 per cent. 16,008 Roman 
 Catholics, 6,252 Protestants, 1,262 Presbyterians ; the remainder as 
 above. 
 
 "Co. CAVAN. 16,283 persons, or 16 per cent. 14,864 Roman 
 Catholics, 1,208 Protestants, 165 Presbyterians; the remainder as 
 above. 
 
 "Co. FERMANAGH. 10,378 persons, or 15 per cent. 7,658 Roman 
 Catholics, 2,503 Protestants, 6l Presbyterians ; the remainder as 
 above. 
 
 " Co. MONAGHAN. 2i,28o persons, or 23 per cent. 19,112 Roman 
 Catholics, 1,401 Protestants, 712 Presbyterians; the remainder as 
 above. 
 
 "Co. TYRONE. 27,166 persons, or 17 per cent. 20,07: Roman 
 Catholics, 4,748 Protestant-;, 2,138 Presbyterians; the remainder as 
 above. 
 
 "Co. DONEGAL. 52,013 persons, or 31 percent. 47,921 Roman 
 Catholics, 2,700 Protestants, 1,253 Presbyterians; the remainder as 
 above. 
 
 " Galway hail in 1881 45 per cent, of illiterates. 
 Mayo ,, ,, 44 ,, ,, 
 
 Roscommon ,, ..27 ,, ,, 
 
 l.citrim ,, ., 22 ,, ,, 
 
 Kern ., ,,24 ., ,, 
 
 Clare ,, ,, 21 ,, 
 
 And in all the figures 1 have given it will be seen that the dead weight 
 of this illiteracy belongs to the Roman Catholic population." T. \Y. 
 RUSSELL, the Daily Graphic of June 14, 1892. 
 
 In 1799 Mr. Luke Fox wrote these memorable words : " Laws may
 
 the taxing powers of Moonlighters and Land Leaguers 
 who think to raise themselves from poverty, not by 
 hard work, but by spoliation and getting for nothing 
 the land they would brutalise when they had it. In 
 all the history of politics, full of treacheries, of mean 
 alliances and base surrenders as it is, nothing comes 
 near the shame of this desertion by English Noncon- 
 formists of their Protestant brethren in Ireland for 
 the sake of such paltry party gains as their alliance 
 with Mr. Gladstone may give them. 
 
 The growth of Belfast in importance, commercial 
 enterprise, and wealth has been more like the growth 
 of an American city than anything we have in Great 
 Britain. Without aid from without it has risen, as 
 we have seen, from a place of no value at all, to one 
 of the greatest in Ireland. No town in Ireland comes 
 near it for wealth or industrial enterprise, and even a 
 hostile critic who came to curse both the place and 
 the people was obliged to allow that the city had 
 " advanced by leaps and bounds " ; and that it was 
 more peaceable and cleanly, more orderly and more in- 
 dustrious, than the happy-go-lucky South. '''Italia 
 fa I'd da se," they say when excited at Monte Citorio. 
 " Belfast ha fatto da se," they may well say of the city 
 
 he enacted, establishments may be framed, stipends may be dis- 
 pensed ; but unless the people are educated the cause of religion and 
 goveinmcnt will remain desperate. It is this which makes the only 
 difference between man and man, nation and nation. To the philoso- 
 phic eye there is no difference between a I'rotestant and Popisli infant. 
 But the same individuals arrived at manhood appear to be scarcely of 
 the same species."
 
 28 
 
 which was once a mere hamlet on the banks of the 
 Lagan, and now owns " miles of quays," 46,376 in- 
 habited houses, and a population of 255,896. 
 
 As nothing tells so much as facts and figures, Mr. 
 T. W. Russell's papers in the Daily GrapJiic will be 
 largely drawn on for statistics. Law-abiding Ulster 
 in 1891 required for the preservation of public peace 
 the following proportion of policemen: 
 
 Antrim had 12 policemen for every 10,000 of population. 
 
 Down ,, 12 ,, ,, ,, ,, 
 
 Londonderry ,, 12 ,, ., ,, ,, 
 
 Armagh ,, 14 ,, ,, ,, ,, 
 
 Tyrone ,, 14 ,, ., ., ,, 
 
 These five counties return the sixteen Ulster Unionist 
 members to the Imperial Parliament. When we get 
 out of this region the figures change. 
 
 Cavan had 20 policemen for every 10,000 of population. 
 Donegal ,,28 ,, ,, ., ,, 
 
 Fermanagh , , 23 ,, ,. ,, ,, 
 
 Monaghan ,.20 ,, ., ., ,, 
 
 But things get even worse in other parts of Ireland. 
 
 Tipperary had 49 policemen for every 10,000 of population. 
 Limerick . , 45 ,, ., ,, ., 
 
 Westmeatli ,,44 :, ,, >, 
 
 Clare ,, 40 ,, ,, ., ,, 
 
 At the same time every " ' Coercion ' Act save the 
 \Ycstmcath Act has applied to Ulster as well as to 
 Lcinstcr, Minister, and Connaught. There has been 
 absolutely nothing in the la\v to differentiate the one 
 province from the other. The real difference lies in 
 the fact that Ulster has had one law-abiding spirit
 
 29 
 
 which has been absent from much of the rest of Ire- 
 land. Capital has not been disturbed ; hence the 
 difference." (T. W. Russell, Daily Graphic, June i6th, 
 1892.) And by the way if you want a genuine griev- 
 ance it is that the orderly and peaceable Ulstermen 
 should be taxed as much as County Clare or Limerick 
 for the maintenance of a police of whom they have not 
 one-third the need. 
 
 Another significant fact is the proportion of public- 
 houses to the population. 
 
 " PROPORTION OF PUBLIC-HOUSES TO POPULATION. 
 
 ANTRIM. 
 
 Belfast 
 
 I to 
 
 311 
 
 Ballymoney 
 
 ... I to 
 
 428 
 
 Antrim Petty Sessions 
 
 
 
 Lame 
 
 .. I to 
 
 474. 
 
 Division 
 
 I to 
 
 1 66 
 
 Whiteabbey 
 
 ... I to 
 
 ^ i T" 
 445 
 
 Ballymena 
 
 I to 
 
 374 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ARMAGH. 
 
 
 
 Armagh 
 
 I to 
 
 34 
 
 Keacly 
 
 . I to 
 
 4^3 
 
 Ballybott 
 
 I to 
 
 360 
 
 Portadown 
 
 ... I to 
 
 575 
 
 Lurgan 
 
 I to 
 
 773 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CLARE. 
 
 
 
 Ennis 
 
 I to 
 
 I 77 
 
 M. Malbay 
 
 ... I to 
 
 268 
 
 Ennistimon 
 
 I to 
 
 o / 
 ICC 
 
 Tulla 
 
 I to 
 
 223 
 
 Kilrush 
 
 I to 
 
 j j 
 133 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CORK. 
 
 
 
 Cork City 
 
 I to 
 
 '50 
 
 Kinsale 
 
 ... I to 
 
 224 
 
 Buttevant 
 
 I to 
 
 146 
 
 Mallow 
 
 ... I to 
 
 129 
 
 Bandon 
 
 I to 
 
 I 3 6 
 
 Middleton... ... 
 
 ... I to 
 
 147 
 
 Clonakilty 
 
 I to 
 
 184 
 
 Mitchelstown ... 
 
 ... I to 
 
 146 
 
 Fermoy 
 
 I to 
 
 146 
 
 Youghal 
 
 ... I to 
 
 155 
 
 
 
 DOWN. 
 
 
 
 Banbridge 
 
 I to 
 
 426 
 
 Hollywood 
 
 ... I to 
 
 5'2 
 
 Castlewellan 
 
 I to 
 
 295 
 
 Kirkeel 
 
 ... I to 
 
 5.5 
 
 Hillsborongh 
 
 I to 
 
 I35 
 
 Rathfriland 
 
 ... I to 
 
 426 
 
 
 
 DUBLIN. 
 
 
 
 Dublin City 
 
 I to 
 
 345 
 
 Balbriggan 
 
 .. I to 
 
 293
 
 Galway City 
 Ballinasloe 
 
 Castleisland 
 Dingle 
 
 GALWAY. 
 
 I to 142 I Gort ... 
 i to 208 | Loughrea 
 
 I to 230 
 I to 259 
 
 Listowel 
 Tralee 
 
 I to 
 I to 
 
 I to 
 I to 
 
 236 
 
 235 
 
 199 
 1 60 
 
 Derry City 
 Coleraine 
 Garvagh 
 
 to 135 
 to 335 
 to 657 
 
 Limavady ... 
 Moneymore 
 
 
 MAYO. 
 
 Ballaghaderin 
 Kallina 
 I?allinrohe 
 
 to 234 
 to 193 
 to 258 
 
 Ballyhaunus 
 Belmullet ... 
 Swinford ... 
 
 I to 286 
 I to 1307 
 
 I to 428 
 I to 497 
 i to 243 
 
 In this special industry it must be frankly admitted 
 Ulster is literally nowhere. Belfast docs with one 
 public-house for every 311 of its people. Cork re- 
 quires one for every 150. The prosperous division of 
 Ballymcna has one for every 374 people. The 
 poverty-stricken divisions of Swinford and Ballagha- 
 dcrin, in Mayo, require one in 243 and one in 234 
 respectively." 
 
 I will now make a very long extract from Mr. 
 Russell's concluding letter on the i/th of June an 
 extract which I hope will not subject me to the 
 penalties of literary mis-appropriation. But what 
 this earnest and vigorous Unionist has said is so 
 much better said than I could put it, it seems foolish 
 to make a perhaps weak argument when something 
 so strong, so concise, so explanatory and compre- 
 hensive lies to one's hand. Here, then, is the 
 situation summed up in Mr. Russell's own words :
 
 " They [the Ulster men] have given to the states- 
 manship of the empire men like Lord Dufferin, who 
 once described himself ' as a Scot greatly improved 
 by 300 years' residence in Ireland ; ' to its arms men 
 such as the Lawrences, the Neills, and Montgomeries, 
 who have played a great part in Indian affairs. They 
 have been quick to rebel against injustice, and when 
 Catholics were unable to fight for their own rights, 
 they fought for them. They have formed the great 
 Scoto-Irish race in America, of which the late John 
 Francis Maguire had so much to say. This is their 
 record, and I hold it is not one of which any people 
 need be ashamed. How do they stand to-day ? 
 These despised Ulster Protestants are, as I have said, 
 an actual and a large majority of the Ulster people. 
 They are in the front as regards wealth. Their edu- 
 cational status is higher than that of their neighbours, 
 and incomparably higher than that of many other 
 districts in Ireland. They have been the founders of 
 the industrial activity of the province ; they direct 
 that activity now, and even the great mass of the 
 skilled artisans are everywhere Protestants. They 
 live in better houses ; they do not vote illiterate ; 
 their districts are unstained by crime ; they are loyal 
 and law-abiding citizens. 
 
 "A Machine Controlled by tJie Roman CatJiolic CJntrcIi. 
 
 " What is proposed to be done in regard to these 
 people ? Why the alarm everywhere felt throughout 
 Ulster in view of the General Election ? The alarm 
 is not without a cause. It has been proposed to
 
 32 
 
 establish and set up a Statutory Parliament in Dub- 
 lin, to which Ulster would, of course, be subject. 
 Outside of this Imperial province there are not half 
 a million of Protestants in the rest of Ireland, and 
 these arc so scattered that they could not possibly 
 secure representation in this proposed assembly. 
 The great mass of the people in the other three 
 provinces are Celtic, Catholic, and in the main back- 
 ward, as compared with the Ulster I have described. 
 Even in recent times they have shown what they are 
 made of, and have conceded the claim of the Catholic 
 Church to dominate in temporal as in spiritual things, 
 almost without a struggle a claim put forward un- 
 hesitatingly by Archbishop Walsh and Archbishop 
 Logue. Constituency after constituency in the South 
 and West has bent before the clerical rod. The}' 
 have proved conclusively that an Irish Parliament 
 would be a machine controlled by the Roman Catho- 
 lic Church. Before Mr. Parnell's fall this might have 
 been questioned ; since that event the priests have 
 been at the pains to demonstrate the fact before the 
 eyes of the whole world. Under any conceivable 
 system of separation, then, Ulster would be in a hope- 
 less minority in such an assembly. What under 
 these circumstances we should sec would be this 
 the very men who have made Ulster what it is, rich, 
 prosperous, loyal, and contented, would be placed 
 under the control of those who had failed to do in 
 the other provinces that which had been achieved in 
 the North. We should sec this proud, educated, in- 
 dustrious, law-abiding majority in Ulster placed
 
 33 
 
 Under the peasants of Galvvay, Mayo, Kerry, Leitrim 
 and Clare, where, whatever be the test applied, 
 whether it be education, wealth, industry, the law- 
 abiding spirit, or capacity for business, the map must 
 be shaded in the deepest black. 
 
 " Plundered of their Inheritance. 
 
 " The question is ought this to be done ? Nobody 
 thought of it in 1885. The idea was born in 1886, 
 when Mr. Gladstone in the stress of political weather 
 gave birth to a new development of doing justice to 
 Ireland by doing injustice to the only prosperous 
 part of that country. By virtue of the great prin- 
 ciple which Carlyle once called ' bellwetherism,' the 
 idea prevailed with a great section of the Liberal 
 party. And it will be, or ought to be, the supreme 
 issue at the next general election. Ulster is cer- 
 tainly entitled to her protest against this new doc- 
 trine. What she in effect says is that her people, 
 born under, and possessing rights in, the Imperial 
 Parliament, ought not to be plundered of their 
 inheritance ; that having invested their capital in 
 the soil and commerce of the province on the security 
 of the laws of this Parliament, the security ought not 
 to be changed, and they peremptorily decline to 
 accept in exchange for the security of English citizen- 
 ship the security of the authors of the Plan of 
 Campaign. They object to take their place in what 
 would be a priest-ridden and a priest-governed Par- 
 liament. They refuse to have anything to say to it, 
 and will neither elect members to nor take part in 
 
 C
 
 34 
 
 its proceedings. This is the situation. Of course 
 even with those who believe that force is no remedy, 
 force is always an easy resort. And that this yoke 
 can be fastened on the neck of Ulster by force goes 
 without saying. But for those who have objected to 
 the coercion of the moonlighter, the cattle-maimer, 
 and the intimidator, this prospect of having to coerce 
 Ulster cannot be a very pleasant reflection. To all 
 those who consider that government is only just and 
 possible when it is founded upon the consent of the 
 governed, the outlook in Ulster cannot be very cheery. 
 
 " A Feeling of Moral Loathing. 
 
 " And why, if majorities are to decree everything, 
 ought not the Ulster majority to prevail ? Cut Ulster 
 adrift, if you will, from the Imperial Parliament. Why 
 decree who her future masters shall be ? Why attempt 
 the questionable procedure of transferring the alle- 
 giance of that province to another Parliament ? Why 
 not allow this people to remain, as now, an integral 
 portion of the United Kingdom ? Why force her into 
 a partnership with men whose proceedings for the last 
 thirteen years have left a deep impression on the 
 minds of the people, and whose action during this 
 period has caused a feeling of moral loathing to arise 
 all through the northern province? Ulster does not 
 want this constitutional change. Why should it be 
 forced upon her people at the bayonet's point ? What 
 about that sacred principle of Local Option, so dear 
 to the heart of the modern Radical ? Is the direct
 
 35 
 
 veto only applicable to the liquor evil ? And is it 
 incapable of being applied in other directions ? 
 
 " Not Peace biit a Sword. 
 
 " I cannot undertake to say what Ulster may resolve 
 upon doing should Mr. Gladstone get his majority 
 and proceed with the only work he cares about. 
 But this I can say with perfect confidence no Home 
 Rule Bill can be a message of peace to Ireland. Such 
 a measure will not bring peace, but a sword. Nor 
 will it bring that relief which is so fondly expected 
 to the Imperial Parliament. Launched in a raging 
 storm as any such measure must needs be, the Irish 
 question, at Westminster, will be real as ever much 
 more real than it now is. It will then, indeed, block 
 the way in earnest." 
 
 Such being the state of things, both material and 
 moral, the great Convention of the i/th of June 
 came as the natural expression of a people objecting 
 to be made the sop flung to a party Cerberus. Mr. 
 Gladstone's sneer at " those who have not conquered 
 the ABC of the subject " presuming to raise a voice 
 on the Irish question would not apply to this meeting 
 any more than his crude classification of " fools or 
 rogues." These Ulster men, headed by the Duke of 
 Abercorn and marshalled by the foremost citizens of 
 Belfast and the leading men of the province generally, 
 knew clearly enough what they meant to say and what 
 they mean to hold. The people of Ulster " or rather 
 a corner of the north-east of Ulster," according to Sir 
 
 C 2
 
 36 
 
 William Harcourt, taking it in hand to decry the 
 whole thing as " disappointing " had to have a definite 
 line of policy and a clear idea of their own situation. 
 The Duke of Abercorn struck the keynote of the 
 situation when he first of all described the meeting 
 as "a grand demonstration, vast in its extent and 
 solemn in its nature," and ended by saying, " Once 
 more I say, we will not have Home Rule." There 
 was nothing "disappointing" in the enthusiasm with 
 which this pledge of resistance was received nothing 
 meagre in the resolute cheers which responded to the 
 Duke's assertion that they, the men of Ulster, intended 
 to show to their English and Scotch friends " that 
 the name of Ulster is not a sham but a reality that 
 the people who have inhabited it for centuries are 
 determined to live under the same laws, to enjoy the 
 same liberties and privileges as the rest of the in- 
 habitants of the British Isles, and not to be subject 
 to a different treatment at the hands of a hostile 
 majority." " Is the intelligence, the skill, the hard- 
 wrought labour of Ulster to be utterly ignored for the 
 purpose of furthering a wild and impossible theory ? " 
 was a question answered with a burst of Nos and 
 cheers ; so too the assertion that " the common danger 
 
 ' O 
 
 had brought together men forgetful of their former 
 differences, united for one common object, and resolved 
 to fight shoulder to shoulder under the banner of 
 the Union." No one who was at that magnificent 
 meeting, not blind, deaf, or drunk with part}- pre- 
 possessions, could fail to understand the deep and 
 earnest spirit which animated the whole assembly.
 
 37 
 
 Speakers and audience were at one in their deter- 
 mination, as the Duke of Argyll said, to resist the 
 "ascendency of the village ruffian and the parish 
 pope." When it was said : " Mr. Gladstone calmly 
 contemplates the possibility of using the forces of the 
 Crown to subjugate the people of the North of Ireland 
 under the foot of an overbearing and exultant 
 majority," the indignant protests burst forth as from 
 one man ; and again when the Duke went on to say : 
 " It is clear that no people would submit under the 
 circumstances I have mentioned, unless compelled by 
 force. Nothing but force and systematic coercion 
 would hold down the people of Ulster, and this 
 coercion would be applied by Englishmen to Irish- 
 men of their own flesh and blood men who in days 
 gone by fought for the protection of England and 
 England's rights." It may be that cheers and cries 
 are but as the very froth of excitement, born of 
 hysteria, dying with reflection ; but no one could say 
 this of those Ulster men in the pavilion which was 
 as a temple that day. Far deeper than the surface, 
 far more solid than froth, and far more lasting than 
 the moment, that meeting pledged itself to a resist- 
 ance with a solemnity that recalled the old times 
 when religious liberty was a man's dearest possession, 
 and his civic rights the honour for which he would go 
 to his death as gladly as we of to-day would go to a 
 wedding. 
 
 To Mr. Morley's mocking and sarcastic query : 
 "What are these men of Ulster afraid of?" Sir 
 William Ewart gave for answer the heart of the 
 
 391)709
 
 38 
 
 position. Afraid, no ; but the reason of this resist- 
 ance "the demands that are made by that [Roman 
 Catholic] clerical power. It places no limits on its right 
 to direct and control all matters, secular and religious 
 alike, of the members of the Church. It concedes no 
 right of private judgment, for the hierarchy alone can 
 decide what is for the interest of the Church. ' To 
 secure rights has been and is the aim of the Christian 
 civilisation, to destroy them and to establish the 
 resistless domineering action of a purely central 
 power is the aim of the Roman policy. Too much 
 and too long in other times was this its tendency ; but 
 what was its besetting sin has now become, so far as 
 man can make it, its undisguised, unchecked rule of 
 action and law of life.' These words are Mr. Glad- 
 stone's words," said Sir William Ewart, " and on this 
 point should be a sufficient answer to Mr. Morley." 
 
 The Earl of Erne backed up this, and quoted from 
 the United Irishman of November 25th, 1891, these 
 words of the Rev. Mr. O'Reilly, spoken at a meeting 
 of the National Federation : 
 
 " Clerical dictation must and will exist so long as 
 there is a priest in the country. The people must 
 submit to clerical dictation, which is the law of 
 God." 
 
 Now any one who happens to know a man who is 
 a Liberal in politics and a Nonconformist in religion, 
 knows with what holy terror the influence of the 
 squire and the parson in England is descanted on. 
 That influence, even where it exists at its worst, is 
 not coercion. There are no pains and penalties
 
 39 
 
 attached to free thought or free action in England. 
 There are no cursings from the altar, no denial of 
 sacred rites held as absolutely necessary for the soul's 
 salvation, no boycotting and authoritative recom- 
 mendations to a docile congregation to let the 
 recalcitrant severely alone, as in Ireland. But this 
 clerical domination, so cynically avowed and so openly 
 practised, is passed over by the Nonconformist Home 
 Ruler as a mere nothing in the political life of Pro- 
 testants of Ireland, as less. than nothing in the future 
 condition of Ulster. 
 
 " We have no quarrel with the Roman Catholic 
 Church as a Church," said another speaker, Mr. 
 Andrews, the president of the Ulster Reform Club. 
 " It numbers some of my best friends, I have been a 
 subscriber to its churches and a collector in the 
 Roman Catholic chapel of my native village. We 
 object to clerical government of either priest or 
 parson. No country has ever prospered under either. 
 The Roman Catholic bishops and priests now select 
 the candidates, act as canvassers and personation 
 agents in the polling booths, and see the ballot papers 
 marked in many cases for one fourth of the electors as 
 illiterates. . . . Mr. Gladstone, watching the Noncon- 
 formist conscience of Great Britain, finally shook off 
 Parnell. The priests and the majority of the Irish 
 leaders came round like a weathercock. They com- 
 pelled the people to vote against Parnell, to whom 
 they were devoted, and forced them to support those 
 whom they believed to be his murderers. Is it to men 
 such as these and with such power that the Noncon-
 
 40 
 
 formists of Great Britain would be willing to entrust 
 the government of England and Scotland ? The 
 answer must be No ; and, therefore, with no shadow of 
 justice can they attempt to make them our rulers." 
 " We don't ask to govern the South," he went on to 
 say ; " they and we have lived under exactly the same 
 laws for generations. They have been indolent, thrift- 
 less, and complaining ; we have been industrious, 
 self-reliant, and prosperous. We refuse under any 
 pretext of Home Rule to have our country degraded 
 into the position of a tribute-paying province to 
 Great Britain." 
 
 But there was no religious animosity in the meeting, 
 when all shades of religious faith \vere represented. 
 The Daily Telegraph of June 23rd has admirably 
 expressed this, when it says, in speaking of Mr. 
 Gladstone's pronunciamiento at Clapham : 
 
 " Addressing a gathering of English Nonconform- 
 ists, many of them ministers, it would have been 
 natural for him, perhaps, to dwell some\vhat strongly 
 on the religious aspect of the question before him. 
 Nevertheless in Mr. Gladstone's speech from first to 
 last there was literally nothing else. One might 
 have supposed that the Convention at Belfast had 
 contented themselves with passing a body of resolu- 
 tions setting forth their abhorrence of the errors of 
 the Church of Rome, and their conviction that if the 
 Home Rule Bill were passed their Roman Catholic 
 fellow-countrymen would endeavour, by methods of 
 temporal and spiritual molestation, to interfere with 
 their freedom of religious worship, and, by degrees,
 
 41 
 
 to stamp out Protestantism in Ireland. Mr. Glad- 
 stone must know full well, not only that the Conven- 
 tion gave no expression to any extravagant appre- 
 hensions of this kind, but that the whole proceedings 
 showed scarcely a trace of that jealous sectarian 
 temper in which alone such apprehensions are ever 
 likely to originate. The universal report of all com- 
 petent observers attests the entire absence of this 
 spirit from their deliberations. English visitors to 
 Belfast, who went over for the purpose of witnessing 
 what many of them expected to be an Orange 
 demonstration, were astonished at finding in its place 
 an assemblage of quietly determined, sternly self- 
 controlled, and resolutely orderly citizens, who dis- 
 played no party banners, uttered no party cries, 
 delivered no inflammatory party speeches, but ad- 
 dressed themselves in sober business-like fashion to 
 the work before them that of recording their solemn 
 protest against the threatened attack on their liber- 
 ties. There was not a word about religious differ- 
 ences in the resolutions voted by the Convention, 
 and even in the speeches wherein excited orators 
 are so often in the habit of going much beyond the 
 limit of the propositions they have been deputed to 
 suppport there is scarcely a word of such import to 
 be found. A few stray phrases may be picked out 
 here and there to show that the faith and worship of 
 Protestantism were subjects on which the speaker 
 felt deeply ; but the main and most striking charac- 
 teristic of the whole body of these addresses was the 
 almost total absence from them of any sentiment
 
 42 
 
 hostile to the Roman Catholic community, or border- 
 ing on religious intolerance. 
 
 " To approach such a body of men with a super- 
 fluous exhortation to lay aside animosities which do 
 not inflame them, and fears by which they are not 
 agitated, is the merest trifling. Mr. Gladstone must 
 get nearer to his subject than this. He must face 
 the fact that it is not her apprehension of religious 
 trouble which has made Ulster ' set her face like a 
 flint ' against the Home Rule scheme, but the 
 certain prospect of intolerable civil injustice and of 
 the gravest material injury. The people of the 
 Northern Province are determined to resist at all 
 costs and hazards the attempt to place them under 
 the domination of the majority of the three other 
 provinces ; and that not because they themselves are 
 Protestants, while this majority is mainly Catholic, 
 but because they represent the wealth, the sobriety, 
 the industry of the country, while the majority has 
 placed itself in the hands of a party of professional 
 politicians who represent nothing but those restless 
 and mischievous elements in the Irish character 
 which have for generations obstructed the political 
 progress of the Irish race. Ulster, that is to say, 
 repudiates the idea of subjection to the Nationalists, 
 because she is loyal ana they are disloyal ; because 
 she is attached to public order and they live upon 
 popular turbulence ; because all her fortunes are em- 
 barked in her commerce, and all theirs in their trade 
 of agitation ; because her one object is to maintain 
 and develop her prosperity, and their chief aim is to
 
 43 
 
 exploit her resources for the purposes of their game 
 of politics ; because, in a word, she wishes to enjoy 
 the fruits of her industry under the protection of an 
 Imperial Parliament, and they wish to seize upon and 
 employ those possessions in the prosecution of their 
 avowed aims of Separation." 
 
 Much has been said of the " advantages " of Ulster, 
 and many who know nothing but what they are told, 
 believe that the North of Ireland is infinitely superior 
 to the South in fertility of soil and the like. What did 
 another speaker, Mr. Johnston, find to say to this hazy 
 kind of belief which the English Home Rulers repeat 
 as glibly as any other political falsehood set afloat for 
 electioneering purposes ? 
 
 " The land that was the poorest and most sterile 
 in Ireland has become the most highly-cultivated and 
 productive soil to be found throughout the length and 
 breadth of our county. Originally the bleakest and 
 most barren of the four provinces, she is now the most 
 fertile and prosperous ; her farmers are honest and 
 pay their rent, and the Plan of Campaign is unknown 
 amongst us." 
 
 But these men who have reclaimed and brought 
 into high cultivation a barren and inhospitable soil 
 are those of whom Mr. Michael Davitt said : " The 
 Unionist Protestants are not Irish. They are only 
 English and Scotch. Leave them alone to us and 
 we will make short work of these gentlemen." 
 
 It is instructive to turn to these frank expres- 
 sions of hatred and assured revenge from all the 
 gushing promises of brotherly feeling and fair dealing
 
 44 
 
 if only England will but consummate the treachery of 
 certain of her politicians and endorse the spoliation 
 they desire to accomplish. 
 
 Together with these hypothetical "advantages" much 
 too has been said about the " ascendency " of Ulster, 
 and the desire of Ulstermen to maintain this " as- 
 cendency " their fear of losing which is indeed the 
 meaning of the whole movement. Wherein does it 
 lie ? What tyrannous rule of exclusion or oppression 
 has Ulster laid on her Roman Catholic fellow-sub- 
 jects ? That the great bulk of the wealth belongs to 
 the Protestants means simply that the Protestants 
 are the most industrious and the most thrifty. That 
 the civic offices in Belfast are mainly filled by Protest- 
 ants means also simply that these are the most intelli- 
 gent and the best business men. Roman Catholics 
 are in no sense whatever boycotted in Belfast, and 
 with a franchise so low as 4. almost the whole popu- 
 lation has the power of voting. Ulster had the Ulster 
 custom l of which the most important feature \vas 
 
 1 " In Mr. Richey's well-known work on the Irish Land Laws, the 
 Ulster custom is thus defined from a judgment given in one of the 
 county courts. 'Common,' he says, ' to all the usages of tenant-right 
 customs, there are five leading features, which may be termed its 
 essential attributes, namely : 
 
 " ' I. The right or custom in general of yearly tenants, or those 
 deriving through them, to continue in undisturbed possession so long as 
 they act properly and pay their rents. 
 
 " ' 2. The correlative right of the landlord perpetually to raise the 
 rent, so as to give him a just, fair, and full participation in the increased 
 value of the land, but not so as to extinguish the tenant's interest by 
 imposing a rack-rent. 
 
 " ' 3. The usage or custom of the yearly tenants to sell their interest,
 
 u fixity of tenure," before that custom was applied to 
 the rest of Ireland. It was a voluntary arrangement 
 among themselves. No parliament enacted it ; and 
 if these "only English and Scotch men "saw that 
 it was on the whole an advantageous arrangement 
 this was due to their own perspicacity, and was not 
 an unfair " advantage " superimposed on them from 
 
 if they do not wish to continue in possession, or if they become unable 
 to pay their rent. 
 
 " ' 4. The correlative right of the landlord to be consulted, and 
 to exercise a potential voice in the approval or disapproval of the 
 proposed assignee. 
 
 " ' 5. The liability of the landlord, if taking land for his own 
 purpose from a tenant, to pay the tenant the fair value of his tenant 
 right.' 
 
 " The Land Act of 1870 legalised the Ulster custom in Ulster, and 
 the Act of 1881 practically conferred the boon on the rest of Ireland. 
 But it is impossible to deny that Ulster, in this respect, had a long 
 start. And although it would not be difficult to argue that the custom 
 weighted the incoming tenant, still it prevented, and where it did not 
 prevent, it certainly mitigated and lessened the hardship of evictions. 
 The position of Ulster to-day I believe to be due mainly to two things, 
 namely, the introduction of the Protestant element in the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries, and the existence of the Ulster custom. Mr. 
 Lecky is not a bigot. Neither can he be said to be unduly biassed in 
 favour of Protestantism. But even he declares of Roman Catholicism 
 that ' it produces habits of thought and life not favourable to indus- 
 trial activity, and extremely opposed to political freedom.' One 
 thing certain is that throughout Ulster the great Captains of Industry 
 the millowners, the shipbuilders, the bankers, the great merchants 
 are Protestants almost to a man. It is in the Protestant counties 
 industrial and commercial activity alone prevail. And the workers, 
 as in Belfast, are as essentially Protestant as are the employers. 
 These facts speak for themselves. In my next article I propose to 
 take stock of the agricultural and educational position and progress of 
 the province." Mr. T. \V. RUSSELL, Daily Graphic, June u.
 
 4 6 
 
 without. The "ascendency of Ulster" is simply and 
 solely that which industry gains over idleness, thrift 
 over extravagance, self-control over unrestraint, and 
 the steady prosecution of definite aims over wild, 
 vague, and distracting political theories. Were the 
 Moonlighters and the Land Leaguers to take a leaf 
 out of Ulster's book of wise living they would come 
 to exactly the same place in national history. 
 " Ascendency" of this kind must needs follow those 
 who are worthy to obtain it ; and we might as well 
 gird at the natural law which makes bees store honey 
 and ants grain because other creatures die of hunger 
 for lack of the instinct which unites industry with 
 self-preservation. 
 
 One of the best bits of reasoning on this Ulster 
 question is to be found in the famous letter by 
 Mr. Lecky to Mr. Gladstone, when a true quotation 
 was untruly applied. The letter came out origi- 
 nally in the Times of January 2 1st. 
 
 SlR, I observe that Mr. Gladstone, in order to 
 prove that there is no danger of sectarian or sacer- 
 dotal ascendency in Ireland, has quoted some re- 
 marks of mine to the effect that a healthy national 
 feeling is the best corrective of the sectarian spirit. 
 The statement in itself I believe to be perfectly true, 
 but as the reader is evidently intended to infer that 
 it was written with some application to the present 
 condition of Ireland, I maybe permitted to state that 
 the passage Mr. Gladstone quotes is extracted from a 
 chapter (suppressed in the subsequent edition) in a
 
 47 
 
 little book published anonymously not less than 
 thirty-one years ago. I need scarcely say that at 
 that date clerical influence had not acquired anything 
 even distantly approaching its present enormous 
 power in Irish politics, and that the whole system 
 of boycotting and intimidation which has been so 
 conspicuous in the last years was still unborn. 
 
 I have myself never looked upon the Home Rule 
 question as a question between Protestant and 
 Catholic. It is a question between honesty and 
 dishonesty, between loyalty and treason, between 
 individual freedom and organised outrage and 
 tyranny. I believe there are multitudes of Catholics 
 in Ireland who accept bond fide the condemnation 
 pronounced by the Head of their Church on boycot- 
 ting and the Plan of Campaign, and who are as 
 sensible as I am of the unspeakable infamy of 
 attempting to place the government of Ireland in the 
 hands of men who have been found guilty by a law 
 court on overwhelming evidence of aiming at the 
 dismemberment of the Empire, and of practising 
 persistent and systematic intimidation, leading to 
 crime and outrage, and " with knowledge of its 
 effect." No one who will be at the pains to read the 
 report of the Parnell Commissioners and the evidence 
 they have collected can have the smallest doubt 
 about the character of the men who would preside 
 over an Irish Parliament, or about the methods on 
 which they have based their power. To talk of 
 a healthy national feeling guided by such men 
 seems to me an impious mockery. To suppose that
 
 any permanently beneficent Government could be 
 established by such means is almost equivalent to a 
 denial of the moral government of the world. But 
 it is quite certain that a great portion >of the 
 Irish priests, including some of those most highly 
 placed, have been the close allies of these men, and 
 have persistently countenanced these means. Is it 
 likely that men who have so systematically employed 
 the weapons of oppression will cast them aside when 
 they have obtained supreme power ? Is it impossible 
 that those who, in the words of the Commissioners, 
 have pursued " a system of coercion and intimida- 
 tion " " for the purpose of impoverishing and ex- 
 pelling from the country the Irish landlords who 
 were styled the English garrison," may find the same 
 description applicable to other classes ? Is it pro- 
 bable that a party who have made the violation of 
 contracts and thedefiance of law their chief instruments 
 of political action will be much restrained by paper 
 ties if the command of the police gives them in great 
 districts of Ireland an almost absolute power over the 
 freedom, industry, and property of their fellow-citizens? 
 These are the questions that have been asked in 
 Ulster, and which Ulster has answered in a demon- 
 stration that seems likely to form one of the great 
 landmarks in Irish history. Nothing approaching 
 it has been seen there since the Volunteer Convention 
 of 1782. I do not envy the sagacity of the states- 
 man who cannot see the significance of the complete 
 union between Presbyterian Liberalism and Orange 
 Toryism, and who fails to detect the accent of genuine
 
 49 
 
 conviction and of indomitable resolution in the 
 speeches at Belfast. Compare the proceedings in the 
 Ulster Convention with the proceedings in the com- 
 mittee room No. 15, and the difference between the 
 two parties becomes very clear. ' The North of 
 Ireland,' Grattan once wrote, ' contains the active 
 citizens of Ireland, its principal wealth, industry, and 
 spirit.' I do not believe that it has ever rendered a 
 better service either to Ireland or the Empire than by 
 the firm, moderate, and unsectarian attitude which it 
 has assumed. Your obedient servant, 
 
 " W. E. H. LECKY. 
 
 " Athenaeum Club, June 20." 
 
 Nothing could be calmer or more explicit than 
 this letter. It disposes of more than one fallacy, 
 puts a misinterpreted fact on a proper basis of truth, 
 and cuts the ground from under the feet of those who 
 would claim one of our soundest thinkers and most 
 philosophic historians as the advocate for Romish 
 supremacy and Home Rule tyranny. For indeed 
 what do the Home Rulers want but the very " ascend- 
 ency" with which they taunt Ulster but ascend- 
 ency of a vastly different kind ? What does Ireland 
 lack that the English Parliament can give her ? She 
 lacks money and commercial enterprise and political 
 stability for which last we in our desire to pacify 
 her -have been somewhat to blame. We have so 
 continually enacted and altered and re-arranged 
 that we have created a profound feeling of insecurity 
 among the landlords, who, after all, have to be taken 
 
 D
 
 50 
 
 into consideration as the richest and most important, 
 the " head men " of their districts. We have given 
 the tenants privileges no other tenants possess. Fair 
 Rent, Free Sale, Fixity of Tenure they have them 
 all ; and the only men who suffer now from legislative 
 injustice are the landlords. 
 
 What, then, do they lack so desperately that the 
 Empire is to become practically and for so much 
 dismembered, and the chances of civil war are to be 
 braved ? Religion is free and no man suffers socially 
 or officially for his faith at least no Roman Catholic 
 suffers at the hands of the Protestants. Education 
 is provided for the children all the same as in 
 England. \Vhen not utilised, as in England, it is 
 because of the bigotry of the priests, who refuse all 
 enlightenment unless stamped with their official 
 seal, and who, when they get the mastership in 
 schools, teach things which are more pleasing to 
 themselves than exact as matters of fact ; as that 
 map in a certain Roman Catholic school near Cork 
 of which I have heard, where England is figured as a 
 black spot, and Ireland as a large and, where Roman 
 Catholics prevail, brilliantly coloured country. No, 
 Ireland lacks no redress of injustice for which she 
 has the right to demand Home Rule. 
 
 If, indeed, the priests could find some useful, remu- 
 nerative, and peaceful work for her people, and would 
 leave politics alone, and if all those pestilent agitators 
 who now disturb the country, create misery, and cause 
 crime wherever they go \vere sternly muzzled as the 
 traitors and incendiaries they are, there is not a
 
 happier country nor a more prosperous than Ireland 
 would be. With political security capital would flow 
 in, and resident landlordism would make those now 
 deserted properties in the South " bloom like a rose." 
 Manufactures would be established ; and what Belfast 
 has done for herself would be done for all other 
 available towns and seaports. With manufactories 
 established in adequate numbers the congested dis- 
 tricts would be drained of their surplus population, 
 and the land, relieved of its burden, would support 
 in decency and sufficiency those who were left. 
 
 Home Rule would give none of these things. 
 Rather would it accentuate all present evils and add 
 to all present causes of misery. A settled condition 
 of society law and not outrage, peace and not war, 
 industry and not politics would be more to the 
 purpose than the tyranny of the South over the 
 North and the practical spoliation of Belfast. But 
 the cry has " caught on " with the sentimental among 
 our own countrymen, the romantic, and those who be- 
 lieve in theory rather than practice, as well as with the 
 declared enemies of England and the unrelenting 
 foes of Protestantism as well as with the unscru- 
 pulous followers of a party who would give up their 
 country to destruction if only they could bring Mr. 
 Gladstone back to power and taste the sweets of 
 office for themselves. 
 
 I have written this pamphlet for the English, not 
 the Irish for those who know even less of the sub- 
 ject than I do myself. I have written it hoping that 
 it may do some good to those who are either waver- 
 
 D 2
 
 52 
 
 ing or misinformed, ignorant or misled. What Mr. 
 Lecky says is true : This question of Unionism and 
 Home Rule is one " between honesty and dishonesty, 
 between loyalty and treason, between individual free- 
 dom and organised tyranny and outrage." The cry 
 that has been got up is factitious or it is criminal. 
 The leaders of the movement know that they and 
 the priests together inflame the ignorant peasantry 
 with fine words and futile promises " the boys get 
 drunk on rhetoric and madden at a word" and that 
 they lead them as a flock of sheep are led by the 
 bell wether as a magnet draws after it a mass of 
 steel filings. They rouse the passions of these poor 
 fellows, who shout for what they do not know and 
 desire that which no man can have ; but they do not 
 give them means by which to make their daily 
 bread. 
 
 If all the money collected for these criminal politi- 
 cal movements had been applied to the creation of 
 industries, the Home Rulers would have a very 
 different account to give of themselves. As things 
 are, let any candid person ask himself: What have 
 they done besides causing discontent, strife, murder, 
 and outrage ? Nothing. Neither the fishing in- 
 dustry nor the railway works, neither lace-making 
 nor embroidery owes a hundredth part to the Roman 
 Catholic Home Rulers where it owes ninety-nine to 
 Protestant Unionist men and women. It has not 
 been their role to create content. Quite the reverse, 
 and some have had the cynical honesty to avow this. 
 
 The greater the misery of the people the greater
 
 53 
 
 the power they had, and the more cruelly they used 
 it for the purpose of political warfare and destructive 
 partisanship. These men want Ireland for them- 
 selves the "gutter sparrows" and their kind for 
 personal aggrandisement ; the priests for the su- 
 premacy which would come with the withdrawal of 
 English law and justice. Between them the good of 
 the nation falls to the ground like unconsidered fruit. 
 And blind, good-hearted, and good-natured sympa- 
 thisers, credulous as only Englishmen can be, believe 
 in the " national aspiration " so glibly talked about and 
 so absolutely non-existing. For this fine phrase they 
 would dismember, despoil, and dishonour their own 
 country and ruin thousands of their fellow-subjects 
 and co-religionists. For the sake of enabling a few 
 needy political adventurers to flourish as the leaders 
 of a nation, they would destroy the prosperity of 
 Ulster ; to aid in the supremacy of the Roman 
 Catholics they would oppress the Protestants. Absit 
 omen ! By the determined attitude of Ulster and 
 the manly utterances of Lord Fingall the premier 
 Catholic of Ireland, but a patriot, not a placeman, an 
 imperialist, not a petty partisan by such men as 
 he, larger than faction and wiser than sectarianism, 
 may the dangers that threaten our beautiful sister 
 isle be averted, and the " knavish tricks " of her real 
 enemies, as of our own avowed foes, be confounded. 
 
 E. LYNN LIN TON.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I GIVE these papers as a reminder ist, Of what Ulster 
 means ; 2nd, Of the privileges which the Irish tenant 
 possesses ; 3rd, Of the methods by which the New 
 Tipperary farce was carried out ; 4th, Of the comparisons 
 to be made between Mr. Gladstone's administration 
 and Mr. Balfour's.
 
 ULSTER UNIONIST CONVENTION. 
 
 At a numerously attended Conference of Ulster Unionists held 
 in Belfast on Friday, the %th April, 1892, the following 
 Resohitions were unanimously adopted; 
 
 FIRST That this Conference, representing the loyal men of 
 every creed, class, and party throughout Ulster, having heard 
 the report of the Provisional Committee, and recognising to 
 the fullest extent the gravity of the occasion, resolves to sum- 
 mon a Great Convention of Ulstermen, in June next, to 
 declare their position in view of the near approach of a 
 General Election involving the most momentous issues to 
 Ireland and to the Empire. 
 
 SECOND That, in summoning this Convention, we declare 
 its objects to be 
 
 (a) To express the devoted loyalty of Ulster Unionists 
 to the Crown and Constitution of the United Kingdom. 
 
 (b} To avow our first resolve to retain unchanged our 
 present position as an integral portion of the United 
 Kingdom, and to protest in the most unequivocal manner 
 against the passage of any measure that would rob us of 
 our inheritance in the Imperial Parliament, under the pro- 
 tection of which our capital has been invested and our 
 homes and rights safeguarded. 
 
 (c) To record our determination to have nothing to do 
 with a Parliament certain to be controlled by men re- 
 sponsible for the crime and outrage of the Land League, 
 the dishonesty of the Plan of Campaign, and the cruelties 
 of boycotting, many of whom have shown themselves the 
 ready instruments of clerical domination.
 
 (d) To declare to the people of Great Britain our con- 
 viction that the attempt to set up such a Parliament in 
 Ireland will inevitably result in disorder, violence, and 
 bloodshed such as have not been experienced in this century ; 
 and to announce our resolve to take no part in the election 
 or the proceedings of such a Parliament, the authority of 
 which, should it ever be constituted, we shall be forced to 
 repudiate. 
 
 (e) To protest against this great question, which involves 
 our lives, property, and civil rights, being treated as a mere 
 side issue in the impending electoral struggle. 
 
 (/) To appeal to those of our fellow-countrymen who 
 have hitherto been in favour of a separate Parliament to 
 abandon a demand which hopelessly divides Irishmen, 
 and to unite with us under the Imperial Legislature in 
 developing the resources and furthering the best interests 
 of our common country. 
 
 DANIEL DIXON, MAYOR OF BELFAST, 
 
 Chairman. 
 
 M. WYLIE, LL.D., | ^ 
 R. I. CALWELL, C.E., J
 
 59 
 
 AN IRISH TENANT'S PRIVILEGES. 
 
 THE privileges of Irish Tenant Farmers have been largely ex- 
 tended by three measures : (I.) the Land Act of 1870 ; (II.) the 
 Land Law Act, 1881 ; and (III.) the Land Purchase Act, 1885. 
 It will be convenient to consider these in chronological order : 
 
 I. 
 
 PRIVILEGES UNDER THE LAND ACT OF 1870. 
 
 1. A tenant who voluntarily gives up his farm must be paid by 
 his landlord full compensation for all improvements made 
 by himself or his predecessors. 
 
 2. A tenant who is disturbed in his holding by his landlord for 
 any other cause than non-payment of rent must not only be 
 paid full compensation for all improvements, but also com- 
 pensation for disturbance, in the form of a sum of money 
 which may equal seven years' rent. \This privilege has 
 be&n further extended by the Land Law Act of 1881. See 
 Privilege 10.] 
 
 3. A tenant when evicted for non-payment of rent must be 
 
 paid : 
 
 (a) full compensation for all improvements : and (6) in case 
 
 his rent does not exceed ,15, a sum of money which may 
 
 equal seven years' rent, should the court think the rent 
 
 excessive. 
 
 4. A tenant cannot be evicted even for non-payment of rent 
 
 till one year's rent is in arrear. \This privilege existed long 
 before the Land Act of 1870, by which it was confirmed.] 
 
 5. A tenant when evicted can get back into possession within 
 six months on payment of the amount due, less by any pro- 
 fit the landlord may have made out of the holding while the 
 tenant was out of possession.
 
 6o 
 
 6. A tenant immediately after notice to quit can bring his claim 
 for compensation, and he cannot be ejected until the land- 
 lord has paid the amount awarded. [// must be noted, 
 however, that the Actofi&Si has practically abolished notice 
 to quit. See Privilege 10.] 
 
 7. In the absence of proof to the contrary, improvements are 
 presumed to have been made by the tenant. 
 
 8. If a tenant's holding is valued at or over ,4, the landlord 
 must pay half the poor rate If the holding is valued under 
 ^4, the landlord must pay the entire poor rate. 
 
 II. 
 
 PRIVILEGES UNDER THE LAND LAW ACT OF l88l. 
 
 9. If a tenant thinks his rent too high, he may go before the 
 Land Commission Court and get a rent fixed. This rent can- 
 not be raised for 15 years. This privilege is called " FAIR 
 RENT." 
 
 10. When a tenant has a fair rent fixed, what is called a 
 
 Statutory Tenancy is created. When this is done a tenant 
 cannot be evicted by his landlord except for non-payment 
 of rent, for dilapidation, persistent waste, or the breach of 
 some other statutory condition. This privilege is called 
 " FIXITY OF TENURE." 
 
 1 1. Every yearly tenant has now an interest in his holding which 
 he can sell. Thus a tenant wishing to give up his farm 
 can sell the right of succession for a sum equal to several 
 years' purchase of the rent. Many instances have occurred 
 in each of the four provinces of Ireland during the present 
 year (1886) where upwards of 20 years' purchase has been 
 obtained. This privilege is called " FREE SALE." 
 
 12. If a tenant, has not had a fair rent fixed, and his landlord 
 proceeds to evict him, he [the tenant] can apply to the 
 Court to fix the rent, and while his application is pending 
 the landlord's proceedings are restrained.
 
 6i 
 
 13. If a tenant is evicted he has the right either to redeem at 
 any time within six months (see Privilege 5), or to sell his 
 tenancy within the same period to a purchaser, who can 
 likewise redeem, and thus acquire all the privileges of the 
 tenant. 
 
 III. 
 
 PRIVILEGE UNDER THE LAND PURCHASE ACT OF 1885. 
 
 14. If a tenant wishes to buy his holding, and arranges with 
 his landlord as to terms, he can change his position from 
 that of a perpetual rent payer into that of the payer of an 
 annuity terminable at the end of 49 years, the Government 
 supplying him with the entire purchase money, to be repaid 
 during those 49 years at 4 per cent. This annual payment 
 of 4. for every .100 borrowed covers both principal and 
 interest. Thus, if a tenant already paying a statutory rent 
 of ^50 agrees to buy from his landlord at 20 years' pur- 
 chase, or ,1,000, the Government will lend him the money 
 his rent will at once cease, and he will pay, not ^50, but 
 ^40 yearly, for 49 years, and then become the owner of 
 his holding free of all charge. It is hardly necessary to 
 point out that as these 49 years of payment roll by the 
 interest of the holding increases rapidly in value. 
 
 In considering these privileges it must be borne in mind that 
 those conferred by the Act of 1881 [which broke down old con- 
 tracts of tenancy, and even prohibited tenants of holdings 
 valued at .150 yearly from contracting themselves out of the 
 Act] COULD NOT HAVE BEEN GIVEN UNDER THE CONSTITU- 
 TION OF THE UNITED STATES. 1 
 
 It must also be remembered that the privileges cited in this 
 summary, though the most important, are by no means the 
 entire of the legal privileges of the Irish tenant. 
 
 1 See Federal Constitution, Article i, sec. x. i. " No STATE SHALL 
 
 PASS ANY LAW IMPAIRING THE OBLIGATION OF CONTRACTS."
 
 62 
 
 TIPPERARY UNDER NATIONAL LEAGUE 
 COERCION. 
 
 LIST OF OUTRAGES COMMITTED IN CONNECTION 
 WITH THE SMITH-BARRY ESTATE IN TIPPERARY. 
 
 THE METHODS BY WHIC:I THE AGITATION is MAINTAINED. 
 
 This list does not include the many Outrages committed on the Police. 
 
 No. Date of Outrage. -Brief Particulars. 
 
 1 ... 4th Sept., 1889 ... The houses of J.Dogherty, James O'Neill, 
 
 Edmond Fitzgerald, who bought in 
 their interest at Sheriffs Sale, were 
 wrecked by a mob of 3,000, followed 
 by a band. 
 
 2 ... 5th Sept., 1889 ... Joseph Woods, caretaker, had his don- 
 
 key-cart, with load of straw and some 
 oats, set on fire and totally consumed. 
 
 3 ... 7th Sept., 1889 .. A metal box of a cart wheel, charged 
 
 with powder, was exploded in the Es- 
 tate Office window of Mr. Smith- 
 Barry, M.P. 
 
 4 ... Ijth Sept., 1889 ... A metal box, charged with gunpowder, 
 
 was thrown into Edmond Fitzgerald's 
 yard, and an explosion occurred. Fitz- 
 gerald had purchased his interest at 
 Sheriff's Sale. 
 
 5 ... i6th Sept., 1889 ... A leaden pipe, charged with gunpowder, 
 
 was thrown against the back bedroom 
 of II. Heffernan's house. Explosion 
 occurred without injury, except break- 
 ing a pane of glass. Heffernan dealt 
 with E. Fitzgerald. (See above.) 
 
 6 ... 26th Sept., 1889 ... Patrick Barlow's cart stopped in the 
 
 street, and a parcel of calico which had 
 been purchased from James O'Neill (a 
 boycotted shopkeeper) was taken out 
 and burned, after first being saturated 
 with oil.
 
 No. 
 7 
 
 10 
 ii 
 
 Date of Outrage. 
 27th Sept., 1889 . 
 
 2gth Nov., 1889 
 2nd Dec., 1889 ... 
 
 5th Dec., 1889 
 
 6th Dec., 1889 .., 
 
 20th Dec., 1889 
 
 Between i6th and 
 30th Dec., 
 
 14 ... 1st Jan., 1890 
 
 1 8th Feb., 1890 
 
 1 6 ... 27th April, 1890 . 
 
 17 ... I4th June, 1890 
 
 Brief Particulars. 
 
 Some powder, rolled in brown paper, 
 placed in J. Ryan's window, with fuse 
 attached. Explosion occurred, break- 
 ing the glass. 
 
 A leaden pipe, full of gunpowder, thrown 
 through Mr. Nolan's plate glass win- 
 dow into his office. 
 
 A shell, filled with powder, placed near 
 a police patrol, and exploded, breaking 
 the eave-shoot of a house and a gas- 
 lamp adjacent. 
 
 Printed Boycotting Notices posted in 
 Tipperary. 
 
 Two windows smashed at the house of 
 Patrick Hanrahan, Clerk of the Works 
 on Mr. Smith-Barry's estate. A bottle 
 full of blasting powder, with fuse at- 
 tached, left outside. 
 
 Five shots fired into the house of John 
 Quinlan. He had paid his rent. 
 
 A number of sub-tenants, who were 
 evicted in Tipperary Town, on 3ist 
 December, burned the doors, window 
 sashes, &c. , before leaving, in order to 
 injure the property. 
 
 Three panes of glass and a shutter broken 
 by stones in Dr. Nadin's window, and 
 three panes of glass broken in John 
 Maloney's window. 
 
 Six shots fired at Pegsboro', two of 
 which went through the window of Mr. 
 Bell's house. Mr. Bell was believed 
 to sympathise with Mr. Smith-Barry. 
 
 Boycotting Notices found posted in town 
 and neighbourhood, calling on the 
 people to boycott eleven shopkeepers 
 and farmers believed to have paid their 
 rents. 
 
 A bag of flour, the property of Mrs. 
 Fahey, of Drumwood, Dundrum, cut 
 open. She had purchased the flour 
 from Rutherford, a boycotted shop- 
 keeper.
 
 6 4 
 
 No. Date of Outrage. 
 18 ... 24th June, 1890 
 
 19 ... igth June, 1890 
 
 20 ... 2oth June, 1890 
 
 21 ... 24th June, 1890 
 
 22 ... 24th June, 1890 
 
 23 ... 25th June, 1890 
 
 24 ... 28th June, 1890 
 
 25 ... roth Aug., 1890 
 
 Brief Particulars. 
 
 . When passing down Meeting Street, 
 James English, servant to Mr. Ruther- 
 ford, mentioned above, was struck on 
 the head by a heavy weapon. 
 
 . The children of the Convent and other 
 schools out on strike because children 
 of unpopular persons attended it. A 
 man named Quinlan, when passing 
 into the town, was stoned and hooted 
 by those children, because he had paid 
 his rent. A little girl was stoned 
 because she attended the school. 
 
 . Wm. Sadlier (son of Mrs. Sadlier, of 
 Carroclough, boycotted because she 
 paid her rent), met on his way home 
 from Tipperary, and attacked with 
 stones from behind a wall. 
 
 A number of Boycotting Notices found 
 posted through the town and neigh- 
 bourhood to boycott certain persons 
 who had paid their rent. 
 
 The house of P. Clifford wrecked and his 
 wife assaulted. He had supplied un- 
 popular persons with newspapers, and 
 his name appeared in a Boycotting 
 Notice, June 24th, 1890. 
 
 A brass tube, filled with gunpowder, 
 thrown by Thos. Kirwan at the house 
 of J. F. Duggan, a shopkeeper, boy- 
 cotted because he paid his rent. (Kir- 
 wan was convicted and sentenced at (he 
 Nenagh Assizes to 18 months imprison- 
 ment ivith hard labour. ) 
 
 Two female servants of Mrs. Whites, 
 Greenrath (boycotted because she paid 
 her rent), attacked on the road home 
 from Tipperary by two men, who were 
 immediately arrested. 
 
 Twenty-three printed Boycotting Notices 
 found posted in and around Tipperary.
 
 65 
 
 No. Date of Otilrage. Brief Particulars. 
 
 26 ... 2Oth Aug., 1890 ... An earthenware jar, filled with gunpow- 
 
 der, and fuse attached, exploded on 
 the fanlight over the shop door of Jas. 
 Godfrey (boycotted shopkeeper), ding- 
 ing the side posts of doors and break- 
 ing the glass. 
 
 27 ... 3Oth Aug., 1890 ... Boycotting Notices found posted, calling 
 
 on the people to boycott a man named 
 Barrett. 
 
 28 ... fth Sept., 1890 ... Three iron spikes driven in the ground in 
 
 corner of meadow of Mrs. White, in- 
 jured her mowing machine. (Mrs. 
 White boycotted because she paid her 
 rent. ) 
 
 29 ... 7th Sept., 1890 ... Boycotting Notices posted, naming seve- 
 
 ral persons to be boycotted for having 
 paid their rent. 
 
 30 ... gth Sept., 1890 ... Similar Boycotting Notices to the ones 
 
 above. 
 
 31 ... 9th Sept., 1890 ... Similar Boycotting Notices (but in manu- 
 
 script). 
 
 32 ... nth Sept., 1890 ... Glass in the window of Jockeys' room, 
 
 racecourse, and four panes in another 
 were broken, and a window and some 
 fixtures taken away, the property of 
 Jas. Sadlier, who was boycotted for 
 paying his rent. 
 
 33 ... 2oth Sept., 1890 ... Two windows and fanlight in Michael 
 
 Gillane's house broken with stones. 
 
 34 ... 25th Sept., 1890 ... A jar, filled with powder, with fuse 
 
 attached, placed on window sill of Dr. 
 O'Ryan's house, which exploded, 
 breaking several panes of glass. 
 
 35 ... I2th Oct., 1890 ... Notices of a scurrilous nature posted 
 
 around the town, calling on the tax- 
 payers not to elect Messrs. Breen & 
 Co. to some vacant places in the Town 
 Council, because they protested against 
 the system of intimidation reigning in 
 Tipperary. 
 
 E
 
 66 
 
 Ni>. Date of Outrage. Brief Particulars. 
 
 36 ... I3th Oct., 1890 ... Rev. D. Humphries, C.C., meeting Sergt. 
 
 Jas. Mullin, R.I.C., and his wife, 
 accused the latter of being a prostitute, 
 and assaulted her by seizing her by the 
 shoulder and attempting to drag her 
 away. He was fined 20 or 3 months' 
 imprisonment at Petty Sessions, on 
 23/10/90. 
 
 37 ... 2nd Nov., 1890 ... Mrs. Mullin, the injured woman in above 
 
 case, lodged with Mrs. Linney, also a 
 policeman's wife, and on that account 
 Mrs. Linney was assaulted by a man 
 named Fleming on the street, who 
 struck her with his fist in the stomach. 
 This brought on miscarriage, which 
 endangered her life. She had been 
 previously threatened. (Fleming was 
 convicted and sentenced at the Nenagh 
 Assizes to 18 months' imprisonment 
 ivith hard labour.} 
 
 38 ... loth Nov., 1890 ... A man unknown threw stones at Mrs. 
 
 Mahoney, and afterwards broke into 
 the evicted house of Jno. Lowrey, into 
 which the Mahoneys were about to 
 move as caretakers. One pane of glass 
 was broken, and tops of chimney pulled 
 down. 
 
 39 . .. I4th Nov., 1890 ... House from which Patrick Halloran was 
 
 evicted on 5/5/90 found on fire by 
 police patrol so as to deter Halloran 
 from re-taking possession. 
 
 40 ... 1 5th Nov., 1890 ... A house from which Patrick Lysaght was 
 
 evicted on 6/6/90 was discovered on 
 fire. Four men with white cloths on 
 their faces were seen going to the house 
 and afterwards running away. House 
 burned. 
 
 41 ... igth Nov., 1890 ... Boycotting Notice found on wall of 
 
 Churchyard, signed "A Tipperury 
 Girl." 
 
 42 ... I gill Nov., 1890 ... House formerly occupied by Mrs. Eliza 
 
 O'Connor (evicted), known as Railway 
 Hotel, redeemed by Bank of Ireland, 
 set fire to in the rear to prevent any one 
 taking it.
 
 6; 
 
 No. Date of Outrage. Brief Parliaialrs. 
 
 43 .. 22nd Nov., 1890 ... House from which John Lowrey was 
 
 evicted on 22/10/90 burned down, to 
 prevent former tenant re-taking it. 
 
 44 ... 29th Nov., 1890 ... Notice posted in and about Tipperary to 
 
 boycott various shopkeepers, &c., 
 tenants of Mr. S. -Barry, and persons 
 who had given evidence in recent case 
 against Wm. O'Brien, M. P., and 
 others. 
 
 45 ... 7th Dec. , 1890 ... A notice posted in Lisvernane similar to 
 
 above. 
 
 46 ... 2ist Dec., 1890 ... A notice posted in and around Tipperary 
 
 calling on the people to treat traitors 
 as traitors ever were treated. 
 
 47 ... 6th Jan. , 1891 ... Printed Boycotting Notices posted in and 
 
 around Tipperary to boycott certain 
 shopkeepers and farmers who had paid 
 their rent. 
 
 48 ... 8th or gth Jan., 
 
 1891 ... ... A barn, the property of Mr. Smith-Barry, 
 
 was maliciously torn down at Carron- 
 reddy, formerly belonged to Mr. Daw- 
 son, Town Clerk. A cabin roof pulled 
 down and timber taken away. 
 
 49 ... 27th Jan., 1891 ... Michael Landers was arrested posting a 
 
 Boycotting Notice in Tipperary, call- 
 ing on all Nationalists to boycott, crush, 
 and banish various shopkeepers and 
 tenants on the Smith-Barry estate. 
 (Convicted and sentenced at the Cork 
 Assizes to 12 months' imprisonment 
 with hard labour. ) 
 
 50 ... 28th Jan., 1891 ... Miohael Hanley caught posting one of 
 
 the above Boycotting Notices, and four 
 more were found in his possession. 
 (Pleaded guilty, and sentenced at the 
 Cork Assizes to 18 months' imprison- 
 ment with hard labour. ) 
 
 51 ... 28th Jan., 1891 ... John Foley, a well-known vigilance man, 
 
 arrested on suspicion of having fire- 
 arms. An explosive substance was 
 found in his possession, with a fuse 
 attached. (Convicted and sentenced at 
 the Cork Assizes to 7 years' penal servi- 
 tude. }
 
 68 
 
 No. Date of Outrage. Brief Particulars. 
 
 52 ... 6th Feb., 1891 ... Col. Cadclell, R.M , was returning to 
 
 Tipperary by car, and when at Boher- 
 crow, beside the house of an evicted 
 tenant, a wire was tightly stretched 
 across the road in order to throw the 
 horse. 
 
 53 ... 1 5th Feb., 1891 ... Mr. Win. Baker found a wire stretched 
 
 brea=t-high across the public road be- 
 tween Bansha and Ballydavid. Mr. 
 Bates, Stock Manager, and Mr. Bowles, 
 Dairy Manager, to Mr. Smith-Barry, 
 were fishing at the time, and were 
 expected to return that way. 
 
 54 ... 2nd April, 1891 ... A caretaker employed by Mr. Smilh- 
 
 Barry attacked by seven men. His 
 revolver missed fire, and he had to fly 
 for his life. One of the men was 
 arrested, and sentenced to a month's 
 imprisonment with hard labour. 
 
 Mr. Wm. O'Brien, M. P., who is largely responsible for the state 
 of things set out above, and who was prosecuted and convicted 
 for taking part in the Tipperary conspiracy, addressed a Meeting 
 of the Smith-Barry tenants at Cashel, on 27th May, 1890, as 
 follows : 
 
 " Your cause has not been sullied by a single stain of crime 
 that could call a blush to the cheek of our English 
 friends." 
 
 ENGLISHMEN, JUDGE FOR YOURSELVES THE VALUE 
 OF MR. O'BRIEN'S UTTERANCE. 
 
 PRINTED FOR AND PUBLISHED F,Y THE IRISH UNIONIST 
 ALLIANCE. 
 
 BRIDGE
 
 IRISH POVERTY AND CRIME. 
 
 A COMPARISON. 
 
 The increase since 1886 in the deposits in Irish savings 
 banks and joint stock banks, as well as the growth of the 
 railway receipts, bear testimony to the greater prosperity 
 which Ireland now enjoys as compared with the period when 
 Mr. Gladstone was in power. 
 
 Equally remarkable is the reduction which has taken place 
 in the volume of emigration, poverty, and crime, in the same 
 period, as the following statistics show : 
 
 PAUPERISM. 
 
 Average number of paupers in Irish workhouses, 1881-5 5 1 ,55^ 
 The same on January ist, 1891 46,110 
 
 ii per cent, decrease under Unionist Government 5,448 
 
 EMIGRATION. 
 
 Number of Irish emigrants in five years, 1881-5 ... 398,658 
 The same in five years, 1886-90 ... ... ... ... 335>8i7 
 
 16 per cent, less emigration under Unionist Gov- 
 ernment 62,841 
 
 INDICTABLE OFFENCES. 
 Number of indictable offences in 1886 ... ... ... 7,3*5 
 
 The same in 1890 ... 5,289 
 
 28 per cent, reduction in serious crimes 
 
 AGRARIAN OUTRAGES. 
 Number of agrarian offences in 1886 ... ... ... 1,056 
 
 The same in 1890 ... ... ... ... ... ... 502 
 
 53 per cent, decrease in agrarian crime ... ... 554 
 
 BOYCOTTING. 
 Persons under police protection against intimidation in 
 
 1886 4,901 
 
 The same in December, 1889 152 
 
 Number of persons relieved in three years 
 
 R. 
 
 PRINTED FOR AND PUBLISHED BY THE IRISH UNIONIST 
 
 ALLIANCE. 
 
 DUBLIN: 109 GRAFTON STREET. LONDON: 26 PALACE CHAMBERS, BRIDGE 
 STREET, WESTMINSTER.
 
 RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 LONDON AND BUNG AY.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 JUN 2 2 1950 
 
 OCT22 1952: 
 
 Form L9 15m-10,'48(B1039)444 
 
 LOS ANGELCS 
 LIBRARY
 
 HA. Linton - 
 
 959 About Ulster 
 
 L65a 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACHJTY 
 
 jj 
 
 11 fN 2 
 
 A 001 238563 9 
 
 DA 
 
 959 
 
 L65a