FOOTNOTES:
[54] Speech at Whitechapel, Oct. 10, 1911. There is an almost identical passage in Mr. Redmond's article in McClure's Magazine for October, 1910. Sir J. Simon, the Solicitor-General, has since perpetrated the same absurdity (Dewsbury, Feb. 6, 1912).
[55] The usual rhetorical appeal to "What Home Rule has done in South Africa" presents, indeed, a most perfect specimen of the confusion of thought which it is here attempted to analyse. For no sooner had the Transvaal received "Home Rule" (i.e. responsible government) than it surrendered the "Home Rule" (i.e. separate government) which it had previously enjoyed in order to enter the South African Union. Stripped of mere verbal confusion the argument from the Transvaal analogy then runs somewhat as follows: "The Transvaal is now contented because it enjoys free representative institutions as an integral portion of a United South Africa; therefore, Ireland cannot be contented until she ceases to be a freely represented integral portion of the United Kingdom!"
[56] Quoted on p. 54.
[57] The position of New Zealand, outside the Australian Commonwealth, is no parallel. New Zealand is almost as far from Australia as Newfoundland is from the British Isles; it differs from Australia in every climatic and physical feature; there is comparatively little trade between them.
[58] Mr. Asquith at St. Andrews, Dec. 7, 1910.
[59] See "The Times' History of the South African War," vol. I. pp. 67 et seq.
[60] Cf. Mr. J. Redmond on the third reading of the Home Rule Bill of 1893. "The word 'provisional,' so to speak, has been stamped in red ink across every page of the Bill. I recognise that the Bill is offered as a compromise and accepted as such.... England has no right to ask from Irish members any guarantee of finality in its acceptance."
[61] Colonel Seely at Newry, December 9, 1911.
VI
THE CONTROL OF JUDICIARY AND POLICE
BY THE RIGHT HON. J.H. CAMPBELL, K.C., M.P.
The various forecasts, inspired and uninspired, of the new Home Rule Bill which have been given to us, have shed little light upon the future of the Irish Judiciary and Police. The two previous Bills contemplated the handing over of the control of the whole administration of justice in Ireland to the Irish Executive after an interval, in the first case of two years, and in the later Bill, of six years. We may assume that, whatever period of grace may be allowed to us under the coming measure, it will propose to vest this control in the Irish Government within six years. The interposition of any interval at all will probably be regarded by Ministers as a concession to Unionist fears and as one of the "safeguards" in which the minority will be urged to place its trust. It must be realised at once that, so far from this interval making the transition from British justice to Irish intrigue easier and more safe, it may have precisely the contrary effect. Once the Irish police are convinced that they are about to be delivered into the hands of the secret organisations who have been the most successful and relentless enemies of public order in Ireland, a paralysis must fall upon the force. During the closing years of the transition, at all events, the Royal Irish Constabulary will be given nominal responsibility for the peace of the country without any opportunity effectually to preserve it. It would be fairer and better to cast upon puppet nominees of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood the responsibility and odium of controlling the passions that they have helped to raise. The present judges would of course continue to do their duty without fear or favour, but it is impossible that the sentence passed upon them and the system of law and government for which they stand could leave their authority unimpaired. We have recently seen in England how easy it may be to stir up popular clamour against judges who administer the law without regard to the prejudices of any political party. Directly the Irish Courts sought to translate the paper safeguards of the Home Rule Bill into practical effect, they would be faced by the violent hostility of an ignorant and excitable assembly stimulated by an irresponsible and inexperienced executive. The result would be recriminations and friction which must deplorably injure and lower the reputation and prestige of both the Executive and the Judiciary.
The first thing necessary for securing public and private liberty in a country like Ireland, where party feeling runs high and internal disputes have a bitterness from which more fortunate countries are free, is a strong independent and impartial administration of the law. This can only be secured by freeing the Courts from any kind of interference or control on the part of the Executive, and by ensuring that the whole armed forces of the Executive should be at the disposal of the Courts for executing and enforcing their decrees. Let us only assume a case to arise after the statutory period had elapsed, such as is now of frequent occurrence in the Irish Courts. The Land Judge, for instance, or the Judge of the Court of Bankruptcy, finds it necessary to order the arrest of the chairman and secretary of a local branch of the United Irish League for interfering by gross intimidation with a sale under the order of his Court. The case excites a good deal of local feeling and the arrests can only be effected by the employment of a large force of armed police. The question is raised on a motion for adjournment in the Irish House of Commons. The majority of the members owe their seats to the intervention of the United Irish League, many of them—perhaps most—have themselves been in similar conflicts with the Court. The result is that Ministers have to choose between a refusal of the police and expulsion from office. Once the Government could decide which decrees of the Judiciary it would enforce and which it would not, the technical immovability of the Judges would be irrelevant, since the real control of justice would be vested, not in the courts but in the executive Ministers in Dublin Castle. The very existence of the limitations and safeguards foreshadowed in the coming Home Rule Bill would naturally tempt the Irish Government to adopt a policy which would reduce to a minimum the effective power of these restraints upon the popular will. The most obvious way of attaining this result would be to keep the police, and with them the judicature, in a position of greater dependence upon the Executive than is consistent with the supremacy of law and the safety of private rights and individual freedom.
We must remember that the men who would have the control of the new Irish Government would be those who have spent the greater part of their lives in violent conflict with the attempts of the Irish Courts to secure respect for the elementary rights of property and of personal freedom in Ireland. Power which has been won by the open violation of every principle of English law, is not likely either to assert the authority it has lived by defying to maintaining the independence of the courts and institutions which have been its deadliest opponents. The corruption of judicial authority and prestige in Ireland will be accomplished by entrenching the Executive behind large and shadowy discretionary powers, and also by manipulating the personnel and jurisdiction of the judges and magistracy throughout the country. The most deplorable movement in modern Nationalism is the attempt to introduce into Irish politics the worst methods of American political corruption. There have recently sprung into prominence in Ireland two societies which are in some respects the most sinister, the most immoral, and the most destructive of those which have corrupted and infected public life in the country. These two—the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood—have in common the secrecy of their operations and the destructiveness of their aims. Their influence is marked not only by despotic and tyrannical government, but, what may be even more mischievous from the point of view of the community, by the deliberate persecution and suppression of all independent thought. Those who have watched the proceedings of the Dublin Corporation have felt the increasing strength of an influence proceeding from Belfast—an influence which is threatening to control the whole course of Nationalist politics in Dublin and the south. The forces of influence, combination, and intimidation which forced the Budget on a reluctant Ireland and routed the Roman Catholic Hierarchy over the Insurance Bill will not be disbanded under Home Rule. On the contrary, they are now being exercised so as to enable the Board of Erin to absorb the older organisations and to place in the hands of its leaders—or rather in those of a single man—the nomination of most, if not all, the representatives of the Nationalist party in Ireland. Mr. Joseph Devlin, who seeks to build this vast power, is a politician of American ideals and sympathies, and under the guidance of his organisation politics in Ireland would be shaped after the model of Tammany Hall rather than that of St. Stephen's. The party which appoints the municipal officers of Dublin in secret caucus, meeting for reasons which are never avowed and after debates which are never published, is only waiting to extend its operations. Even now it is notorious that the magistrates' bench in Ireland is regularly and systematically "packed" whenever licensing or agrarian cases are under discussion. The scandalous inaction of the present Irish Executive in reference to cattle driving and other forms of organised intimidation, the failure to enforce the law and the absolute immunity which the present Chief Secretary has persistently allowed to Nationalist Members of Parliament and paid organisers in incitement to outrage and intimidation, have paralysed the administration of justice and disheartened and disgusted the Judiciary, the Magistrates, and the Police. But under Home Rule the measure of protection which is still afforded by a strong and independent Bench would be removed. The Resident Magistrate would be as much under the heel of the caucus as the local justice; the Recorder's Bench and even the High Court would be constantly subjected to influences of a mischievous and incalculable kind. Whatever may be said against the present occupants of the Judicial Bench, their integrity and fairness have never been seriously questioned. Since the days when the Irish judges issued a writ of habeas corpus for the release of Wolfe Tone, while the Irish Rebellion was actually in progress, they have consistently held an even balance between the two parties. Their learning, their impartiality and their wit have rightly made Irish judges respected throughout the world. Their reputation and their services alike demand that they shall not be set aside wantonly or without consideration. But there is no doubt that Home Rule must mean the end of the Irish Bench as we have seen it in history. The men who have been proud to represent the British Crown would resent with indignation the idea that they should become the tools of the Hibernian caucus. They realise that the judges who oppose the lawless will of popular ministers will have to face obloquy and perhaps direct attack in the Irish Parliament. Even if the concurrence of both Houses in the Irish Parliament were made necessary for the removal of judges, it would not adequately safeguard their independence. The lower House would be composed of the men whom Nationalist constituencies already return to Parliament—excitable, fierce partisans, always ready to subordinate private convictions to the exigencies of party discipline. Nor would there be in Ireland under Home Rule any power or influence, either of property or station, sufficiently strong to furnish a constituency which would return a senate representing interests, opinions, or desires substantially distinct from those of the more powerful House elected upon the wider suffrage.
The situation has been strongly complicated by the promulgation of the Motu Proprio decree, and the refusal of the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church to say definitely whether it applies to Ireland or not. We may assume that, if Archbishop Walsh could have given a categorical denial to the statement that the decree must operate in Ireland under Home Rule, he would have done so. The decree Motu Proprio forbids any Roman Catholic to bring his priest or bishop into court under pain of excommunication. The Roman Catholic Church has made many similar efforts during history to oust the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, and each attempt has had to be sharply and sternly resisted by the civil authorities of Roman Catholic countries. We need not discuss how much there may be said from a theological standpoint for the decree; we are only concerned to show that it raises pretensions which no State can possibly permit to be recognised. There have been too many attempts, successful and unsuccessful, to oust the jurisdiction of the King's Courts in Ireland, for this new attempt to be viewed with equanimity. The United Irish League has set up courts which try men for imaginary offences committed during the exercise of their ordinary civil rights, and pass illegal sentences and inflict illegal punishments. Under the reign of Liberal Governments the writ of these courts runs where the King's writ cannot run, and the law of the League has been allowed in great measure to supersede the law of the land. We have also an increasing force in Irish Nationalism which seeks to paralyse the government of Ireland by means of the general or sympathetic strike. This organisation seeks to establish courts in Ireland in opposition to the ordinary law courts, and to enforce their decrees by means of illegal intimidation and outrage. The people of Ireland have therefore been familiarised with the idea of courts competing in authority with those of the King's Government. Supposing under Home Rule the Judiciary proved less pliable than was expected or desired, the development of such competing authorities would be facilitated by a complaisant Cabinet in Dublin. But of all attempts to over-ride the authority of law this conspiracy to exempt ecclesiastical persons from its scope is the most insidious and dangerous. The existence of a class of men answerable for their actions, not to any domestic tribunal, but to a foreign ecclesiastical court, cannot now be tolerated by any self-respecting Government. Yet it is not easy to see how an Irish Cabinet could refuse to make, by executive if not by legislative action, what is now the law of the Church eventually the law of Ireland. Against this danger no safeguards can be devised. If the Administration refuses to put the law into effective operation against a certain class of offender or abuses the prerogative of mercy in his favour, there is no power in the constitution to coerce it. A few years ago we saw in Ireland the extraordinary spectacle of persons being prosecuted for cattle-driving and similar offences, while those who openly incited them to crime escaped with impunity. We saw judges from the Bench complaining in vain that the real offenders were not brought before them, and criticising openly the negligence and partiality of the Crown. If the Nationalists, whose influence then paralysed the aims of the Government, ever get supreme control of the Executive, we are certain to see these abuses revived on a still more shocking scale. The operation of the new decree places the Roman Catholic minister or law officer who is called upon to administer justice under the terms of his oath in a position of cruel embarrassment. As a law officer it might be his duty to order the prosecution of some clerical offender; as a Roman Catholic compliance with his duty to the State must entail the awful consequences of excommunication. It needs no elaboration to show that what may be a grave embarrassment under the rule of impartial British Ministers, must under a local Irish Government develop into a danger to the State. A case recently tried at the Waterford Assizes establishes a precedent which may prove most mischievous. Recent illustrations in Ireland of the working of the Temere decree have secured for it a sort of quasi-legality and provided a great argument to those devout Churchmen who, under Home Rule, would naturally desire to carry the process a further step.
We have proceeded on the assumption that the Irish Parliament would—formally, at least—confine itself within the limits prescribed by the law of its creation. But it is necessary at least to contemplate the possibility that it would prove less complaisant. The safeguards and limitations inserted in any Act of the kind must of necessity be couched in general terms. The constitutional history of the United States and other countries is full of cases showing how difficult it is to define in practice where the border line between intra and ultra vires comes. It is the custom of all Governments, if there is any possible room for debate as to their competence to take any particular line of action, to give themselves the fullest benefit of the doubt, and the Irish Government is unlikely to prove any exception to the rule. When the Judicature and all the forces of Executive Government, except the direct command of troops, is in their hands, the laws passed by the Irish Parliament could be put in force in Ireland. The British Government could not intervene except by acts which would amount to open war between the two countries. We must remember that this enforcement of Irish laws by Irish police in spite of the decisions of a "foreign" Government at Westminster is openly advocated and contemplated by the large and active section of the Nationalists who have adopted as their watchword the motto "Ourselves alone" (Sinn Fein). Nothing could be more futile than the idea that the judgments of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council would ever be accepted as final by the Nationalist majority, or that the royal assent could ever be withheld from an Act constitutionally passed by the Irish Legislature, without precipitating a crisis. The result of applying the veto of the House of Lords in England to the measures of Liberal Ministers was the agitation for removing the veto. The Nationalists took part in that agitation and have learned its lesson. Directly the British Government asserts its technical right of veto, a similar agitation to get rid of all obnoxious restraints would arise in Ireland.
If anything could increase the danger of friction, it would be the scheme favoured by Mr. Erskine Childers and other Liberals of submitting constitutional questions to the decision of the British Privy Council reinforced by Irish judges. Either these judges would concur in verdicts given against the pretensions of the Irish Parliament or they would not. If they did concur, there would be a fierce outcry against the right of judges appointed under the Union Government to nullify Acts of the Irish Legislature. But if they did not concur, the patriotic indignation with which a decision over the heads of the Irish representatives would be received is easy to foresee. It would be a matter of the greatest difficulty to enforce any such decision when the Irish Government, supported by an agitation in the country, refused to be bound by it. The situation thus created has no parallel in the case of the colonies. In Canada or Australia, where the legislative power is divided between federal and provincial Parliaments, a decision that the one legislature is incompetent affirms the competence of the other. Both legislatures have on the spot proper means of enforcing, by judicial and executive authority, decisions which are within their powers. The case of Ireland is fundamentally different. There can be no half-way house between keeping Ireland a partner in all our legislative and judicial activities, or giving to her with a separate Executive uncontrolled and unchecked rights of internal sovereignty.
VII
THE ULSTER QUESTION
BY THE MARQUIS OF LONDONDERRY, K.G.
In the Home Rule controversy to-day Ulster occupies the place of public interest. Lord Rosebery upon one occasion committed himself to the opinion that, before Home Rule was conceded by the Imperial Parliament, England, as the predominant member of the partnership of the three kingdoms, would have to be convinced of its justice.[62] He did not foresee that the party of which he was then the leader would, under duress, abandon even the pretence of consulting the "predominant partner," much less be guided by its wishes. But it has come to pass: and Ulster alone remains the stumbling-block to the successful issue of the plot against the Constitution. By Ulster we do not mean, as Mr. Sinclair points out, the geographical area, but the district which historical events have made so different in every respect from the rest of Ireland.
In the Act of Union I have a personal interest from family connection. I am convinced that Lord Castlereagh was absolutely right on both Imperial and Irish grounds. I feel that so far as Ireland is concerned the conditions and position of Ulster to-day afford ample confirmation: and of Ulster I may claim to have some knowledge. I represented County Down in the Imperial Parliament at Westminster before it was divided into constituencies, and in my later days I have maintained my close interest in Ulster. At the least, then, I may say that the temperament, the political and religious convictions, and the character of Ulster Unionists are not unknown to me.
I often read of "the Ulster bogey;" and I believe Mr. John Redmond once devoted an article in a Sunday paper to elaborate statistical calculations from which he drew the deduction that there was no Ulster question. Other Home Rulers, by an expert use of figures, show that there is a Home Rule majority in Ulster itself. To those who know Ulster their efforts fail to carry the slightest conviction. Figures, however skilfully chosen, articles in the press, however cleverly written, cannot destroy the facts of Ulster Unionist opposition to Home Rule, the intensity and seriousness of which is, I believe, only now beginning to be appreciated by His Majesty's Ministers.
I hear of "Ulster bigots," "Ulster deadheads," and assertions made that the opposition only proceeds from a few aristocratic Tory landlords. Hard words do us no harm; but abusive epithets will not lessen Ulster opposition. Indeed the more we are reviled by our opponents, the more we believe they recognize the futility of persuading us to accept Home Rule.
We read of the intense anxiety of Irish Nationalists on English platforms lest even the suspicion of intolerance should cloud their administration and legislation under Home Rule, with interest but without respect. We do not believe in these sudden repentances, and we have heard these professions time and again when the exigencies of the moment demanded them.
The spirit of change has even affected the Government. At first Ulster was to be ignored; now it is to be conciliated. There is no safeguard that they will not insert in the Bill at our request. The First Lord of the Admiralty has a list already prepared; and they will welcome additions. Mr. Redmond accepts them all; and the fact that he does it readily raises our suspicions of their worth. Has not Mr. John Dillon said that artificial guarantees in an Act of Parliament were no real protection,[63] and for once it is possible to agree with him.
Why should "bigots" be conciliated; or "deadheads" receive so much consideration? Why should the opposition of aristocratic Tory landlords be thought worthy of respect? Whenever have they been treated in this manner before by the Government in their schemes of legislation?
That our views receive so much attention is indeed the proof of the falsity of these hard names. Opposition to Home Rule in Ulster proceeds not from "bigots" or "deadheads," not from "Tories," or "aristocrats," or "landlords" exclusively. It is neither party question, nor class question. It has destroyed all differences between parties and classes. I doubt if there are any more democratic organizations than those of the Ulster Unionist Council, the Unionist Clubs, and the Orangemen. Nor are the religious bodies less popularly organized—the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterians, and other Protestant denominations have no class restrictions in their government. And as for party distinctions, those of us who took part in the old political contests before Home Rule became an urgent danger are now side by side in this greater fight for our very existence.
What stronger evidence that opposition to Home Rule in Ulster is no party question is to be found than in the disappearance of the Liberal Party. I can remember when it was powerful; but it has vanished before the threat of Home Rule. All attempts to resuscitate the corpse have failed, and a Liberal Party, independent of the Nationalists, representing Ulster constituencies in the House of Commons, in spite of repeated efforts, does not exist.
Let me impress upon the people of Great Britain that Ulster opposition to Home Rule is no party matter. It is an uprising of a people against tyranny and coercion; against condemnation to servitude; against deprivation of the right of citizens to an effective voice in the government of the country.
Mr. Birrell said recently at Bristol that Ulster would be right to fight if it were oppressed in its religion or despoiled of its property. We welcome his conversion. When he pleads for Ulster to wait until it is plain that oppression has come, we recall to mind the phrase so often on Liberal lips, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," and we say that we should be false to ourselves and to our trust if we were unprepared for what the future will bring under Home Rule.
For our opposition to Home Rule we are condemned by the Irish Nationalists as the enemies of our country. We believe ourselves to be its best friends. We believe Home Rule to be the greatest obstacle to Irish progress and prosperity. Irish Nationalists have made Home Rule their only idol and denounce every one who will not worship at its shrine. Every reform, unless they thought that it tended to advance Home Rule or magnify their powers, has received their hostility, sometimes open and avowed, at other times secret and working through devious ways.
No one who reads the history of Ulster can doubt that its inhabitants have not as much love of Ireland and as much wish to see her prosperous as the Nationalists. They indeed attribute all Irish shortcomings to the Union. Ulstermen, bearing in mind their own progress since the Union, not unnaturally decline to accept so absurd an argument. The Union has been no obstacle to their development: why should it have been the barrier to the rest of Ireland? Ulstermen believe that the Union with Great Britain has assisted the development of their commerce and industry. They are proud of the progress of Belfast and of her position in the industrial and shipping world. Without great natural advantages it has been built up by energy, application, clearheadedness and hard work. The opposition to Home Rule is the revolt of a business and industrial community against the domination of men who have shown no aptitude for either. The United Irish League, the official organization of the Home Rule Party, is, as a Treasurer once confessed, remarkably lacking in the support of business men, merchants, manufacturers, leaders of industry, bankers, and men who compose a successful and progressive community.[64] In the management of their party funds, their impending bankruptcy but a few years ago, the mad scheme of New Tipperary, and the fiasco of the Parnell Migration Company there is the same monotonous story of failure. Can surprise be felt that Ulstermen refuse to place the control of national affairs in the hands of those who have shown little capacity in the direction of their own personal concerns. What responsible statesman would suggest that the City of London, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Newcastle, or any advancing industrial and commercial centre in Great Britain should be ruled and governed and taxed, without the hope of effective intervention, by a party led by Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Lansbury? Yet Home Rule means much like that for Ulstermen, and the impossibility of the scheme is emphasized in the example of Ireland by religious differences which have their roots in Irish history.
Ulster's opposition to Home Rule is no unreasoning hate. It proceeds not from the few; it is not the outcome of political prejudice; it is the hostility of a progressive and advancing people who have made their portion of their country prosperous and decline to hand it over to the control of representatives from the most backward and unprogressive counties.
They are actuated by love of their country. They yield to no one in their patriotism and their desire for Ireland's welfare. They have always given their support to movements which have had for their objects the improvement of Irish conditions and the increase of Irish well-being. Their sympathies are with Irish social reform—and the sympathies of many of them with social reform of an advanced character. Contrast their attitude with that of the Irish Nationalist Party in respect of reforms which have proceeded from the Imperial Parliament and movements within Ireland herself.
Take the Irish Land Act of 1903, accepted by both political parties in Great Britain as affording the real solution of the Irish agrarian problem. What has been the Irish Nationalist attitude? Praise for it on platforms in the United States when it was essential to reach the pockets of subscribers by recounting a record of results gained from the expenditure of American donations; but in Ireland itself opposition to its effective working. Read Nationalist speeches and there is always running through them the fear that the Act by solving the land question would remove the real motive power which made Home Rule a living issue. Hence the interference to prevent landlords and tenants coming to an agreement over sales without outside assistance. So to-day Irish Nationalists are still endeavouring to keep alive the old bad feeling between landlord and tenant which they so successfully created in the seventies and eighties. What better proof of this deliberate attempt to prevent the success of a great reform is to be found than the frank utterance of Mr. John Dillon at Swinford.[65] "It has been said," he declared, "that we have obstructed the smooth working of the Act. I wish to heaven we had the power to obstruct the smooth working of the Act more than we did. It has worked too smoothly—far too smoothly to my mind.... Some men have complained with the past year that the Land Act was not working fast enough. For my part I look upon it as working a great deal too fast, and at a pace which has been ruinous to the people." What have the Ulster people done which can compare with this opposition to a measure that has admittedly effected a beneficial revolution in Irish agrarian life? Yet Mr. John Dillon is acclaimed as a true Irish patriot and we are denounced as the enemies of our country!
What greater blow to the continuance of land purchase than the Birrell Act of 1909. Granted that some revision of the law was necessary in respect of finance; yet, the Act of 1909 went far beyond finance. Any one with a knowledge of land purchase law knows that the measure of 1909 contained innumerable provisions of a technical character calculated to make the free sale between landlord and tenant difficult, and in respect of a large portion of Ireland impossible. No wonder it was welcomed by the Irish Nationalist Party, since it did so much to restore them to their self-elected position of counsellors and arbiters in the affairs of the tenants. And Ulster Unionists for declining to accede to this re-establishment of the old supremacy of the agitators are regarded as the opponents of liberty and freedom!
The same sad story of Nationalist opposition to Irish progress meets the student of the co-operative movement at every period of its existence. No one who knows Sir Horace Plunkett will believe for a moment that he was actuated by other than the sole desire to do something for Ireland's benefit. From the leaders of the Nationalist Party he has had no assistance, although they claim to be the only workers for Irish progress, and the co-operative movement was intended to complete the agrarian revolution. In more recent times the hostility of the Nationalist leaders has become bolder as they found a ready instrument in Mr. T. W. Russell in his official capacity as Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture.
The co-operative movement is flourishing in spite of the opposition of the Nationalist leaders. From Ulster it has received considerable support for the reason that Ulstermen believed it to be for the benefit of Irish agriculture. Their support, unlike Nationalist hostility, has not arisen from political motives. They do not believe that Sir Horace Plunkett has given a moment's thought to politics in their relation to the co-operative movement, and they have appreciated his movement either as co-operators or as supporters and members of the Irish Agricultural Organization Society. Contrast the Ulster welcome with the Nationalist opposition, and ask why we should be denounced as bad Irishmen and the Nationalists receive praise as true lovers of Ireland.
The co-operative movement has brought into existence another movement which has for its object the prosperity of Irish industries. The Industrial Development movement which seeks to bring before the people of Ireland and the Irish public bodies the excellence of Irish manufactures is as yet in its infancy. It has no political character, yet I should hesitate to say that official Irish Nationalism gives it hearty support. In Belfast, however, it has made great strides. It gains its support in Ulster not for any political reason, but simply and solely because the North of Ireland thinks that the industrial movement is to Ireland's advantage.
Where in these instances is our "bigotry" or our hostility to Irish progress? Does not the balance of credit when the comparison is made with the Nationalists come on the side of Ulster? The Nationalists show their unreasoning opposition by proclaiming that they would rather see Ireland in rags and poverty than abate their demand for Home Rule. Ulster Unionists desire to see Ireland prosperous and contented. For that reason they welcome all reforms and movements from whatever quarter which have this excellent end in view. They intend to offer the strongest and most unrelenting opposition to Home Rule not as political partisans for party gain, but as Irishmen determined to resist so reactionary a measure which they firmly believe will prove of the greatest evil to their unhappy country.