Is Ulster Right?

by Anonymous

Pledges in the following form were presented for signature to all candidates by the United Irish League (except of course in north-east Ulster):-

"I -- hereby pledge myself, if elected to represent the -- Division on the County Council, to promote the interests of the United Irish League, and to resign my position whenever called upon to do so by the -- Divisional Executive."

So completely has the policy been carried out that by 1911, to quote the words of Mr. FitzGibbon, M.P. (to whom I have previously referred):-

"There was not a landlord in the country who could get his agent returned as District Councillor or County Councillor, or even his eldest son or himself. The Organization had emancipated the people; it had given them the power which their enemies had wielded; it had cleared the road for Ireland's freedom."

At present Unionists and Nationalists are pretty evenly divided in the County Councils of Ulster; in the other three Provinces amongst 703 County Councillors there are only fifteen Unionists. In other words, the Act has enabled the Nationalist party to carry out the plan laid down by Lalor of taking quiet and peaceable possession of all the rights and powers of government, as a stepping-stone towards Independence.

Of course it may be said with much truth that if the large majority of the people are Nationalists they are perfectly justified in choosing Nationalists as their representatives. But that is not the point. The real point is that in spite of the protestations of the Nationalists at the time of the passing of the Act, politics in their bitterest form have been brought in, and the Unionist minority have been deprived of all share in the local government of the country.

To illustrate this still further, I may add that a General Council of County Councils was formed in 1900, for the purpose of promoting a fair and equitable administration of the Act. In order that the Ulster Councils might unite with the others, it was agreed that politics should be excluded. But after the election of 1902, that agreement was abandoned; and, rather than take part in what had become a mere political gathering, the Ulster representatives withdrew. Left to themselves, the Nationalist General Council in 1906 passed the following resolution:-

"That the Irish people are a free people, with a natural right to govern themselves; that no Parliament is competent to make such laws for Ireland except an Irish Parliament, sitting in Dublin; and that the claim by other bodies of men to make laws for us to govern Ireland is illegal, unconstitutional, and at variance with the rights of the people."

If such a body as the General Council of County Councils pass a resolution like this, is there much probability that the Nationalist Parliament will refrain from doing the same, should the Imperial Parliament attempt to exercise the power given to it by the present Bill, and to legislate for Ireland?

But again it may be said that though the Councils have thus become political bodies, they have conducted their business so admirably that their conduct is a powerful argument to show that a Nationalist Parliament will be equally practical and liberal. This is the view put forward by Nationalist orators and their humble follower Mr. Birrell, who in November 1911, informed his friends at Bristol that the Irish had shown a great capacity for local government and that from what people who had seen a great deal of the south and west of Ireland told him there was no fear of persecution or oppression by the Catholic majority of their Protestant fellow-subjects. In support of this, various facts are adduced, which it is well to examine in detail, remembering the poet's words that