It would not be the first time, nor the latest since Castlereagh, when the extreme Protestant Unionists of this country conspired with the Tory Ultramontanes of the Vatican to traffic away the liberties of Ireland.[55]
Amid all these doubts and perplexities we shall be wise to stick fast to the central doctrine that civil liberty and religious liberty stand together. This is the one truth that emerges from the history of Europe during the last three centuries. Wherever we look—whether in Germany, France, Holland, Scotland, or England—we see that these two rights have always gone hand in hand.
Is there, indeed, a single instance in human history when the grant of civil liberty has led to the forging of religious chains? Look to the West, and note how, in the freest countries of the world—in the United States and Canada, where there is not even a shadow of an establishment for any form of religion—every kind of human faith lives together in simple human brotherhood, and draws from that brotherhood new food for the refreshment of mankind. In Ireland the one reason why the religious quarrel has been maintained is to be found in the absence of civil liberty. At every crisis of Ireland's fate the passion of religious hatred has been worked—then as now—in order to prolong civil and political despotism.
May we not be sure that Home Rule, instead of strengthening this evil tendency, will weaken it? May we not be equally sure that it will take no blood or muscle from the cause of true religion, certain to flourish with greater richness and power where Christian love prevails?
Is it possible, in short, that in Ireland alone, of all countries, freedom should mean persecution? On the contrary, is it not far more likely that Home Rule for Ireland will mean neither Rome Rule nor Orange Rule, but the "rule of the best for the good of all"?
FOOTNOTES:
[51] See [Appendix A] for the text of the Bill.
[52] The priests have now practically complete power of dismissal over the elementary teachers in the Irish schools. The only appeal is to the Bishops.
[53] In his "History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century." That book is one of the most conscientious pieces of work in all modern historical literature. It should be read by all who wish to gain a thorough understanding of the Irish problem.