complete with the utmost possible rapidity the system of land purchase in Ireland.
It will also be our aim to help to the utmost, in the manner suggested in different articles in this book, in the development of the resources of Ireland. The Nationalist policy, which is imposed also on the Radical Party, is in fact more politics and less industry. Our policy is more industry and less politics.
The strongest objection, however, and, in my opinion, the insurmountable obstacle to Home Rule, is the injustice of attempting to impose it against their will upon the Unionists of Ulster. The only intelligible ground upon which Home Rule can now be defended is the nationality of Ireland. But Ireland is not a nation; it is two nations. It is two nations separated from each other by lines of cleavage which cut far deeper than those which separate Great Britain from Ireland as a whole. Every argument which can be adduced in favour of separate treatment for the Irish Nationalist minority as against the majority of the United Kingdom, applies with far greater force in favour of separate treatment for the Unionists of Ulster as against the majority of Ireland.
To the majority in Ireland Home Rule may seem to be a blessing, but to the minority it appears as an intolerable curse. Their hostility to it is quite as strong as that which was felt by many of the Catholics of Ireland to Grattan's Parliament. They, too, would say, as the Catholic Bishop of Waterford said at the time of the Union, that they "would prefer a Union with the Beys and Mamelukes of Egypt to the iron rod of the Mamelukes of Ireland."
The minority which holds this view is important in numbers, for it comprises at the lowest estimate more than a fourth of the population of Ireland. From every other point of view it is still more important, for probably the minority pays at least half the taxes and does half the trade of Ireland. The influence and also the power of the minority is enormously increased by the way in which its numbers are concentrated in Belfast and the surrounding counties.
The men who compose this minority ask no special privilege. They demand only--and they will not demand in vain--that they should not be deprived against their will of the protection of British law and of the rights of British citizenship.
CONTENTS.
PREFACE
By the Rt. Hon. A. Bonar Law, M.P.
INTRODUCTION
By the Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Carson, K.C., M.P.
HISTORICAL
I. A NOTE ON HOME RULE
By the Rt. Hon. A.J. Balfour, M.P.
II. HISTORICAL RETROSPECT
By J.R. Fisher
CRITICAL
III. THE CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION
By George Cave, K.C., M.P.
IV. HOME RULE FINANCE
By the Rt. Hon. J. Austen Chamberlain, M.P.
V. HOME RULE AND THE COLONIAL ANALOGY
By L.S. Amery, M.P.
VI. THE CONTROL OF JUDICIARY AND POLICE
By the Rt. Hon. J.H. Campbell, K.C., M.P.
VII. THE ULSTER QUESTION
By the Marquis of Londonderry, K.G.
VIII. THE POSITION OF ULSTER
By the Rt. Hon. Thomas Sinclair.
IX. THE SOUTHERN MINORITIES
By Richard Bagwell, M.A.
X. HOME RULE AND NAVAL DEFENCE
By Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, M.P.
XI. THE MILITARY DISADVANTAGES OF HOME RULE
By the Earl Percy.
XII. THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY UNDER HOME RULE
(i.) The Church View
By the Rt. Rev. C.F. D'Arcy, Bishop of Down.
(ii.) The Nonconformist View
By Rev. Samuel Prenter, M.A., D.D. (Dublin).
CONSTRUCTIVE
XIII. UNIONIST POLICY IN RELATION TO RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN IRELAND
By the Rt. Hon. Gerald Balfour.
XIV. THE COMPLETION OF LAND PURCHASE
By the Rt. Hon. George Wyndham, M.P.
XV. POSSIBLE IRISH FINANCIAL REFORMS UNDER THE UNION
By Arthur Warren Samuels, K.C.
XVI. THE ECONOMICS OF SEPARATISM
By L.S. Amery, M.P.
XVII. PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION
By the Rt. Hon. Walter Long, M.P.
XVIII. IRISH POOR LAW REFORM
By John E. Healy, Editor of the "Irish Times."
XIX. IRISH EDUCATION UNDER THE UNION
By Godfrey Locker Lampson, M.P.
XX. THE PROBLEM OF TRANSIT AND TRANSPORT IN IRELAND
By an Irish Railway Director.
INTRODUCTION
BY THE RIGHT HON. SIR EDWARD CARSON, M.P.
The object of the various essays collected in this book is to set out the case against Home Rule for Ireland, and to re-state Unionist policy in the light of the recent changes in that country. The authors are not, however, to be regarded as forming anything in the nature of a corporate body, and no collective responsibility is to be ascribed to them. Each writer is responsible for the views set out in his own article, and for those alone. At the same time, they are all leaders of Unionist thought and opinion, and their views in the main represent the policy which the Unionist Government, when returned to power, will have to carry into effect.
Among the contributors to the book are an ex-Premier, four ex-Chief Secretaries for Ireland, an ex-Lord Lieutenant, two ex-Law officers, and a number of men whose special study of the Irish question entitles them to have their views most carefully considered when the time comes for restoring to Ireland those economic advantages of which she has been
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