Against Home Rule | Page 6

into two political camps, and, instead of uniting for their common welfare, each attempted to cast upon the other the burden of the economic catastrophe. To sum up in the words of Mr. Amery--
"The evils of economic Separatism, aggravated by social evils surviving from the Separatism of an earlier age, united to revive a demand for the extension and renewal of the very cause of those evils."
The political demand for the repeal of the Act of Union, which had lain dormant for so many years, was revived by the energies of Isaac Butt. He found in the Irish landlords, smarting under the disestablishment of the Irish Church, a certain amount of sympathy and assistance, but the "engine" for which Finton Lalor had asked in order to draw the "repeal train," was not discovered until Parnell linked the growing agrarian unrest to the Home Rule Campaign. This is not the place to tell again the weary story of the land war or to show how the Irish Nationalists exploited the grievances of the Irish tenants in order to encourage crime and foment disloyalty in the country. It is sufficient to say that this conflict--the conduct of which reflects little credit either upon the Irish protagonists or the British Government which alternately pampered and opposed it--was ended, for the time at least, by the passing of Mr. Wyndham's Land Act. We look forward in perfect confidence to the time when that great measure shall achieve its full result in wiping out the memory of many centuries of discord and hatred. But the Separatist movement, which has always been the evil genius of Irish politics, has not yet been completely exorcised. The memory of those past years when the minority in Ireland constituted the only bulwark of Irish freedom and of English liberty, has not yet passed away. The Irish Nationalist party since Parnell have spared no exertions to impress more deeply upon the imaginations of a sentimental race the memory of those "ancient weeping years." They have preached a social and a civil war upon all those in Ireland who would not submit their opinions and consciences to the uncontrolled domination of secret societies and leagues.
The articles upon the Ulster question by Lord Londonderry and Mr. Sinclair show that the Northern province still maintains her historic opposition to Irish Separatism and Irish intrigue. She stands firmly by the same economic principles which have enabled her, in spite of persecution and natural disadvantages, to build up so great a prosperity. She knows well that the only chance for the rest of Ireland to attain to the standard of education, enlightenment and independence which she has reached, is to free itself from the sinister domination under which it lies, and to assert its right to political and religious liberty. Ulster sees in Irish Nationalism a dark conspiracy, buttressed upon crime and incitement to outrage, maintained by ignorance and pandering to superstition. Even at this moment the Nationalist leagues have succeeded in superseding the law of the land by the law of the league. We need only point to the remarks which the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland and Mr. Justice Kenny have been compelled to make to the Grand Juries quite recently, to show what Nationalist rule means to the helpless peasants in a great part of the country.
But the differences which still sever the two great parties in Ireland are not only economic but religious. The general slackening of theological dispute which followed the weary years of religious warfare after the Reformation, has never brought peace to Ireland. In England the very completeness of the defeat of Roman Catholicism has rendered the people oblivious to the dangers of its aggression. The Irish Unionists are not monsters of inhuman frame; they are men of like passions with Englishmen. Though they hold their religious views with vigour and determination, there is nothing that they would like more than to be able to forget their points of difference from those who are their fellow Christians. It is perhaps necessary to point out once again that the Roman Catholic Church is a political, as well as a religious, institution, and to remind Englishmen that it is by the first law of its being an intolerant and aggressive organisation. All Protestants in Ireland feel deep respect for much of the work which is carried on by the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. They gladly acknowledge the influence of its priesthood in maintaining and upholding the traditional morality and purity of the Irish race. They venerate the memories of those brave Irish priests who defied persecution in order to bring succour to their flocks in time of need. But they are bound to deal with the present political situation as they find it. They are determined that no Church,