A HOME RULER AND BELFAST.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1025, 30 March 1912, Page 4

A HOME RULER AND BELFAST.

Mr James Douglas, a leaderwriter on the Morning Deader and the new literary editor of the Daily News, who is a Home Ruler, writes in the Leader: —“I have lately visited Bellast, aud I feel it is my duty to warn the Liberal party that Belfast is in earnest, and that it is a capital error to treat its calm determinations as if it were negligible. I have always held that the key of the Irish problem is Belfast, aud that it is fatuous folly to shut our eyes to that plain fact. In the past too little attention has been paid to the powerlul position which Belfast holds, aud it has been too readily assumed tnat Belfast can be subjugated by force, Belfast may be led, but she cannot be driven. Her opposition to Home Rule is partly racial, partly religious, and partly commercial and industrial. It is a terrible combination, lor it is based upon three passionate principles Lr which men are ready to lay down their lives, if need be—their race, their faith, aud their bread and butter. After three visits to Belfast during the past year, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that its antagonism to Home Rule has hardened into a defiance. Not much has been done to woo aud win this watchful aud suspicious race, which is more Scottish than the Scotch, aud more Irish than the Irish.