THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, JULY 5, 1892. THE ULSTER QUESTION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2378, 5 July 1892, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, JULY 5, 1892. THE ULSTER QUESTION.

We publish in another column an article which appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette, from the pen of “ An Ulster Protestant.” PeruSalofit will at once show the character of Northern opposition to Home Rule. It really comes from the Orangemen, and they consist chiefly of working men. Poor men ! they do not know what they are fighting for. They are simply the tools of the landlords. Orangeismdid not spring into existence, immediately after the battle of the Boyne. William, Prince of Orange, was about 100 years dead and buried before the Orange Institution was even thought of. ~ •-“ism arose in the following Uran ■ .ai or ds were persecuting w a y :_lhelan. ..* K aswellas the Protestants of the noK.., . .

the Catholics of the south, and the people in both places were combining together to resist their rapacity. In the south were the Whiteboys and Ribbon Men, and in the north the Hearts of Oak and Hearts of Steel. These were secret societies formed lor mutual protection against the rapacity of the landlords, and so powerful were they that the authorities became alarmed lest both the north and the south should combine and form one party. Realising the danger of the situation the northern landlords granted to their tenants what has ever since been known as the Ulster Tenant Right, and then raised the religious cry about Catholic ascendancy. This was during the time of Grattan’s Parliament, and a move was then on foot to remove the disabilities under which the Catholics suffered. To resist the removal of Catholic disabilities was the pretext for forming Orange Lodges, but in reality the object was to prevent a fusion of the Protestant Hearts of Oak and Catholic Whiteboys. It was the old policy of “ divide and govern,” and those who adopted this method were wise in their generation, because only for the religious feuds thus engendered Ireland would have asserted her rights one hundred years ago. There is nothing capable of arousing such implacable hatred and converting men into fiends as a religious feud. This the governors of Ireland know; this Lord Salisbury knows, and he is now appealing to it, yet he is supported by Catholic landlords. What does this show V Is it not as plain as a pikestaff that it is a cry got up to prolong the reign of Toryism, and the privileges of landlords? Catholic landlords, headed by the Duke of Norfolk, and Orange working men combining together to resist Home Rule. This in itself is qui.e enough. As regards the assertion that Catholics would persecute Protestants, the idea is too ridiculous to require refutation. The age of religious persecution is past; to attempt such a thing at the present time would bring down upon Ireland the wrath not only of England, but the civilised world. But it is the proud boast of the Irish Catholics that never, in the whole history of the race, has there been one instance of persecution for conscience sake amongst them. When Queen Mar/ was persecuting her Protestant subjects England, the Catholics of Dublin bft&tpd !M houses in their city, and there gave shelter to Protestant Englishmen, who had to fly from their homos. When King James fled from England, he called together an Irish Parliament, composed chiefly of Catholics, and the first Act passed was one giving equal liberty to all religious communities. When reforms were effected, under which Irish corporations could elect their own mayors, an arrangement was arrived at under which Catholics and Protestants occupied the positions alternately. For instance, in Dublin, the Catholics are three to one. Yet, until the Parnell movement, every second year a Protestant was elected Lord Mayor. Thousands of instances like these could be cited to show that Irish Catholics never persecuted for conscience sake : indeed, it is said that it is the only country in Europe which never spilled one drop of Jewish blood. Mr Leckie, the great Protestant historian, at page o8i), vol. 2, in his “ England in the Eighteenth Century ” says

Among the Catholics at least, ho says “ religious intolerance has never been a prevailing vice, and those who have studied closely the history and character of the Irish people, can hardly fail to be struck with the deep respect for religion in every form which they have commonly

J evinced. Their original conversion to Christianity was probably accompanied by less violence and bloodshed than that of any equally considerable nation in Europe; and in spite of the fearful calamities that followed the Reformation, it is a memorable fact that not a single Protestant suffered for his religion in Ireland during all the period of the Marian persecution in England. The treatment of Bedell during the savage outbreak of 1041, and the Act establishing liberty of conscience passed by the Irish Parliament in 1989 in the full flush of the brief Catholic ascendancy under James the Second, exhibit very remarkably this aspect of the Irish character ; and it was displayed in another form scarcely less vividly during the Quaker missions which began towards the close of the Commonwealth, and continued with little intermission for two generations.”

It is very hard on Irish Catholics after having such a splendid record, to be spoken of by the Prime Minister of England in the tones he has lately adopted, but he is a bigot at any rate; he would persecute the Nonconformists as well as the Catholics, and very possibly he is not to be accepted as a true type of the Englishman of the present day.

TEMPERANCE. We have frequently in these columns suggested a scheme for compensating publicans. It is, as our readers are aware, to increase license fees, and apply the amount to compensating publicans whose houses have been shut up. The suggestion has been taken up, and the principle is embodied in a bill, which the publicans intend to introduce into Parliament. This bill proposes to take a part of the fees paid at present, as well as increase the license fees, and pay the result into a fund for giving compensation. The temperance party are most determined in their opposition to the scheme, but it is our opinion that the result of their action will be to alienate sympathy from them and throw them back many years. It is useless for either the temperance people or the publicans to think they will get all their own way. The extremes on either side never do. A moderate and middle course is the safest, and, without doubt, that is the one that will eventually be adopted.