ULSTER AND HOME RULE

New Zealand Tablet, 17 August 1911, Page 1597

ULSTER AND HOME RULE

Under the heading ' Will Ulster Make Civil War?' Mr. William Redmond, M.P., contributes an article to the London Sunday Chronicle in the course of which he says: —Of all the questions surrounding the Home Rule problem there is not one which is more constantly referred to than the question of Ulster.' What will Ulster do, and what will Ulster say ? We hear these queries uttered upon every side, and it is not too much to say that, in all the debates as to Home Rule,, both within and without Parliament, the Ulster argument is the most frequently used. Indeed, there are many people, to my own knowledge, who base

their objection to Home Rule entirely upon the fact that they fear what the result of granting self-govern-ment to Ireland might be in the Northern province. Even those who have come to see that it is sheer absurdity to expect that an Irish Parliament would use its powers to injure England or to promote a scheme of separation between the two countries, even those who have come to recognise the hollowness of nearly all the common objections to Home Rule, even these people cling very often with the most surprising tenacity to the notion that Ulster ' will not have ' Home Rule, and that, therefore, it cannot, and should not, be granted.

Divided Ulster.

The fact is that in England there is quite as much ignorance of Ulster as there is about the rest of Ireland in the other three provinces. Some people hug the delusion that all Ulster is to 'a man ' against Home Rule. Those who take this.for granted never trouble to study election returns. If they did, they would discover, of course, that Ulster returns just seventeen anti-Home Rulers and just sixteen Home Rulers as strong in. their opinions as those who are elected for any other portions of the country. Over 44 per cent, of Ulster is Catholic in religion, but this does not, of course, indicate the percentage of Home Rulers, for it is a very well-known and fortunate thing that religious belief does not always indicate political opinion in Ulster. It is beyond all doubt, and was abundantly proved in the West Belfast election, that many Protestants are sound Home Rulers, At the very least, then, half Ulster, judged by any 'test, is in favour of self-government for Ireland, and hence it is really absurd for men to talk of Ulster as though the whole province were united against the national demand for a free form of government.

Could Ulster Arm

As to the talk we hear of Ulster '' arming,' it is sheer nonsense. It is no more easy for Ulster to arm than for any other part of the country to arm, and everybody knows that such a thing could not be done without the full knowledge of the Government, and no Government would permit it. There will be no ' civil war ' in Ulster, because there will be no need for it.