1SHQMERULE 
 ROME RULE? 
 
 JOSEPH HOCKING
 
 f 
 
 I LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 IS HOME RULE 
 ROME RULE?
 
 &f 6 '. 
 
 IS HOME RULE 
 ROME RULE? 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH HOCKING 
 
 Author of "Th$ Purple Robe," "The Scarlet Woman," etc. etc. 
 
 WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO 
 1912
 
 TO MY FRIENDS IN IRELAND. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIENDS, 
 
 Will you, who shewed me so much kindness 
 during my stay in the Emerald Isle, accept the 
 dedication of this book ? Before my visit I was 
 a stranger to you all, yet in Ulster, in Leinster and 
 Munster, you seemed to vie with each other as to 
 who should give me the wannest welcome. Some 
 of you are Unionists, and some are Home Rulers ; 
 most of you are Protestants, while others are not 
 Protestants ; but whatever your opinions on political 
 or religious matters, each of you tried to give me the 
 information I sought, and to let the light shine on 
 dark places. 
 
 I cannot expect you to agree with all my con- 
 clusions ; many of you will doubtless think I have 
 wandered far away from the true path. But this 
 I fain would believe : all of you will credit me with 
 sincerity, and with trying, in however faulty a 
 
 fashion, to express my honest convictions. 
 
 5
 
 6 DEDICATION. 
 
 And you would not have me be unfaithful to the 
 truth as I see it, even if by so doing I might advocate 
 what you ardently believe, would you ? 
 
 With heartfelt thanks for your great generosity, 
 and with many happy memories of the land of the 
 shamrock. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 JOSEPH HOCKING. 
 
 Priors Corner, 
 
 Totteridge, Herts. 
 March, 1912.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 "!F Home Rule did not mean Rome Rule, if by 
 granting Ireland what the larger part of its popula- 
 tion demands we were sure that we were not handing 
 over the Protestants of the country to the mercy 
 of Rome, I should not fear it. But there lies the 
 difficulty. Would not Home Rule for Ireland mean 
 the complete domination of the country by the 
 priests, who receive their orders from Rome ? " 
 
 These remarks were made to me by an intelligent 
 man some time ago, when we were talking together 
 about the measure which, according to all proba- 
 bility, is about to be brought before Parliament by 
 the present Government. That they represent the 
 feelings of a large body of people in the country 
 I have every reason to believe, while from a great 
 number of letters I have lately received from Ireland 
 I am convinced that the Protestants of that country 
 fear Home Rule as they might fear a pestilence. 
 
 Moreover, if Home Rule means Rome Rule, or 
 even if it means anything like a permanent increase 
 of Papal control over the destinies of Ireland, I am 
 certain it would be the duty of England to oppose it by 
 every lawful means. For Rome Rule means corrup- 
 
 7
 
 8 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 tion, decadence, ruin. In saying this, I am moved 
 by no unkind feelings towards Roman Catholics 
 as individuals. I have no doubt that among them 
 are to be found honest, loyal, noble people, as they 
 are to be found among other religious communities. 
 I believe also that no Roman Catholic should suffer 
 any disability, of any kind whatever, because of his 
 faith. Religious beliefs are sacred, and as long as 
 the exercise of those religious beliefs does not interfere 
 with loyal citizenship, no one should suffer in 
 consequence. As a convinced Protestant, I must 
 grant to others the liberties and privileges I claim for 
 myself. To ( make any man suffer for his faith is 
 a crime, and opposed to the very genius of the 
 principles of Religious Liberty which have been such 
 a factor in the making of our Empire. 
 
 Admiration for many Roman Catholics as in- 
 dividuals, however, must not close our eyes to 
 the truth ; and the piety and loveableness of many 
 Romanists do not nullify the truth that Rome 
 Rule means corruption, decadence, and ruin. We 
 must always distinguish between the individual and 
 the system. Almost without exception, wherever 
 Romanism has ruled, decay and ruin have followed. 
 No one having the slightest knowledge of the life 
 and history of the nations of the world can deny 
 this. Rome Rule in Italy meant weakness and 
 decay, and it was only when Italy threw off the 
 shackles of Rome's dominion that Italy became
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 9 
 
 re-born and prosperous. Rome Rule in France has 
 meant a nation of atheists, Rome Rule in Portugal 
 has meant revolution, Rome Rule in Spain has made 
 what was at one time the most powerful nation in 
 Europe a byword and a reproach. Spain is a nation 
 struggling to be free, struggling ineffectually, to rise 
 out of the slough into which it has sunk because 
 the Roman Church, with an iron hand, keeps it 
 enslaved and submerged. 
 
 This, as far as I know, is not denied by any im- 
 partial historian, and thus if in Ireland Home Rule 
 meant Rome Rule, it would be the duty of English- 
 men to make any Home Rule measure impossible. 
 
 With Home Rule as a great political measure 
 I have no concern in this inquiry. That is a matter 
 for the politician pure and simple. Thus, in this 
 little book I shall not pretend to discuss the diffi- 
 culties of Irish finance, or of Irish representation in 
 Parliament, or of Home Rule in relation to the 
 Army, the Navy, or Commerce ; my purpose is to 
 try and arrive at an answer to a definite question 
 Does Home Rule mean Rome Rule ? 
 
 As in this introductory chapter I am obliged to 
 be somewhat personal and reminiscent, I may say 
 that for many years I have been unable to make up 
 my mind on the question. For many years I have 
 in various ways expressed my convictions con- 
 cerning the evils of Rome Rule, but I have never 
 been completely convinced as to what would be the
 
 io IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 result of Irish Home Rule. Academically, I was 
 a Home Ruler ; that is, I believed in the justice of 
 allowing a nation like Ireland to deal with purely 
 Irish matters in their own way, subject to Imperial 
 control. But when I considered the details of the 
 case, when I reflected that three-fourths of the 
 Irish people were under the control of the priests, 
 and when I remembered the attitude of the 
 Roman Church towards Protestantism, I was afraid ; 
 neither could I see my way to hand over a quarter 
 of the nation to the tender mercies of a hierarchy 
 which is the sworn foe to Protestant liberties. 
 
 I am stating these things, not that I regard my 
 own opinions and fears as of great importance, but 
 because I have reason to believe that they express 
 the feelings of millions in our land, and because 
 they are not unimportant when considered in the 
 light of what I shall have to say later in these pages. 
 
 The Home Rule question has now become more 
 than a subject to be dealt with in debating societies. 
 It is true that at the election which took place at 
 the close of 1910, the Lords' Veto Bill loomed largely 
 in the public press, and was discussed as the main 
 issue on thousands of platforms ; but multitudes 
 believed that behind this lay the Irish question. 
 Indeed, Mr. Balfour declared that in voting for 
 the present Government, people were voting for 
 Home Rule, while Mr. Asquith admitted that the 
 settlement of the Irish problem was an integral
 
 INTRODUCTORY. n 
 
 part of his policy. Directly, therefore, the Lords' 
 Veto Bill was passed, even though the National 
 Insurance Bill became the chief subject of discussion 
 in Parliament, Irish people prepared for battle. 
 Home Rule and anti-Home Rule campaigns were 
 arranged, and the nation as a whole knew that this 
 thorny subject was again to be foremost. The 
 Nationalists were repeating their time-worn faith 
 that Ireland would never be happy, never at peace, 
 never contented until Home Government was granted 
 to them ; while the Unionists of Ulster were 
 vehement in their declaration that, come what would, 
 they would never be subject to an Irish Parliament. 
 In the summer of 1911 1 received a letter from one 
 of the Ulster papers, asking me, in view of an impor- 
 tant visit from Sir Edward Carson, to send a 
 message from the English Nonconformist standpoint 
 to help Ulster Unionists in their fight. To this I 
 sent no answer. I was not convinced that Home 
 Rule meant Rome Rule ; moreover, I felt that my 
 letter might be misunderstood. I could not sub- 
 scribe to much of the Ulster policy, neither did I 
 sympathise with some of the reasons urged for 
 denouncing the present Government. A little later, 
 however, I received a request from the editor of 
 another Belfast paper, asking me to send through 
 its pages, and the means it had at its disposal, a 
 message to English Nonconformists, urging them to 
 oppose any Home Rule measure.
 
 12 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 In reply, I sent a letter, which was widely quoted 
 in the Irish newspapers, and which lies before me as 
 I write. As this letter brought me a vast amount 
 of correspondence, and led indirectly, if not directly, 
 to my writing this book, I will quote certain parts 
 of it which bear on the question at issue. 
 
 " Many Nonconformists in England are convinced 
 Home Rulers. The idea appeals to their sense of 
 justice : it also seems to them that the policy of the 
 majority in Ireland managing Irish affairs is a 
 sound one. Another section is entirely undecided 
 what to do. They are constantly hearing reasons 
 why Home Rule should be granted to Ireland, but 
 they know little of the condition of Ireland, nor of 
 the strong feeling in Ulster against it. They are 
 eagerly awaiting light and leading on the matter. 
 They are anxious that justice shall be done, but they 
 fear Rome Rule, and yet they are not convinced 
 that Home Rule means Rome Rule. Only a small 
 section of English Nonconformists are entirely con- 
 vinced that Home Rule would be unsafe as a principle 
 and disastrous in its effects. What is needed is a 
 complete knowledge of facts. ... I am constantly 
 receiving messages from Ulster to the effect that 
 Home Rule would mean Rome Rule. Convince the 
 English Nonconformist of that, and the thing is as 
 dead as Queen Anne. But he must be convinced ; 
 and here lies the gist of what I wish to say. 
 
 " Belfast is a rich city. Ulster has many speakers
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 13 
 
 eloquent, learned, and enthusiastic. Let Belfast 
 send a large number of its best speakers and lecturers 
 to England, and let them teach us concerning the 
 inwardness of this question. Let them prove to 
 the English Nonconformist, by reasoning, by facts 
 from history, and from the very nature of Romanism, 
 that Home Rule means Rome Rule, and no English 
 Parliament will dare to pass it. Threats will not do 
 this ; wild talk about Ulster arming will not do it ; 
 but serious reasoning and statements of undeniable 
 and convincing facts will do it. 
 
 " Another thing. It is no use to come to English 
 Nonconformists and abuse the present Govern- 
 ment, and advocate its downfall. They remember 
 too vividly the injustice heaped upon them by the 
 Tory party. They are yet smarting under the 
 Sectarian Act of 1902, with all the suffering it 
 meant. ... If the people of Ulster fear the priests 
 of Ireland, English Nonconformists have need to 
 fear another kind of priest in England. That is why 
 we would support you to a man if we believed that 
 Home Rule would place you more under the Roman 
 Church power. I urge you therefore to send over 
 men to educate us. ... We do not cannot know 
 the facts of the case as you can ; but the English 
 Nonconformist has a great love for justice, and he 
 has a strong hatred of priestcraft in every form." 
 
 This letter, as I have said, was copied in the Irish 
 newspapers, and, as I was informed, caused an
 
 14 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 amount of controversy. Certain it is that my own 
 correspondence greatly increased, and letters from 
 every part of Ireland poured in upon me daily. 
 
 A little later I was led to write again to the same 
 newspaper, from which I will take the following : 
 
 " I make bold to assert that Home Rule stands or 
 falls as a great religious question. From the purely 
 academic standpoint the policy that Irish people 
 should manage Irish affairs seems just and reason- 
 able, and as such it appeals to millions of people in 
 this country. But at heart it cannot be looked 
 at from the purely academic standpoint. Every 
 student of history and every observer of the signs 
 of the times know what the claims of Rome are, 
 and what the influence of Rome really is. Thus the 
 question arises Can English Nonconformists vote 
 for the handing over at least a fourth of the Irish 
 people to the tender mercies of the three-fourths, 
 which three-fourths are in the main dominated by 
 the priests ? If it can be proved that the Irish 
 Protestants will have just treatment by the Roman 
 section, then the objection to Home Rule, as far as 
 the English Nonconformist is concerned, in the 
 main breaks down. But will they ? I have no 
 word to say against Romanists as individuals, but 
 I remember that the Romanists of Ireland, as else- 
 where, are under a hierarchy that hates Protestant- 
 ism and which, according to the very fundamentals 
 of the Roman faith, must seek to stamp out heresy.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 15 
 
 Moreover, as Protestantism is regarded as the worst 
 form of heresy, the result seems clear. 
 
 " But it is concerning this that we need light, and 
 it was for that reason I urged that Ulster should 
 send over its most learned, its most eloquent, and its 
 most trusted advocates. . . . 
 
 " That is why I desire to lift the question of 
 Home Rule out of the realms of party politics. 
 Make it a great religious question, and if you can 
 prove that Home Rule means simply putting the 
 priests in power, and make the English Noncon- 
 formists feel it, they will, in spite of John Redmond 
 and his followers, force the Liberal Government to 
 drop it from its programme. 
 
 " I notice in the Westminster Gazette the following 
 statement by Mr. John Redmond : 
 
 ' The allegation that in Ireland Protestants are 
 boycotted because they are Protestants, and that 
 this system of religious ostracism would be increased 
 under an Irish Parliament, is not only cruel, but 
 most offensive, because religious intolerance is 
 repugnant to the feelings of Irish Catholics ; and, 
 further, it is wicked, because neither now nor at any 
 other period in their history, have Irish Catholics 
 been guilty of persecution for conscience' sake.' 
 
 " Now, these words are true, or they are false. 
 If they are true, then much of the Nonconformist fear 
 is groundless ; but if they are false, they should be 
 proved to be false. And this should be done, not by
 
 16 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 men who desire to make party capital, but by those 
 who have a passionate love for truth and for religious 
 liberty and equality. Therefore, let those into whose 
 souls the iron has entered, who have seen religious 
 persecution with their own eyes, who can give details 
 as to names of persons, and places, and dates, come 
 and tell us what Rome does and is doing ; and let 
 them shew that these things are no accident, biit the 
 natural outcome of the system they fear, and which 
 dominates three-fourths of the people of Ireland." 
 
 I apologise for quoting at such length from these 
 letters, but I do so for a purpose. They will shew 
 at all events the attitude of mind with which I 
 approached the question, and they will shew that 
 I was deeply anxious to get at the truth. 
 
 Hosts of letters poured in, but in the main they 
 did not answer the questions I asked. There was 
 a multitude of words, but I got little light. My 
 correspondence, moreover, was very confused, and 
 often contradictory. One correspondent sent me 
 two or three cases of persecution, but did not suggest 
 that they represented the general feeling. One 
 writer told me that he saw nothing for it but leaving 
 the country if Home Rule passed, because he feared re- 
 ligious persecution ; while another, a Unionist, told me 
 that he lived in the south-west of Ireland where very 
 few Protestants lived, that he and his people were 
 farmers, and had been for several generations, and he 
 knew of no case of religious persecution. And so on.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 17 
 
 Meanwhile, numbers of people wrote saying that 
 if English people only knew the feelings of Irish 
 Protestants, if they saw Ireland as it really was, they 
 would be convinced that to break up the Union 
 between England and Ireland, and to grant a 
 Parliament in Dublin, would be little less than 
 a crime. They also urged that the only way to 
 understand the situation was to visit Ireland, talk 
 with her people, and to learn the facts, not as they 
 are represented by partisan newspapers, but by 
 interviews with representative people. 
 
 Accordingly, I arranged to pay a visit to the 
 Emerald Isle and study the question on the spot. 
 I had for months been reading such literature as I 
 was able to obtain, bearing on the various points at 
 issue and I determined that, as far as possible, I 
 would approach the subject with an absolutely open 
 mind ; that I would study all sides of the matter ; 
 that I would listen to the facts and arguments 
 adduced by representative people of various 
 parties, and draw my conclusions unfettered by 
 fear or favour. 
 
 Perhaps it may be well to reiterate that with 
 regard to Home Rule purely as a political question, 
 I do not propose to deal. And certainly I did not 
 have, neither have I now, any thought of party 
 politics. I do not possess the qualifications to 
 discuss the matter from the purely political aspect, 
 even if I had the inclination. It is probable that I 
 
 B
 
 iS IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 shall have to touch upon various points which may 
 seem to encroach upon the domain of the politician, 
 but if I do, it will be only because those points have 
 a very vital connection with the thought uppermost 
 in my mind, " Is Home Rule Rome Rule ? " 
 
 In looking over my notes I find that I had 
 lengthy interviews with at least fifty people. 
 These people were not taken at haphazard, but 
 in nearly every case they represented the best 
 thought of the parties to which they belonged. 
 I do not at the moment propose to give their names, 
 although I took careful note of them. Suffice to 
 say that one is a Lord Mayor of a great city, two 
 are members of the Irish Privy Council, two are 
 perhaps the largest employers of labour in the 
 country, one is a Roman Catholic bishop, five are 
 editors of the chief Irish newspapers, one is an 
 ex-priest, several hold high and honoured places 
 as ministers in the Protestant Churches of Ireland, 
 four are highly-respected members of the Quaker 
 community, three hold positions on the Irish Councils, 
 several are magistrates, some are farmers who 
 bought their farms under what is called the Wynd- 
 ham Land Act, while others are men holding no 
 office, but who represent the best thought of the 
 respectable citizens of the country. 
 
 I am afraid that I saw more Unionists than 
 Home Rulers, but that was because it was among 
 the Unionists that I found the belief most strongly
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 19 
 
 entertained that Home Rule meant handing over 
 the country to Rome, who would never rest until 
 Protestantism was dead. Besides, scores of people 
 had written me from Ulster telling me that English 
 people did not understand their case, and I was 
 determined to hear all they could tell me, and to 
 try to understand the force of their arguments. 
 
 Of course, I did not confine my enquiries to 
 the Protestant North, but went from Ulster to 
 Munster ; I also went to Dublin and its environs, 
 and tried to understand the trend of thought there. 
 During the whole of my stay I found the utmost 
 courtesy and kindness ; on all hands people were 
 eager to give me information, so that if I do not 
 understand the feeling of the country, it is not 
 because I did not hear a free expression of opinion. 
 
 Naturally, I do not claim a real intimacy with 
 Irish life ; that can only be obtained by living in 
 the country, breathing the atmosphere, and entering 
 into the life of the people. But I do claim that I 
 honestly tried to find out the truth concerning the 
 question which has troubled me for a long time, and 
 which gives the title to this little book. I also 
 tried to differentiate between prejudice and principle, 
 between hearsay and fact ; and while I am by 
 training and conviction a strong Protestant, I tried 
 to take an impartial view of the situation, and 
 to see facts from the standpoint of those between 
 whose opinions and mine the poles lie.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ULSTER. 
 
 IT may be well here if I devote a short chapter to 
 my impressions of the Protestant North ; for 
 while it is largely visited by English people, doubt- 
 less many who read these lines have no intimate 
 knowledge either of the great metropolis of Irish 
 commerce, or of the prevailing characteristics of 
 the people. To read much that is written in the 
 public press one might be led to believe that Belfast 
 is identical with a sour, morose, blood-thirsty 
 Orangeism ; that its people are an unlovely Puritanical 
 set, who see no good in anything outside their own 
 pet creeds, and who in thought and feeling are 
 little removed from the time of the Battle of the 
 Boyne, commemorated with so much enthusiasm 
 even in the present day. 
 
 Nothing is further from the truth. Certainly, they 
 are people of strong convictions, as I shall have to 
 shew presently. But to call them canting, hypo- 
 critical, sour, morose, or unreasoning, is libellous 
 in the highest degree. It is also cruel and wicked. 
 
 20
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ULSTER. 21 
 
 I write as I found, and I unhesitatingly assert that 
 nothing can be further from the truth. Of course, 
 there are extreme men and women among them, 
 as there are everywhere, and it is undoubtedly true 
 that the more pronounced Orange section still 
 entertains the prejudices and bitter feelings that 
 were born in the times of bloody strife and persecu- 
 tion. But these are only a comparatively small 
 section of the community, and do not represent 
 the larger life and thought of the great mass of the 
 people. 
 
 Belfast is another Manchester, but cleaner and 
 less smoky. It has fine public buildings, a splendid 
 system of tramways, and gives evidence on every 
 hand of a prosperous life. It has less poverty than 
 any town of its size in the United Kingdom, and 
 has less of the slum life than any great city with 
 which I am acquainted. The Lord Mayor quoted to 
 me with pride and satisfaction figures which shewed 
 how small was the percentage of pauperism in their 
 midst, and how well behaved was the whole 
 community. He also enlarged upon the general 
 well-being, especially of the Protestant parts of the 
 city and of the province, of the smallness of the 
 number of police in comparison with its population, 
 and of the general contentment which prevailed. 
 There is no doubt whatever that his pride was 
 justified. 
 
 It is impossible not to be impressed with the
 
 22 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 vigorous, keen-sighted life of this metropolis of 
 Northern Ireland. I had the privilege of being 
 present at the meeting of the City Council when 
 the Lord Mayor was elected for the third time to 
 his position of influence and honour, and at the 
 luncheon which followed, and as I studied the 
 faces of the members of the City Council I could not 
 help being impressed. They are strong, capable, 
 virile, thinking men, these citizens of the North of 
 Ireland. Men with conviction, and perseverance, 
 and courage, and grit. They would succeed any- 
 where, and almost under any circumstances. As I 
 talked with them I was reminded of the story told 
 about Mr. Gladstone. It is said that on one occasion 
 Huxley was staying at the house of Darwin \vhen 
 Gladstone paid them a flying visit. When the 
 great statesman had gone, Huxley asked Darwin 
 what he thought of him. " Think of him ! " cried 
 Darwin. " That is a man who if, unknown and 
 friendless, were turned out on Salisbury Plain with 
 only one garment to his back, would rise to the 
 foremost position of the country." 
 
 I know this has no direct connection with the 
 subject I have set out to discuss ; nevertheless, it 
 is well for us to understand the kind of men with 
 whom we have to deal. They are not tossed about 
 by every strange wind of doctrine. They are men with 
 strong convictions, who march steadily forward to- 
 wards the thing upon which they have set their minds,
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ULSTER. 23 
 
 Possibly this is largely owing to their religious 
 training. I should judge, although I did not attend 
 any of their churches, that they are strongly imbued 
 with the Calvinistic theology of their forefathers. 
 In the main, they are Presbyterians, for Presbyterian- 
 ism looms much larger than any other religious 
 community in the life of the city. And whatever 
 the Calvinistic theology has done for the world, 
 it has produced strong, virile men. All that grim 
 determination which characterises the Scotch also 
 characterises their theological descendants in the 
 great manufacturing and trading city of Belfast. 
 
 But a more kind-hearted and hospitable people 
 it would be difficult to find. I went there a perfect 
 stranger, and yet each seemed to vie with the other 
 in shewing me kindness. Although I did not know 
 a single soul in the city before I went there, numbers 
 of people offered me hospitality. At least a dozen 
 homes were offered me, and although I chose to 
 stay at an hotel, it was in opposition to the wish of 
 those for whom I shall never have anything but 
 the kindest feelings. People further removed 
 from the traditional bigots of whom many news- 
 papers have spoken so much, I never met. Whether 
 Belfast is right or wrong in the attitude it has taken, 
 that attitude cannot, as far as a stranger may judge, 
 be set down to the narrow bigotry or hatred to 
 their " fellow Christians," which seems to be the 
 opinion of many.
 
 24 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 Indeed, I am inclined to think there are some 
 who possess a spirit of toleration and broad-minded 
 charity which would be very difficult to find in 
 England. Moreover, as it is often said that the 
 Protestants of Belfast have no breadth of view, and 
 that the Roman Catholics are far more tolerant and 
 generous, I will give one striking instance which 
 illustrates another aspect of the question. 
 
 The largest linen manufactory in Ulster, perhaps 
 in the world, is known in Belfast as the York Street 
 Spinning Co. This company, at whose head is 
 Sir William Crawford, employs between 5,000 and 
 6,000 hands, many of whom are boys and girls, 
 and who are what is commonly known as " half- 
 timers," as far as their school life is concerned. 
 Among these boys and girls are a large number 
 of Roman Catholics. The company, on their own 
 initiative, provided and fitted out a day school for 
 these half-timers, and paid for their education. 
 For some time all went well. The Protestant boys 
 and girls were educated side by side with the Roman 
 Catholics, and no religious bias was given in their 
 education. The Roman Catholic parents were to 
 all appearances perfectly happy and contented with 
 the arrangement, as indeed it was natural they 
 should be. The school was good, and the circum- 
 stances under which they were educated were 
 favourable to the well-being of the young people. 
 
 Then the priest appeared. He visited the mills,
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ULSTER. 25 
 
 and told Sir William Crawford that he could not 
 allow Roman Catholic children to be educated side 
 by side with Protestants. Sir William urged in 
 reply that the children were perfectly happy, and 
 that the results were good. The priest replied that 
 he wished the children to have a Roman Catholic 
 education. The employer then told the priest that 
 as it seemed a pity to withdraw the children, he 
 would be pleased to offer] facilities for the clergy- 
 man of the Roman Catholic Church to come to 
 the schools and give the children instruction in their 
 own faith. The priest would not accept this. He 
 said he wanted a Roman Catholic atmosphere for 
 children of that faith, and nothing else would 
 satisfy him. He therefore withdrew all the Roman 
 Catholic children from the school (note the power 
 the priest must have to be able to do this), and placed 
 them in a Romanist school. In spite of this, however, 
 this " bigoted Protestant " continued to pay for 
 their education, not diminishing by one jot or tittle 
 the amount he had previously contributed for this 
 purpose. 
 
 And yet Sir William Crawford is a Presbyterian, 
 and a Protestant of Protestants. He is, if I remem- 
 ber aright, the son of a Presbyterian clergyman, and 
 has a son who is in the Presbyterian ministry and 
 labouring as a foreign missionary. I wonder whether 
 a similar instance of broad charity can be found 
 among those who condemn " Ulster bigotry." I
 
 26 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 wonder, too, whether in the whole annals of the 
 Church of Rome an action even remotely corre- 
 sponding to this can be found among its 
 convinced believers. 
 
 Another thing should be borne in mind. In 
 this city of Belfast, and indeed this is in the main 
 true of Ireland generally at least, so I was informed 
 in many quarters scarcely any of the drink shops 
 are kept or owned by Protestants ; and that but for 
 the numbers of people who pour in from the south 
 and west of Ireland, not only the pauper rate but 
 cases of drunkenness would be considerably reduced. 
 
 On the whole, Belfast is a sober, God-fearing city, 
 and the Protestants of Ulster a well-conducted, thrifty 
 people. The people retain many of the traits of 
 their Puritan ancestors. The Sabbath is far more 
 observed than in England, and its people respond to 
 the call of the church bells as in the days of their 
 forefathers. I am afraid that the vices common to 
 all great cities sadden the hearts of its best people ; 
 nevertheless, from all I could gather, it compares 
 favourably with any city of its size throughout the 
 United Kingdom. 
 
 Two other things strike one very forcibly in 
 visiting Ulster. There are two races there the 
 Irish and the English for that matter, the latter 
 are an amalgam of Scotch and English. And, as 
 was the case in Palestine two thousand years ago, 
 for all social purposes the Jews have no dealings
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ULSTER. 27 
 
 with the Samaritans. The Irish and the English 
 may meet in business ; they may meet sometimes 
 in relation to political matters, but there is practically 
 no social intercourse between them. The fact that 
 they have lived together on the same soil for three 
 hundred years does not seem to affect them ; and 
 nothing has eradicated the deep and vital distinc- 
 tions between the two people. No doubt their religion 
 has had a great deal to do with it. A thick and high 
 wall of partition has ever existed between Protestant 
 and Romanist ; and the English and Scotch portion 
 of the population is essentially Protestant, while the 
 Irish is essentially Catholic. 
 
 As far as I know, there have been during the 
 centuries scarcely any cases of conversion from one 
 faith to the other. Those who were sent to Ireland 
 as settlers by the British Government have retained 
 all the characteristics of the land from which they 
 came and there seems no possibility of a change. 
 Indeed, the Protestant portion of the population 
 does not call itself Irish, although it has been in 
 Ireland for hundreds of years. 
 
 A capital story is told of an Irish doctor in 
 a London hospital expressing sympathy with a 
 patient whose rich brogue at once proclaimed his 
 place of origin. 
 
 " You are an Irishman," said the doctor. 
 
 " Irishman," replied the other; " I am not an 
 Irishman."
 
 28 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 " But you have the brogue." 
 
 " Brogue ? That goes for nothing," was the reply. 
 
 " But you live in Ireland ? " 
 
 " Sure, and Ireland is the place where I was born 
 and reared." 
 
 " How long have you lived there ? " 
 
 " All my life." 
 
 " And your people ? " 
 
 " Sure, and my people have lived in Skibbereen 
 over two hundred years. They were planted there 
 in the time of Cromwell." 
 
 " But in that case," said the doctor, " you must 
 be Irish." 
 
 " Never a bit am I Irish ; I am English to the 
 backbone." 
 
 " How can you and your people live in a country 
 for over two hundred years and still not belong to 
 that country ? " 
 
 " Can't you see," said the man ; " didn't the chil- 
 dren of Israel live in Egypt for four hundred years, 
 but were they ever Egyptians ? And do you mean 
 to tell me that my family, because they have lived 
 in Ireland for two hundred years, are Irish ? No ; 
 we were English when we went there, and we are 
 English now." 
 
 That story gives a true idea of the Ulster Irishman 
 in this respect. Nothing has ever broken down their 
 racial distinctions. Nothing has ever destroyed the 
 fact that they are of English origin, and they mean
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ULSTER. 29 
 
 to remain English. Perhaps that is one reason why 
 the English portion of the population so strongly 
 opposes Home Rule. They fear that they would be 
 in a minority ; that they would be governed by Irish- 
 men with Irish ideas, and therefore they oppose it. 
 This fact, also, must be borne in mind. Because the 
 English and Scotch are intelligent, thrifty, vigorous, 
 strong, and therefore have become prosperous, 
 they look with a degree of scorn upon the poverty- 
 stricken and priest-ridden Irishman ; and they have 
 a feeling of indignation at the thought that they, who 
 have ever been the predominant race, should have 
 their laws made for them by the people whom they 
 so much despise. 
 
 The other fact is this. Protestantism in Ireland 
 means Protestantism. It is not a hybrid thing. 
 In this respect there is at present practically no 
 difference between the Episcopalian, the Presbyter- 
 ian, the Methodist and other Churches. For that 
 matter, all the Protestant Churches hold strongly 
 together. Episcopalians go to Wesleyan schools, 
 and vice versa, without thinking that they are 
 sacrificing any principle by so doing. 
 
 Moreover, any approach to what they call popery is 
 repugnant to them. There are practically no " high " 
 churches in the Episcopal Church of Ireland. In 
 the Protestant cathedrals, even, the services are of 
 a most simple nature, and as a rule there are no 
 attempts at decorations, or what is called " ornate "
 
 30 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 services. Consequently, the line of distinction 
 between Protestant and Catholic is very marked 
 indeed. They say, and perhaps they say truly, that 
 living in such close relationship with the Roman 
 Catholic and seeing what it has meant in the life 
 of the Irish people, has given them a strong repug- 
 nance to anything that savours of popery. If you 
 wish to hear the High Church party in England 
 denounced, and ritualism laughed at as a mere apeing 
 of popery talk to the Irish Episcopalian. He 
 scorns the very thought of it, and proclaims his 
 Protestantism in no uncertain ways. Not even the 
 Presbyterians, with all their strong hatred of the 
 papacy and with all their freedom from anything like 
 ritualistic pretensions, are more anti-papal i than the 
 Irish Episcopalian ; while, as for the Methodist and 
 the smaller communions, they are at one with 
 the great Presbyterian body in holding fast those 
 principles which they regard as the glory of the nation. 
 These two facts help to explain the antagonism 
 of the Protestants of Ireland especially those of 
 Ulster to the thought of Home Rule. Neverthe- 
 less, as I have before stated, nothing is further 
 from the truth than to think of them as sour and 
 bigoted. They are, in most respects, a broad- 
 minded, charitable people. But in this one respect 
 of hatred of popery, there can be no doubt to them 
 it means slavery something to be opposed as long 
 as they have breath.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE VOICE OF ULSTER. 
 
 THERE was but one topic in Ulster during the month 
 of January in the present year when I visited it. 
 All other subjects were swallowed up in it, or sunk 
 into insignificance compared with the one prevailing 
 question as to whether a law placing Ireland under 
 a Dublin Parliament was to be passed. But Home 
 Rule as such is not a matter for discussion ; the 
 day for that is passed. The people have made up 
 their minds ; they are convinced as to the evil of 
 Home Rule. The rights and wrongs of the matter 
 are not matters of debate ; the real thing at 
 issue is how they are to make their convictions felt. 
 Everywhere it is the same. In the streets, shops, 
 hotels, offices, clubs, homes, the one topic among 
 Nationalists is " Will Home Rule be granted ? " 
 and " How can we overcome the opposition of the 
 Unionists ? " while among the Unionists there is 
 everywhere expressed the determination to fight 
 the thing to the death. 
 
 The Nationalists, as far as I can gather, sum up 
 31
 
 32 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 their demand for Home Rule in very few words. 
 " Why do you want Home Rule ? " I asked again 
 and again of the Nationalists, both in Ulster in the 
 north and Munster in the south, and their replies 
 were almost identical " We want Home Rule 
 because we are Irishmen, and we want to govern 
 our country according to Irish ideas. At present 
 we are under an alien people. We are Irish, 
 not English. We are Catholics, while England is 
 Protestant." 
 
 They do not seem to think they will be better off 
 under a Dublin Parliament. They realise that during 
 the last quarter of a century much has been done 
 for them. They admit that England has poured 
 much wealth into the nation, and that they are 
 indebted to the British Government for their 
 district councils, their means for purchasing their 
 own farms, and for old age pensions. For the latter 
 boon they seem to be especially grateful, and tell of 
 the contrast between the present comfort of the 
 old people and their one-time sordid, cankering 
 poverty. They own, too, that Ireland is on the way 
 to being prosperous. 
 
 " Wyndham's Land Act," said one farmer to me, 
 " has changed the face of the country. Instead of 
 farmers being crushed and starved, they can now 
 hold up their heads with pride because they feel 
 they have a stake in the country they love, and 
 because they can make a decent living."
 
 THE VOICE OF ULSTER. 33 
 
 But this does not satisfy them. 
 
 " We want to govern our own country," they said 
 again and again, in answer to my questions. 
 
 " Even if you are worse off ? " I urged. 
 
 " Sor," said one man to me, " sure and I don't 
 believe we shall be worse off. But even if we are 
 not so well off, we still want to govern our own land 
 in our own way." 
 
 Against this the Protestants of Ulster are in the 
 main deadly opposed ; they dread the thought of 
 Home Rule; they hate it, and they vow that they 
 will fight it to the death. 
 
 Their objections are in the main three. There 
 is first the financial objection. They are profoundly 
 convinced that to place Ireland under a Dublin 
 Parliament would ruin them financially, and destroy 
 the prosperity which through the centuries has been 
 built up. The second objection is that of race. 
 They say they are Englishmen and Scotchmen, 
 the sons of the men who were sent to Ireland 
 centuries ago for a specific purpose. They have 
 fulfilled the purpose for which they were sent ; they 
 are children of the mother country ; and they refuse 
 to be governed by the Irish people. But their 
 main objection is something deeper, something more 
 vital ; they are Protestants, and Home Rule means 
 Rome Rule, and they set their teeth together and 
 vow that never will they be governed by Rome. 
 
 " Now tell me," I asked, " what are your reasons 
 
 C
 
 34 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 for believing that if Home Rule is granted you will 
 be governed from Rome ? " This question was asked 
 of the editor of an important newspaper. 
 
 " Well, to begin with," was the reply, " I need 
 not tell you about the aims and purposes of Rome. 
 Never was the Church of Rome more aggressive, 
 never was its attitude so ultramontane as to-day, 
 and Rome hates Protestantism with a deadly hatred. 
 Romanists are jealous of our prosperity, jealous of 
 whatever power we may possess. They regard 
 us as trespassers in their land, they feel towards us 
 exactly as the Romanists of Ireland felt towards 
 our forefathers in the time of James II. You 
 accuse the Orangemen of gloating over the Protestant 
 victories at the time of the battle of the Boyne, but 
 the Roman Church remembers those days too, and it 
 vows that it will be revenged. To the ecclesiastical 
 mind Protestantism was born in hell, and it will 
 never rest until all Protestants are driven from 
 the land." 
 
 " What proof have you of this ? " I asked. 
 
 " Proof ! " was the reply. " I have made it my 
 business to read the newspapers of Ireland for 
 fifteen years, and I have made myself acquainted 
 with the opinions expressed not only in the secular 
 press, but in the Catholic journals. In those Catholic 
 journals, the mind of the Church is writ large. 
 I tell you, you have no idea in England of the 
 purposes and power of the Roman Church. I have
 
 THE VOICE OF ULSTER. 35 
 
 lived in England for years, and I know. There 
 the Church is polite and comparatively apologetic, 
 but here it is dictatorial, aggressive, blatant. It 
 rules with an iron hand. Besides, as you very well 
 know, the motto of Roman Catholicism is Semper 
 Eadem. It never alters." 
 
 " But give a concrete example." 
 
 " Well, here is one. The Jesuits, as you know, 
 are a tremendous power in the Church generally, 
 while in Ireland they are everywhere. Here is an 
 extract from Catholic Progress, a paper edited by 
 a Jesuit : ' The woes of Ireland are due to one 
 cause the existence of Protestantism. The ancient 
 Catholic churches are still in Protestant hands. 
 Would that every Protestant meeting-house were 
 swept from the land. Then would Ireland recover 
 herself.' " 
 
 " But a stray paragraph from a newspaper proves 
 nothing ? " 
 
 " That may be, but such paragraphs may be 
 multiplied by the score. Besides, you cannot live 
 in the country without realising that this is the 
 general feeling of the hierarchy. You see Ireland 
 is the most Roman Catholic country in the world. 
 Nowhere have its priests such power, nowhere, 
 unless you go to some of the South American 
 republics, are the people so obedient to the will 
 of the Church. As a matter of fact, Ireland is 
 dominated by the Vatican now."
 
 36 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 This is a sample of many conversations I had with 
 leading people in Ulster, and it was on these lines 
 that I made my enquiries. I found everywhere, 
 that, according to the convictions of Ulster, the 
 Church was dominating all life, civil and religious; 
 that its power was felt everywhere, and that no legis- 
 lation could take place without the Church's sanction. 
 
 " Talk about a Dublin Parliament ruling ! " 
 cried one prominent citizen to me, " it would not 
 rule. A Dublin Parliament would be the instrument 
 of the Church. Just think of it ! Protestants would 
 only be able to send representatives from Ulster, 
 for although there are a good number of Protestants 
 in the south and west of Ireland, they would 
 nowhere be numerous enough to return a member. 
 Thus, supposing there were, say, sixty members in 
 the Irish Parliament, we should have only a handful. 
 But that would not be the worst of it. All the 
 Roman Catholics would be the nominees of the 
 Church, and the creatures of the Church. If any 
 of them dared to take an independent stand they 
 would be crushed." 
 
 " How crushed ? " 
 
 " Just as Parnell was crushed. Just as any 
 man who dares to assert his own opinions to-day 
 is crushed. Don't you realise the power of the 
 Church ? Even now Rome rules and controls. 
 You may pass laws, but the Church rides through 
 your Acts of Parliament with a coach and four."
 
 THE VOICE OF ULSTER. 37 
 
 As this question seemed important, I laid special 
 emphasis upon it, and the following is what I heard 
 on every hand. And will the reader please remember 
 that I am not for the moment expressing any opinion 
 of my own, but the prevailing convictions of the 
 vast majority of Protestants of Ireland? What 
 conclusions I was led to will be given later, after I 
 had heard and sifted the evidence on all sides. 
 
 " How does the Church of Rome rule to-day ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 " In this way," was the reply (and here I will 
 summarise what was said to me especially in Ulster 
 and Dublin). " First, take your Lord Lieutenant 
 and Chief Secretaries for Ireland. You boast that 
 they are Protestants, but they take their orders 
 from Rome. What happens when a new Lord 
 Lieutenant or Chief Secretary is appointed ? They 
 want to get along with as little friction as possible, 
 so that their reign may be spoken of as peaceful 
 and prosperous. To do this they must make terms 
 with Rome, for if they offend the Roman prelates, 
 their days are numbered. Accordingly they make 
 friends with the Mammon of Unrighteousness. 
 They go to Archbishop Walsh and Cardinal Logue, 
 and say, ' What do you want ? ' They place them- 
 selves under the dictation of the Roman hierarchy." 
 
 " But what proof have you of this ? " 
 
 " Proof ! You can't live in Ireland and have 
 your eyes open without seeing it. Of course there
 
 38 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 have been one or two Irish Secretaries who have been 
 strong enough to take their own line, but they are 
 very rare. John Morley, for example, was a strong 
 man, and meted out even-handed justice, as a con- 
 sequence no man is more respected among the Irish 
 loyalists than he ; but the rest of them, especially 
 the present Irish Secretary, have been in the main 
 at the beck and call of the papal representatives. 
 Talk about your present Government being Liberal 
 and Nonconformist ! It is the tool of the papacy." 
 " Still you have not given proof, only opinions." 
 " They are more than opinions, they are con- 
 victions after years of experience of Romish rule. 
 Take, for example, the Irish Councils Bill of 1906. 
 You will remember that the present Irish Secretary 
 brought it before Parliament. This Irish Councils 
 Bill had one supreme merit : it meant the beginning 
 of something like a popular government for the 
 schools. Well, naturally the Minister in charge 
 would not bring in such a Bill without first consult- 
 ing Redmond and the other Irish members, and 
 they gave it their blessing. What happened ? 
 After the Bill was brought before Parliament, 
 Redmond and others came back and laid it before 
 the Convention, which is a body ruled by the 
 ecclesiastics. The result was inevitable : the 
 Church killed it, and the Bill was buried. I don't 
 say it was perfect, but that is not the point. The 
 Church did not want it, and the Church killed it.
 
 THE VOICE OF ULSTER. 39 
 
 " Then take the question of Education. Possibly 
 you do not understand our system. Broadly speak- 
 ing, it is this. The schools of Ireland are what is 
 called National. There are five classes of schools, 
 the Roman Catholic, the Episcopalian, the Presby- 
 terian, the Methodist, and the Model schools; 
 and the priest or clergyman is the manager of the 
 schools. The Church has to support the fabric of 
 the schools and the State pays for all the teachers. 
 The Presbyterian and the Methodist have a com- 
 mittee who work with the clergyman in the manage- 
 ment of the schools, but in the eyes of the law the 
 clergyman is responsible for the employment and 
 dismissal of teachers as well as for the general 
 management. In the Roman Church the priest 
 is the sole authority. Thus we have in Ireland no 
 less than 6,000 priests appointed managers of 6,000 
 National schools, with from 7,000 to 8,000 teachers 
 absolutely under their control. They receive the 
 State grants and they pay the teachers. In those 
 National schools it was passed by Act of Parliament 
 that no religious emblems, such as Roman Catholic 
 pictures or crosses, should be seen. You see in 
 certain districts, where Roman Catholics are in such 
 a tremendous majority, it is almost impossible for 
 Protestant schools to exist, and therefore Protestant 
 children have to attend Romanist schools. As a 
 consequence it was thought right that no attempt 
 at proselytising in any form should take place. In
 
 40 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 John Morley's days this was strictly adhered to, and 
 no emblem of any sort appeared ; but in later years 
 we are constantly hearing reports that religious 
 emblems appear in the Roman schools in spite of 
 the law, and that their children are taught to pay 
 homage to them. 
 
 " Then there are many schools in which nuns are 
 the teachers. These nuns, of course, receive no 
 salaries, yet the priests receive the State subsidies 
 as though they were paid teachers. Where does 
 this money go ? " 
 
 " But," I urged, " assuming that all this is 
 a correct description, it happens under the 
 Union. How would you be worse under Home 
 Rule ? " 
 
 " If these things are done in the green what will 
 happen in the dry ? " was the reply. " At present 
 the English Government does give some semblance 
 of safety, but what will it be when the Government 
 is immediately under the control of the Church ? 
 But go a little further, and it will shew you how 
 we are governed by Rome. The National Board of 
 Education established a training college for the 
 training of teachers, Protestant and Catholic alike. 
 The training was good, it was healthy, and there was 
 no suggestion of religious bias. Well, what hap- 
 pened ? The Church refused to appoint teachers 
 who had been trained at this college, and she 
 obtained Government grants to establish no less
 
 THE VOICE OF ULSTER. 41 
 
 than five training colleges of her own, under the 
 management of the priests. You talk about the 
 days of endowment of churches being over ! What 
 is that but endowing the Roman Church ? You 
 are paying for the advancement of the Roman 
 Church. 
 
 "Then look for a moment at the Model Schools. 
 They were established with the consent of the priests. 
 Their chief characteristic was that Protestant and 
 Romanist could be trained side by side. Presently, 
 however, the Church declared that the Model 
 Schools did not ' make good Catholics,' and so the 
 Church killed them. Model Schools, except in very 
 rare cases, have ceased to exist. 
 
 " Go a little further, and you will see the power 
 of the Roman Church in Ireland. As you know, 
 what were called the Queen's Colleges were estab- 
 lished amongst us. They were noble institutions, 
 and did their work on unsectarian and liberal lines. 
 But they were not under priestly management, and 
 so the Church disapproved of them. What followed ? 
 They were killed. 
 
 ' Take another instance, Years ago the May- 
 nooth College received 8,000 a year from the 
 Government. Well, that sum was increased to 
 26,360 a year on the pretext that there was no 
 provision for the higher education of the Roman 
 Catholic laity. What followed ? Immediately 
 afterwards Maynooth College closed her doors to all
 
 42 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 but candidates for the priesthood. But the grant goes 
 on. Think of it ! A Protestant country is giving 
 this huge sum of money yearly to Maynooth College, 
 which exists only to train priests. Moreover, the 
 education given is of the most obscurantist and 
 ultramontane nature, while you quietly fold your 
 hands, allow these things to continue, and then 
 promise Home Rule, which will more than ever place 
 the country under the control of Rome ! 
 
 " A year or two ago you passed the Irish University 
 Act. Your Parliament put in all sorts of clauses 
 safeguarding the Protestants, and making sectarian- 
 ism impossible. But the British Government did 
 not realise the power of the Church of Rome. 
 Cardinal Logue, who is one of the, if not the, leading 
 Catholic dignitary in Ireland, and speaks for the 
 papal hierarchy more truly than any other man, 
 when speaking at St. Mary's College, June 6, 1911, 
 told the world what the Romish Church means to 
 do and how she regards the Act. He says : ' Now 
 there is an opportunity for the Catholic laymen of 
 Ireland. They have now an opportunity of receiving 
 a good university education, in which at least they 
 will be exposed to no danger. There is no doubt 
 whatever, England never gave us a boon that they 
 did not put a crook in. They always tried to do 
 something to introduce the drop of bitterness into 
 the sweetest cup that ever was. That is precisely 
 what they did in giving us this new university.
 
 THE VOICE OF ULSTER. 43 
 
 They gave what they hoped to be a pagan university ; 
 but, please God, we will turn it into a Catholic 
 university. They have brought a Mohammedan 
 institution into the country, but turn loose upon it 
 a lot of fine young Irish Catholics, and they will 
 make it a Christian institution. That is what we 
 will do with this new university. No matter what 
 obstacles the Nonconformists of England may have 
 inserted in the constitution of the university to 
 keep it from being made Catholic we will make 
 it Catholic in spite of them* ' 
 
 " That is undoubtedly strong language," I replied, 
 " but is not Cardinal Logue somewhat of an orator, 
 and does he represent the mind of the Church ? 
 Has anything been done on the lines he has sug- 
 gested ? " 
 
 " Done ! Think of the present state of things. 
 You will of course remember the safeguards. For 
 instance, when the Bill was in Committee, and during 
 the discussion of its financial clauses, this amendment 
 was moved : 
 
 " ' Provided that no part of the moneys authorised 
 by the resolution shall be used or applied for the 
 purpose of denominational education.' 
 
 " In the discussion of this amendment the then 
 Attorney-General, Mr. (now Lord Justice) Cherry, 
 who was in charge of the Bill on behalf of the 
 Government, said 
 
 " ' The honourable member has declared there was
 
 44 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 nothing in the amendment which was contradictory 
 to the declaration of the Chief Secretary when he 
 said that no portion of this money would be applied 
 to denominational purposes in Ireland. That decla- 
 ration was binding upon the Chief Secretary and 
 the Government. The pledge which his right honour- 
 able friend the Chief Secretary gave on a previous 
 occasion, applied both to the Charter and to the Bill, 
 and both to the college and the university itself. 
 There was no intention in the remotest degree on 
 the part of the Government to violate that pledge.' 
 
 " Now, that safeguard is duly recorded in Hansard. 
 Can anj'thing be plainer or more binding ? That is, 
 moreover, one of the safeguards which Cardinal 
 Logue sneered at and defied. Well, what has been 
 done in this university which was to be undenomina- 
 tional ? First, Archbishop Walsh, one of the lead- 
 ing Roman Catholic prelates in Ireland, was made 
 Chancellor. 
 
 " Second, this same Archbishop has demanded 
 that a chapel for Roman Catholics attending its 
 Dublin College shall be built out of the university 
 funds. 
 
 " Third, the philosophy taught in its Dublin College 
 is exclusively the philosophy (that is, ecclesiastic 
 and mediaeval) of the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 " And fourth, Maynooth, which I have just said 
 is a college exclusively for the training of priests, 
 is affiliated with the university.
 
 THE VOICE OF ULSTER. 45 
 
 " Now, then, think of what those four points 
 mean, and then ask whether Cardinal Logue was 
 not right when he made his boast. Why, the 
 University Act was only passed about two years ago, 
 and yet see what they have done. As I remarked 
 before, the Roman Church can, and will, drive a 
 coach and four through any Act of Parliament you 
 may pass, and laugh at you for being simpletons." 
 
 " Certainly you present a strong case," I could not 
 help saying. 
 
 " Strong case ! I could go on for hours. You 
 see, the basic ground for our opposition is religion. 
 We Protestants are your brothers in faith, and in 
 our love for religious freedom. And Rome is the 
 enemy to that freedom. We may be called in- 
 tolerant because we are so determined in our opposi- 
 tion, but it is because we know what Rome is. 
 If Ireland were all Protestant, or all Roman Catholic, 
 the question would assume an entirely different 
 aspect, but it is not. We form a fourth of the 
 population, and I do not say it boastfully, but we 
 form the prosperous, the intelligent, the educated, 
 the virile portion of the population. That is why 
 we absolutely refuse to be placed under a govern- 
 ment which from the very nature of the case must 
 be dominated by the Roman hierarchy. For you 
 must understand that while the Roman Catholic 
 people of Ireland are poor, the Roman Church in 
 Ireland is one of the wealthiest corporations in the
 
 46 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 world. It is a matter of common knowledge that 
 the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin commands 
 more wealth than any man in Ireland, and it is 
 freely said that he could break two of the largest 
 banks in Ireland by a stroke of his pen." 
 
 " And does the power of the Roman Church press 
 hardly on the Protestants that is, in a direct way ? " 
 
 I asked this question of one of the leading men 
 in the Presbyterian Ministry, a man who had 
 occupied the highest position in that Church. 
 
 " Press hardly ! " was his reply. " Here is an 
 experience of my own. I had need to enlarge the 
 school of which I am manager. This enlargement 
 would, we estimated, cost about 500. I therefore 
 made my appeal to the proper quarter, and sub- 
 mitted the necessary plans. The Government 
 official went into the case and reported that he was 
 perfectly satisfied as to our needs. He brought 
 the necessary documents for me to sign, and told me 
 that the matter would go through without delay. 
 I told him that we would not tax the generosity of 
 the Government too far, and that we would try and 
 raise 200 out of the 500 ourselves, thus leaving only 
 300 for him to obtain. As I said, I signed all the 
 papers, and I thought I should soon receive the 
 money. That was years ago, but I have never 
 received the money to this day. Now, then, for the 
 other side of my story. A long time after I had 
 made my application, a Roman Catholic priest in
 
 THE VOICE OF ULSTER. 47 
 
 this same city made an appeal to the Government 
 for a very large sum. His case, in my judgment, 
 was not nearly so urgent as ours ; but his money 
 came soon, and his buildings, costing several 
 thousand pounds, are erected. That is how the 
 power of the Roman Church is felt." 
 
 I give this story for what it is worth. Certainly 
 I had it at first hand from a minister holding a high 
 place in the Presbyterian Church, and the gentleman 
 who was with me when he told the incident spoke 
 of him as a man of stainless honour. Moreover, 
 this narrative was given to me as indicating a trend 
 of things. 
 
 " And do you mean to say that the priest has as 
 much power over the peasants as has been indicated 
 by certain sections of the press ? " 
 
 I asked this question of the editor of one of the 
 principal daily papers in Dublin. 
 
 " Let me give you an idea," was the reply. " I 
 remember being at an election in a town in the 
 south-west of Ireland. I saw the priests bring in 
 the peasants from the country places to vote as 
 though they were a flock of pigs. Some of these 
 poor people did not behave in a way that pleased 
 their spiritual fathers, and I saw the priests kick and 
 cuff them as though they were snarling dogs. 
 Then afterwards I saw these same people kiss the 
 hand that had cuffed them. That is no fairy story. 
 I saw it with my own eyes, and these are the people,
 
 48 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 priests and people alike, who will be our rulers under 
 a Home Rule Parliament." 
 
 The following incidents were also told me by a 
 member of the Irish Bar as indicating a state of 
 things that must make any man pause. Many of the 
 datails were witnessed by my informant who was 
 professionally interested in the case. In Westport, 
 county Mayo, a colporteur, a graduate of a Scotch 
 university, went to a shop and sold one of his 
 magazines. Shortly after a priest entered and saw 
 the magazine. He asked the shopkeeper where it 
 came from. On being told, he rushed out of the shop, 
 found the colporteur, and kicked and maltreated 
 him. The colporteur at length escaped under 
 police protection. The priest went off proudly. 
 After some delay there was a prosecution. The priest 
 went into the court, which was presided over by a 
 paid magistrate and a local publican, attended by 
 bands of music, and people who came from the whole 
 countryside. It was a sort of triumphal procession. 
 When the case was tried, the facts were not con- 
 troverted, but the defence, which was entrusted to 
 the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland, pleaded 
 provocation through an article in the magazine 
 that criticised the claims of the Virgin Mary to be 
 worshipped. The result of the trial was that the 
 paid magistrate wished to convict the priest, and 
 the local magistrate (the publican) wished to acquit, 
 andjn the end the priest went off in a renewed
 
 THE VOICE OF ULSTER. 49 
 
 triumphal procession, while the colporteur was 
 smuggled out of the town by the police." 
 
 This same story, I may say, was afterwards 
 related to me by a minister who lived in the district, 
 and attested to its truth. 
 
 "But," I asked, " was there no public protest? 
 Surely the public spirit of the place would drive the 
 priest out of the parish? " 
 
 " Public spirit ! " was the reply. " There is no 
 public spirit in the rural districts of Ireland. The 
 priest rules, and no one dares to touch him. Why, 
 in relation to this case I spoke privately to several 
 Roman Catholics, and they told me they were 
 tempted to rush on the priest, and pull him away 
 from the colporteur. But they dared not. They 
 feared his power, and the power of the Church." 
 
 But to return to my barrister friend, who first 
 told me the story. 
 
 " I have seen on a week-end visit to County 
 Galway," he said, " a man attending the Presbyterian 
 Church service accompanied by two police constables 
 with loaded rifles to protect him, and my information 
 is that he is still so protected. But there is a more 
 insidious way in which the priests' power is felt. In 
 the same church the Presbyterian minister has a very 
 clever family : one is a doctor who took up work in his 
 native town (Athenry) . He was a favourite and got a 
 fine practice. Then came a warning from the Church 
 altar, and his practice vanished as if by magic." 
 
 D
 
 50 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 " And what do you deduce from this ? " I asked. 
 
 " I am simply illustrating the power of the 
 Church," was the reply. " The priest holds the 
 people body and soul, and they dare not disobey 
 his dictums." 
 
 For the present I will offer no opinion on these 
 incidents, as I wish to refer to the whole subject 
 again later on, but this must be admitted. The 
 power of the priest is simply enormous. As one 
 writer, an Irishman who knows his country 
 thoroughly, says : 
 
 ' The power of that [the Roman] Church to 
 enforce her will, depends almost entirely on whether 
 there is a Catholic lay opinion independent enough 
 to resist her claims, and a Government sufficiently 
 strong to keep her aspirations within bounds. With 
 regard to the Roman Catholic lay opinion, there is 
 none. And there never has been any the Church 
 is in supreme command, and the priests have absolute 
 control over their people's affairs temporal and 
 spiritual. They issue commands from the altar, 
 they dictate from the platform, and they give orders 
 from the cabin. Ireland to-day is the most priest- 
 ridden country in the world, and if evidence on this 
 point were necessary it is sufficient to state that the 
 Headmasters' Association is entirely composed of 
 priests, and that the parish priest is practically 
 ex-officio chairman of every political meeting held 
 within his parish. It will be seen therefore that
 
 THE VOICE OF ULSTER. 51 
 
 .here is no lay representative in education or politics, 
 and consequently there can be no lay opinion on these 
 two great subjects of human interest and human 
 thought. Could such a state of affairs hold for a 
 moment, or could their parallel be found anywhere 
 else ? " 
 
 I am giving full prominence to this phase of 
 Ulster's objection to Home Rule. They say that the 
 facts I have stated are unknown in England, and I 
 am anxious to do justice to their case. Whether 
 they are right or wrong, we can only arrive at just 
 conclusions by considering carefully all their evidence 
 and placing it in its true perspective. Of course, 
 there is another side. There always is; but I am 
 convinced that no one can understand the facts I 
 have set down, without agreeing that the Protestants 
 of Ireland have reason for opposing Home Rule. 
 As I said, the whole question is, with them, funda- 
 mentally religious. If the people were not dominated 
 by the priests, they would not be afraid ; if the 
 tentacles of the Church were not spread everywhere, 
 fastening themselves upon every phase of the life 
 of three-fourths of the people, the Protestants could 
 trust in the righteousness of their cause ; but 
 knowing as they do that the Church and her 
 minions would meet and obstruct them in every 
 road that would lead to justice and to liberty, they 
 offer an unflinching opposition.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE NE TEMERE DECREE, AND MY VISIT TO 
 MRS. MCCANN. 
 
 ONE of the things often urged, while I was in the 
 North of Ireland, in opposition to Home Rule, 
 and as an evidence of the arrogant power of the 
 Church of Rome, was the now notorious Ne Temere 
 decree. There is little need for me to discuss it 
 here at any length, as its meaning and significance 
 must be well known to my readers. Suffice to say 
 that this decree, which was not enforced in the 
 British Isles, was declared at Easter, 1908, to be 
 operative in our midst. It has for many years been 
 regarded as the law of the Church in many other 
 countries, but we like Germany, Austria, and other 
 lands, did not come under its sway. Suddenly it 
 came in our midst like a bolt from the blue. It 
 declared that no marriage was valid in the eyes of 
 Rome, unless sacramentally performed. In other 
 words, it declared that many people who regarded 
 themselves as man and wife, and were man and wife 
 in the eyes of the English law, were living in sin. 
 
 52
 
 THE NE TEMERE DECREE. 53 
 
 It declared that if a Protestant married a Roman 
 Catholic, and the marriage ceremony was not per- 
 formed by a priest of the Church of Rome, their 
 marriage was only a mockery, and that in the eyes of 
 God the man and the woman were violating the 
 most sacred principles of morality. It declared, 
 further, that, in spite of the sanction of the law of 
 the land, all children of such an union were in the 
 eyes of the Church illegitimate, the offspring of sin. 
 Now in a country like Ireland there have been 
 many mixed marriages. Roman Catholic girls 
 married Protestant men, and men who were Roman 
 Catholics married Protestant women. Sometimes 
 these marriages took place in a Protestant church, 
 sometimes in a Roman Catholic chapel. The 
 priests were much chagrined when one of their flock 
 married a Protestant either in a Protestant church 
 or in a registry office, but they could do nothing. 
 As all the world knows, however, the present Pope, 
 Pius X., is a deadly enemy to liberty of mind, and 
 his encyclicals against Modernism shew his deter- 
 mination to crush out the slightest resemblance to 
 independence of thought among those who regard 
 him as their spiritual head. Perhaps this is natural. 
 He is an Italian priest, reared in the narrowest 
 school. He knows little of history ; his most ardent 
 admirers admit that he has not even a nodding 
 acquaintance with literature. It is generally admit- 
 ted that he was elected to the Papal chair,
 
 54 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 not because he has any particular gifts as a legislator 
 or administrator, but because those who elected 
 him regarded him as the man most likely to be the 
 willing tool of those who wished to carry out an 
 Ultramontane policy. Personally, a quiet, good, 
 kind-hearted man, he is but a child in the hands of 
 his advisers, who swear eternal enmity to Protestant 
 liberties. Hence the publication of this decree in 
 the British Isles. That it is monstrous and cruel, 
 no liberty-loving man will deny ; but it exists. It 
 is now a Roman Catholic law in the British Islands 
 just as it has been in other countries which have been 
 in subjection to the decrees of the Council of Trent. 
 
 By the declaration of this decree, therefore, the 
 priest can go to a man and woman, the one a Roman- 
 ist, and the other a Protestant, who have been married 
 according to the marriage rites of the law of the land, 
 but whose union has not been blessed by a Roman 
 priest, and he can say to them, "You are living in sin." 
 He can say to a Protestant woman who is married 
 to a Roman Catholic, " You are no better than the 
 women in the streets who earn the bread of shame." 
 He can tell her that her children are bastards, and 
 he can tell the husband that he is in danger of 
 everlasting damnation by living with the woman 
 whom he has taken to be his wife. 
 
 Now this does not mean so much in England, 
 where our atmosphere is Protestant, and where we 
 breathe the breath of liberty. We should tell him
 
 THE NE TEMERE DECREE. 55 
 
 that we did not care a snap of our fingers for all the 
 decrees that the Pope might care to pronounce. 
 For all practical purposes, from the English Protes- 
 tant's standpoint, a pope's decree is not worth the 
 paper on which it is written. It is a matter of 
 words signifying nothing. In Ireland, however, it is 
 different. In the last chapter, I have enlarged upon 
 the power of the Church. The faithful Roman 
 Catholic in the Emerald Isle dare not disobey the 
 laws of that Church. They are binding, they are 
 God-given. 
 
 In the province of Munster I asked a man in an 
 influential position which law he must obey in 
 relation to this matter, the law of the Church or the 
 law of the land ? 
 
 " The law of the Church, most decidedly," was his 
 reply. " The law of the land is human, the law of 
 the Church is the law of God." 
 
 " Then this Ne Temere decree is the law of God ? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly." 
 
 " But don't you see the position ? The Ne Temere 
 decree is not operative in Germany or Austria ; 
 therefore, the law of God according to you is different 
 in one country from what it is in another ? " 
 
 " I have nothing to do with that. When the 
 Church enunciates a law, it makes that law the law 
 of God." 
 
 " This Ne Temere decree was announced to become 
 law at Easter, 1908. According to you, a certain
 
 56 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 man and woman who were made husband and wife 
 by our rites, were living in innocence and bliss 
 before that date, they were living in the direst sin 
 the day after ? " 
 
 " Most decidedly." 
 
 " And yet nothing had changed, except that the 
 decree had gone forth." 
 
 " Excuse me, everything was changed. The 
 announcement of the decree changed an innocent 
 action into a great sin." 
 
 Of course, it was impossible to argue against 
 such a position, but the conversation I have recorded 
 indicates how matters stand in Ireland. The man 
 to whom I was speaking was regarded as a fairly 
 intelligent man, and to an extent a guide to public 
 thought. How, then, would this matter be regarded 
 by the ignorant people who believe the priest to 
 have supernatural power ? I almost hesitate to 
 put it on paper, because it seems so absurd, but 
 I was told by responsible people in Ireland that many 
 peasants believe that the priests could change them 
 into loathsome animals if they wished to do so. 
 Be that as it may, the ignorant Irish Roman Catholic, 
 and many who are supposed to be intelligent as well, 
 regard it as awful sin to disobey the priest when he 
 gives any commands. Moreover, everyone knows the 
 priest's power in confession ; almost every Roman 
 Catholic believes that to die without absolution is 
 something to be dreaded beyond words, and that
 
 THE NE TEMERE DECREE. 5? 
 
 to be refused the sacraments is tantamount to being 
 refused salvation. 
 
 Consider, then, this Ne Temere decree in the light 
 of this thought. Here is a man, a Roman Catholic, 
 who marries a Protestant girl. At the time of his 
 marriage, he is only a " nominal Catholic," and 
 he consents to be married in a Protestant church. 
 Presently the decree is enunciated, and the priest 
 goes to the man and tells him that unless he is 
 married again by a Roman Catholic priest according 
 to the laws of the Roman Church, he is living in 
 sin, and is in danger of everlasting fire. All the 
 influences of the man's early training begin to work, 
 all the chains which have been gathered around him 
 from infancy tighten. The terrors of the Church 
 get hold of him. He goes to confession, but can 
 get no absolution. He is not allowed to participate 
 in the sacraments, which to the believing Roman- 
 ist is something terrible to contemplate. He is a 
 pariah, he is condemned by the Church, and he 
 believes that until the Church's curse is removed 
 he is under the wrath of God, and in the direst 
 danger of hell fire. 
 
 But this is not all. His companions taunt him, 
 ostracise him. He is shut out from the haunts of 
 his old friends. He is regarded as a leper. He is 
 like a man standing on the brink of a yawning 
 inferno. 
 
 What shall he do ? If his wife will consent to
 
 58 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 be married again all will be well. He speaks to his 
 wife about it ; and she, being Protestant born and 
 bred, refuses. 
 
 " No," she says, " I have been married once, I 
 will not be married again." 
 
 " But," he urges, " we have never been truly 
 married." 
 
 This angers the woman. " Do you mean to tell 
 me," she cries, " that I who was married at such and 
 such a church am not your wife ? That I have 
 been for years living in sin, that my children are 
 the children of shame ? " 
 
 The man says they are, and thus the seeds of 
 dissension, anger, bitterness, and ruin, are sown. 
 
 The man goes to the priest again, who preaches 
 the doctrines of the Church, and strikes if possible 
 greater terrors into the man's soul. 
 
 What will the result be ? 
 
 This is not a fancy picture as I shall now have to 
 relate. As every reader of our newspapers knows, 
 a little more than a year ago the details of a shocking 
 event were recorded in our public press which aroused 
 the slumbering passions of thousands. Not only 
 was it dealt with at great length in the newspapers, 
 but it was brought before the House of Commons 
 and discussed there. 
 
 As this affair is supposed to bear directly on 
 the question, " Is Home Rule Rome Rule ? " it 
 may be well to give it some prominence here.
 
 THE NE TEMERE DECREE. 59 
 
 During the time I was in Belfast, among the 
 many ministers I saw was the Rev. William Corkey, 
 M.A., of the Townsend Presbyterian Church in 
 that city. He is a young man of perhaps a little 
 more than thirty years of age, retiring, modest, 
 quiet ; as far removed from the fighting Orangeman 
 or the political parson as can well be imagined. 
 Presently it came out that he was the minister who 
 took a prominent part in bringing the case of Mrs. 
 McCann to light. He told me that Mrs. McCann 
 was a member of his congregation, and asked me if 
 I would care to see her. I accepted his invitation, 
 and on the following morning found my way to Mr. 
 Corkey's house, where he had asked Mrs. McCann 
 to meet me. 
 
 My first sight of her somewhat startled me. I 
 had expected to see a somewhat aggressive woman 
 of between thirty and forty years of age. Mr. J. 
 Devlin, M.P., spoke in the House of Commons of 
 the woman's difficulties with her husband as having 
 nothing to do with religion, but with irreligion. 
 He said it was a vulgar, sordid quarrel, and it was 
 hinted by many that the woman was a bad lot, 
 and was given to drink. 
 
 Judge of my surprise, therefore, when a young 
 girl of twenty came into the room. There was no 
 suggestion of the aggressive, blatant, quarrelling 
 virago. The very opposite was the case. Quietly 
 dressed, modest in demeanour, and somewhat
 
 60 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 reticent of speech, she struck me as far superior 
 to the ordinary cottage woman. Not a weak girl by 
 any means. Her square chin, firm lips, and rather 
 abrupt manner of speech suggested decision and 
 a strong, indomitable will. One who would not be 
 bullied, one who having made up her mind as to 
 what was right, would be true to her principles. 
 
 I saw a photograph of her, too, one taken before 
 she was robbed of her children, a bright, happy girl 
 holding a baby in her arms. 
 
 This, as nearly as I can give it, is a picture of 
 Mrs. McCann around whose name so much con- 
 troversy has waged. 
 
 As so many garbled stories about the McCann 
 case have been given, I will give here the true narrative 
 of the affair as she told it to me, and as was attested 
 to by Mr. Corkey, her minister, who sat in the 
 room with us. 
 
 She was born and reared in Ballymena, and was, 
 if I remember aright, a farmer's daughter. At the 
 age of seventeen she was married to the man 
 McCann by the Rev. R. M. McGilmour, in whose 
 church she was brought up. Mr. McGilmour also 
 married her, and baptized the two babies that were 
 born to her. Mr. McGilmour speaks highly of her 
 life as a girl, and wrote concerning her, saying, 
 " Neither before nor after her marriage up to the 
 present time have I personally known or heard 
 anything against her character." Remember, she
 
 THE NE TEMERE DECREE. 61 
 
 was only seventeen when McCann married her 
 little more than a child in years. McCann was a 
 Roman Catholic, but from what I can gather by 
 no means an ardent one. The very fact that he was 
 willing to marry a Protestant girl in a Protestant 
 church would go to prove this. 
 
 For a time the young couple lived happily together 
 (I had this from her own lips), and two children 
 were born to them. Some time after their marriage 
 McCann attended a mission that was held in one 
 of the Roman Catholic churches, and I am given 
 to understand that this mission led him to take his 
 religion more seriously. 
 
 It seems that the couple lived in a Roman Catholic 
 quarter of the city, and the life was so rough that 
 McCann was led to take another house in a more 
 prosperous quarter, and I have first-hand evidence 
 to show that he took a real delight in preparing 
 the new home. 
 
 Just before their second child was born Mrs. 
 McCann went to her parents' home to be confined. 
 While she was there McCann wrote to her in the 
 most affectionate terms. I have seen the originals 
 of his letters, and can speak confidently as to the 
 loving words in which they were couched. 
 
 A few weeks after her return to her home a priest 
 called on her, and told her that she was never really 
 married at all ; that she had been living in sin with 
 her husband, and that her children were the children
 
 62 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 of shame. He also besought her to be married again 
 by a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 You can imagine the woman's horror and anger. 
 Any respectable woman, too, can sympathise with 
 her in her determination not to yield to the priest's 
 dictates. Had she been a weak woman she would 
 doubtless have yielded, but she came of a Scotch 
 stock and would not be intimidated. 
 
 As she said to me in broken, abrupt sentences : 
 " I had been married, truly married, and I wouldn't 
 be married twice to the same man. I wouldn't 
 admit that I had been living with him for years 
 without being married." 
 
 " And then ? What then ? " I asked. 
 
 " The priest told me it would be very easy," was 
 her reply. " He said that if I liked no one need 
 know anything about it, while if I wanted a grand 
 wedding I could go to church." 
 
 " And you refused ? " 
 
 " Yes, I refused." 
 
 Now, according to newspaper reports, Mr. J. 
 Devlin, M.P., stated in the House of Commons that 
 the Church of Rome had nothing to do, directly or 
 indirectly, with the breaking up of this home ; more- 
 over, Mr. Devlin read in the House of Commons 
 a letter purporting to be from an unknown priest, 
 who said : "I visited the house for the first time 
 in January, 1910. Neither then nor on any subse- 
 quent occasion did I inform Mrs. McCann that she
 
 THE NE TEMERE DECREE. 63 
 
 was not properly married, nor did I tell her she was 
 living in sin, nor that her children were illegitimate." 
 
 There are certain things one would like to say 
 about this. The first is this Who is this unknown 
 priest ? What is his name ? What are his bona 
 fides, and why should he be believed ? But more, 
 what are we to say about those priests who have 
 corroborated Mrs. McCann's statements ? On 
 January 30th, 1911, the Rev. Father Power wrote a 
 letter to the Scotsman, in which he told first how 
 kindly the priest dealt with Mrs. McCann, and then 
 went on to say : " The priest's duty began and ended 
 with a detailed statement that was intended to 
 enlighten Mrs. McCann as to the real condition of a 
 man who, through no fault of his, had sinfully broken 
 a law which bound his conscience, but did not touch 
 her absolute bona fides." Again, the Rev. Father 
 Power says, in a letter to the Scotsman, on February 
 3rd : " The representation made by the priest has 
 been fairly well summarised by Mr. Corkey." Mr. 
 Corkey told the story to the press much as I have 
 told it here, only in greater detail. 
 
 In proof, too, that the Church of Rome, and that 
 Church alone, was guilty of breaking up this home, 
 I will quote the sayings of two men which bear upon 
 the case. 
 
 The Rev. Father Findlay, the highest authority 
 on Roman Catholic law in Ireland, and a man of 
 exceptional ability, says, in an article in the New
 
 64 is HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 Ireland Review, referring to the action of McCann : 
 " He was conscientiously bound to separate from 
 the Presbyterian woman unless she consented to a 
 re-validation of the marriage, and he is under the 
 greatest obligation to see that his children are 
 baptized and brought up Catholics." 
 
 The Rev. Father Hubert also, a well-known Belfast 
 priest, preached a sermon bearing on the case, in 
 which he defended the action of the Church. This 
 sermon was reported in the Belfast Northern Whig. 
 He said : " We consider ourselves messengers and 
 ministers of God. Here we have a man whose soul 
 was in charge of the priest. Could the priest 
 stand by and not say to him, ' You are living 
 in sin ' ? " 
 
 So much for Mr. Devlin's statement in the House 
 of Commons that religion had nothing to do with 
 the affair, and the alleged letter from the unknown 
 and nameless priest which the newspapers recorded, 
 and to which credence was given by so many. 
 
 But to return to my narrative. Of course the 
 visit of the priest led to a disruption between the 
 husband and wife. He insisted on being re-married. 
 She refused. Then came the blow. The children 
 were smuggled out of the house, and the man left 
 his wife. For days the woman sought high and low 
 for her children. She sought in vain. By whom 
 they were taken, and under whose control they were 
 taken, it is not difficult to imagine. Certain it is
 
 THE NE TEMERE DECREE. 65 
 
 she never found them, and she has never found them 
 to this day. 
 
 Presently the man wrote her asking her to meet 
 him at the " Black Man," a famous statue in Belfast. 
 She went, accompanied by her sister. She pleaded 
 with her husband to take her to see the children. 
 He declared before God that he dared not. He 
 could do nothing until they were re-married accord- 
 ing to the rites of the Church of Rome. He said he 
 had been living in sin for two years, and would do 
 so no longer. He told her how the children cried for 
 her, and repeated that he was willing to live with 
 her if they were re-married, but not otherwise. 
 
 Thus they separated, and as far as I could 
 gather, the wife has never seen the husband since. 
 The woman, who had controlled her feelings up to 
 this point, broke down here, and wept bitterly. 
 And no wonder. It was one of the saddest narratals 
 I ever heard. It is true the woman has been helped 
 since. Kind friends have subscribed to a fund on 
 her behalf, and she is now being trained as a nurse, 
 but by this infamous decree, she has been robbed of 
 her home, robbed of her husband, robbed of her 
 children, and attempts have been made to rob her 
 of her good name. 
 
 As Mr. Corkey says : " I do not blame McCann. 
 He believed the Church had the keys of heaven, and 
 he surrendered his wife rather than run the risk of 
 the awful curse of excommunication. If you can 
 

 
 66 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 make an ignorant man believe you could put him 
 in hell and keep him there, you could make him 
 do anything. I do not blame the priest. He was 
 faithful to his calling, and discharged a most un- 
 pleasant duty loyally ... It was the papal decree 
 that wrought ruin ! " 
 
 The picture of that poor girl has haunted me 
 ever since I left the house. A young girl, little more 
 than a child, married at seventeen, who has been 
 robbed of her home, robbed of her. husband, robbed 
 of the children to whom she has given birth with pain 
 and anguish, and whom she loved with a mother's 
 love, and left alone in the world. And this was 
 done by the Church that dominates the larger 
 part of Ireland. 
 
 There is little more to tell. An appeal, so it 
 appears, was made to the Lord Lieutenant, who 
 said he could do nothing. As some one remarks, 
 " All the power of the country's police could be used 
 to find a lady's lap-dog, but nothing could be done 
 to find this woman's children." Presently, however, 
 after time had been given to smuggle the children 
 out of the country, Mr. Corkey told me that the 
 Chief Secretary gave instructions to the police to 
 search for the children. Of course, it was in vain. 
 As one of the detectives who is a Roman Catholic 
 told Mr. Corkey : "We are fighting against the Church 
 and we can do nothing." 
 
 Where are the children ? If they are in a nunnery
 
 THE NE TEMERE DECREE. 67 
 
 or convent in the British Isles, they cannot be found. 
 Our Protestant Government will do nothing to 
 cause these places to be open to inspection. As we 
 have repeatedly said, " Our convents are sealed 
 houses." If the children are in one of these, there- 
 fore, the mother will never see them again. If they 
 are taken abroad, they are in all probability under 
 the control of the Roman Church, and therefore Mrs. 
 McCann has little room for hope. The Roman 
 Church defies all the machinery of our British laws, 
 as well as their authority. 
 
 " But," says someone, " sad as the story may be, 
 what has it to do with Home Rule ? As a proof 
 that Ireland is at present dominated by Rome, it is 
 well-nigh conclusive ; but these things are done 
 not under Home Rule but under the Union. How 
 would things be affected if Ireland were under Home 
 Rule ? " 
 
 This is the conclusion of the people of Ulster: 
 If Home Rule were granted the Church would see to 
 it that the law of the Church would be made the 
 law of the State, then people would neither have 
 redress nor safety. Under the existing state of 
 things, the Church dare not do what they would be 
 sure to do if a Parliament were established in Dublin. 
 The Church would then rule unrestricted, and would 
 see to it that Ireland was governed according to 
 Canon Law. 
 
 " But " and this I urged upon those who took
 
 68 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 this view " no Irish leader would claim that the 
 Dublin Parliament should have the right to alter 
 the marriage laws ? " 
 
 In answer to this I was referred to Mr. Gladstone's 
 Home Rule Bill of 1893. During the discussion of 
 that Bill the then member for East Down moved an 
 amendment to " exclude from the proposed Irish 
 Parliament the right of repealing or amending any 
 law at present in existence, or hereinafter to be 
 enacted by the Imperial Parliament, which gives 
 legal effect to any rights or ceremonies performed by 
 any Protestant church." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone opposed this amendment. 
 
 Mr. Balfour supported it, and said : " Gentlemen 
 from Ireland must be perfectly aware that, according 
 to the Council of Trent, according to the principles 
 of the Church to which they belonged, a marriage 
 performed in a Presbyterian church was from a 
 religious point of view of no validity whatever." 
 
 Sir T. Lea (Londonderry) also said : " The leaders 
 of the Roman Catholic Church . . . knew very well 
 that, whenever the marriage laws came under dis- 
 cussion in an Irish Parliament, the Roman Catholic 
 Church would have its way." 
 
 A division on this amendment took place, and 
 among those who voted against it were Mr. Gladstone, 
 Mr. Redmond, and all the Irish members. 
 
 " Facts speak louder than words," said these 
 Ulster men to me, " and therefore in spite of all Mr.
 
 THE NE TEMERE DECREE. 69 
 
 Redmond's talk about safeguards, we do not believe 
 him. Whatever may be his own private views, he 
 is under the domination of the Church of Rome, and 
 he has to do what that Church tells him. Home Rule 
 would be Rome Rule." 
 
 With regard to the Motu Proprio decree, about 
 which there has been so much discussion, the attitude 
 of those who oppose Home Rule is just the same. 
 This decree, when couched in everyday speech, 
 amounts to this, that no layman can bring a priest, 
 or any ecclesiastic whatever, into the public law 
 courts unless the case in which he is implicated 
 be first brought before the Church courts. 
 
 That if any Roman Catholic shall, in spite of this 
 decree, take such a step, he shall be excommunicated. 
 
 The following is an extract from the decree : 
 
 " OF OUR OWN NOTION 
 
 " Concerning bringing Clergy before the Tribunals 
 of lay judges. 
 
 " Though all diligence be employed in framing 
 laws, it is often impossible to guard against any 
 doubt which may subsequently arise owing to adroit 
 interpretations of the same. . . . 
 
 " Doubtless the meaning of this section has been 
 repeatedly declared by the Congregation of the 
 Holy Office. But now in these times of injustice, 
 when so little regard is paid to the immunity of 
 ecclesiastics, that not only clerics and priests, but
 
 70 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 also Bishops and even their Eminences the Cardinals, 
 are brought into a court of laymen, the case altogether 
 demands from Us that by the severity of the punish- 
 ment, We keep to their duty those men who are not 
 deterred from such an act of sacrilege by the gravity 
 of their offence. We of Our own notion do ordain, 
 and decree as follows : 
 
 " Whatever private individuals, whether 
 of the laity or in Holy Orders, men or 
 women, summon to a tribunal of laymen 
 any ecclesiastical persons whatever, be the 
 case criminal or civil, without any per- 
 mission from an ecclesiastical authority, 
 and constrain them to attend publicly in 
 these courts, all such private individuals 
 incur excommunication at the hands of the 
 Roman Pontiff. 
 
 " Moreover, it is Our will and pleasure 
 that what has been ordained by these 
 letters be established and ratified, notwith- 
 standing anything whatsoever to the 
 contrary. 
 
 " Given at Rome at St. Peter's on the Qth day 
 of the month of October, in the gth year of Our 
 Pontificate. 
 
 " POPE PIUS X."
 
 THE NE TEMERE DECREE. 71 
 
 Of course, the publication of this document caused 
 a great stir among Roman Catholics, and although 
 the Protestants of Ireland admit that at present it 
 does not bear directly upon them, it is another 
 argument to prove that Home Rule means Rome 
 Rule. 
 
 Immediately after the appearance of the decree 
 in the Dublin Daily Express, Archbishop Walsh 
 dealt with it in an article of some seven columns in 
 length. When he had read it, the editor of that 
 paper was in doubt whether, according to the 
 Archbishop's opinion, it applied to Ireland or not. 
 The general feeling is that it does. Be that as it 
 may, it is supposed to have become the law of the 
 Roman Church, and therefore has the gravest 
 application to those belonging to that community. 
 
 It needs but a moment's consideration to see how 
 it would affect the course of public justice. If 
 it became effective it would mean the practical 
 immunity of Roman Catholic clerics from the civil 
 law, and if Roman Catholics and Protestants were 
 mixed up in a case in which some Roman Catholic 
 priest were implicated, it might make it extremely 
 difficult, if not altogether impossible, for the Protes- 
 tant to get justice. On the surface it seems to press 
 most hardly on Roman Catholics ; indeed, it pro- 
 hibits them from any direct appeal to the civil law 
 against any Romanist cleric whatsoever, but in a 
 country in which Romanist and Protestant are
 
 72 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 constantly mixed up in commercial affairs, it may 
 affect the latter as much as it affects the former. 
 
 Of course the Roman Church argues that no 
 injustice would be possible, as the Church Courts 
 would see to it that right would be done ; but 
 the history of Church Courts is such that no one 
 having knowledge of them would care to depend 
 on them for even-handed justice. 
 
 As the Dublin Daily Express says in commenting 
 on the matter: 
 
 " The Roman Catholic clergyman is thus placed 
 on a pinnacle of sacrosanctity, from which it is 
 safe to assert he will seldom or ever be dragged to 
 answer for his actions in either a civil or a criminal 
 court of law. The action of His Holiness is easy to 
 understand. It is detrimental to the interests of any 
 Church to have its clerical representatives figuring 
 in the law courts. The Roman Catholic Church in 
 particular seeks to enshroud its clergy in a halo of 
 virtue, and much of its influence over the masses is 
 due to this very fact." 
 
 Here then is the Ulster case. If a Home Rule 
 Parliament sits at St. Stephen's Green, it is bound 
 to be under the dominion of Rome, and Rome would 
 never rest until the laws of the Church were the 
 law of the State, and it would see to it that what 
 is now binding only on Roman Catholics, should 
 apply to Protestants as well. 
 
 Be that as it may, I am, in stating the arguments
 
 THE NE TEMERE DECREE. 73 
 
 of the main bulk of the Protestants of Ireland 
 against Home Rule, obliged to mention a decree 
 on which they lay so much stress. Moreover, they 
 urge that this is only another sample of the 
 arrogance of Rome, and another link in the chain 
 of argument which goes to prove that Home Rule 
 would be Rome Rule. Not only, they urge, would 
 Protestants not be able to get justice, but Roman 
 Catholics would be more than ever enslaved by 
 clerical forces, and Ireland would be more effectually 
 stultified in its endeavours to arise from the Slough 
 of Despond, in which for so many years it has been 
 submerged.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " IS IT ANY WONDER ? " 
 
 "Is it any wonder ? " the Protestants of Ulster 
 have said to me, " that we are in deadly opposition 
 to Home Rule ? With us our religious liberties are 
 more than our material possessions. Home Rule 
 would mean the end of our material prosperity, it 
 would mean the stagnation of our enterprises, it 
 would mean the destruction of our credit, it would 
 mean the flower of our young manhood leaving our 
 shores, and going to lands where it could find 
 liberty and justice. But this is not the chief thing. 
 We are Protestants, we believe in Protestant 
 liberties, our fathers shed their blood for them 
 centuries ago, and it is because we have entered into 
 the possession of this blood-bought heritage, that we 
 have in face of tremendous difficulties made this 
 corner of Ireland the most prosperous part of the 
 British Dominions. We have nothing but the 
 kindest feelings towards Roman Catholics as in- 
 dividuals; but we hate Romanism, we fear its 
 malign power, and, God helping us, we will never, 
 NEVER submit to a Parliament which will be nothing 
 
 74
 
 ' IS IT ANY WONDER ? " 75 
 
 but a Committee obeying Rome's behests. We ask 
 for nothing for ourselves, except to remain under the 
 old flag, and to live obedient to the laws of Great 
 Britain. Through the years, whilst the priest-ridden 
 part of Ireland has been disloyal and turbulent, we 
 have been loyal and at peace; while they have 
 been lazy and thriftless, we have been industrious 
 and thrifty; while they have been a weakness 
 to the Empire, we have been a strength ; while 
 they have proclaimed their hatred for the mother 
 country, we have shown our love and our fidelity 
 to her ; and while they have been like leeches 
 sucking the life-blood of the body corporate, we 
 have given of our best to sustain the National Life. 
 They have been a weakness to the nation, while we 
 have been a strength ; and while they have been the 
 open sore of British .politics, our loyalty and love 
 have been a healing balm. And now you propose 
 to place us under the heel of the people who are 
 ruled by an alien power ; you suggest that we 
 Protestants, to whom liberty is the very breath of 
 our lives, should be placed in a condition of slavery 
 by Rome. 
 
 " Is it any wonder that we are in earnest, that we 
 are determined, and that we will resist even unto 
 the death against any such thing ? " 
 
 " We must be free or die, who spake the language 
 
 Shakespeare spake, 
 The faith and morals hold which Milton held."
 
 76 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 This was said to me a hundred times, and in a 
 hundred ways, after I had heard their statements 
 bearing upon the question whether Home Rule would 
 be Rome Rule. The voice of Ulster was well-nigh 
 unanimous in affirming that it would be so; and 
 while several whom I saw in the city of Belfast 
 protested that such would not be the case, the 
 great majority of the people, at least ninety per cent, 
 of the Protestant population as it seemed to me, pro- 
 tested that Home Rule for Ireland would mean a more 
 complete reign of an Italian priest and his minions. 
 
 While I was in Belfast the Presbyterian Church 
 was actively preparing for the great meetings 
 which were held on February ist. When the idea 
 was first discussed, it was thought that it would be 
 a small meeting, but the rivulet became a broad 
 stream, and the stream became a mighty river. 
 No less than 50,000 men gathered together at the 
 great demonstration. It was not a political gather- 
 ing, it was not a wild Orange demonstration, it was 
 a gathering of serious men (for neither women nor 
 children were admitted to the halls or churches), 
 who met with stern faces and unflinching resolve 
 never to bend the neck to the Church of Rome, which 
 they are convinced is the meaning of Home Rule. 
 
 The men of the North of Ireland are called bigoted, 
 and bigoted they are, if absolute conviction that 
 Romanism means slavery of the worst kind, and that 
 Home Rule means Rome Rule is bigotry. That was
 
 " IS IT ANY WONDER ? " 77 
 
 the note struck at all their great gatherings, both 
 afternoon and night on February ist. I have had 
 private letters attesting to the deep religious feeling 
 pervading the meetings. Sir William Crawford, 
 writing me on February 3rd, said : " The meetings 
 were most impressive ; the sight of 3,000 strong, 
 serious men met in the Assembly Hall at two o'clock, 
 and over 3,000 other men of the same stamp at 
 7.30, was almost overwhelming. The singing of 
 Psalm xlvi. almost seemed as if it would lift the roof. 
 I am told that in the Ulster Hall, Mary Street 
 Church, Roseway Street Church, Great Victoria 
 Street Church, the crowds were quite as dense. I 
 was much struck with the alertness of the entire 
 audience, and when I asked them, as giving their 
 assent to the resolution, to stand with uplifted 
 right hand, they did so instantaneously, as if drilled 
 from the platform. One could see nothing but hands. 
 
 " If the Solicitors-General, both of Scotland and 
 England, could have seen it, perhaps they might 
 have hesitated about talking of ' coercing the rebels 
 of Ulster.' Queer sort of rebels ! We desire nothing 
 from Government. Is that too much ? " 
 
 I quote this as shewing their attitude towards 
 Home Rule, and the strength of their feelings. 
 
 The question of Mr. Winston Churchill speaking 
 m Ulster Hall was of course a burning question 
 while I was there, and I took strong objection to 
 the attitude they had taken.
 
 78 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 "Is it any wonder ? " was their answer. " You 
 must remember that we are fighting for what we 
 regard as dearer than our lives. Home Rule is not 
 a mere political question ; we cannot think of it 
 as an academic matter, as many English Home 
 Rulers seem to regard it. They seem to think we 
 are playing a game of bluff, and that we shall easily 
 yield. If Churchill is allowed to come here without 
 a set and deliberate protest on our part, and if he 
 speaks at a meeting at Ulster Hall in the ordinary 
 way, Home Rulers will repeat their parrot cry that 
 our feelings against Rome Rule are not so strong as 
 they were, and that we are being converted to that 
 side. We regard this as a challenge to us, and we want 
 to shew that we mean to take it up. It is the first step 
 in a revolution, and we desire to shew our minds." 
 
 " Come now revolution ! " I said. 
 
 " Yes, revolution. For it will be a revolution. 
 We have made up our minds, and we shall not 
 budge an inch. If a Home Rule Bill is passed 
 there will be a revolution, and possibly a bloody 
 revolution, too." 
 
 " Do you realise what you are saying ? " 
 
 " We realise it perfectly. Even the women and 
 children will take up arms if needs be, and we are 
 not afraid." 
 
 " But don't you see the madness of such a threat ? 
 What could you do against a trained army ? " 
 
 " Would the English army fire upon us ? Would
 
 " IS IT ANY WONDER ? " 79 
 
 English and Scotch men fire upon their flesh and 
 blood ? Would England, which, if a plebiscite were 
 taken would not prove in favour of Home Rule, 
 allow the loyal and law-abiding part of Ireland to 
 be murdered simply because it desires to remain one 
 with the British Government, and because it refuses 
 to be governed by a set of political agitators who 
 are the tools of Rome, and get their money from 
 America ? We do not believe it. But in any case 
 we mean to stand firm, and if we are driven to 
 extremities we will fight to the very last." 
 
 " But that does not justify you in refusing to 
 hear the other side. Free speech is one of the 
 dearest heritages for which our fathers have fought, 
 and which they have handed down to us. And yet 
 you refuse free speech. You are afraid of argument." 
 
 " Argument ! We should not hear Churchill, and 
 we are not afraid of his arguments. But we want to 
 shew that we are in earnest." 
 
 " But it is not cricket ; it is not sportsmanlike. 
 We are not a nation of savages, but of free people, 
 and it is one of the laws of civilisation to give the other 
 side a fair hearing. And you have broken that law ; 
 you have done that which you condemn people in 
 the south of Ireland for doing." 
 
 " I tell you that on the eve of a possible revolution 
 such as this we are justified " ; and not one of the 
 men with whom I spoke could be moved from this 
 position.
 
 8o IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 "Is it any wonder ? " they repeated again and 
 again. " What would you do in England if you 
 felt you were in danger of being handed over to a 
 foreign power, which meant the destruction of the 
 business you had been building up through the 
 years ? If it meant the violation of liberties which 
 were as the breath of your life, and which would 
 finally mean the overthrow of your faith ? 
 
 " You cannot destroy faith so easily," was my 
 reply. " The Duke of Alva and all the powers of 
 Spain could not destroy the faith of Holland." 
 
 " No, but they butchered many thousands, they 
 deluged the land in blood. Why, think of the 
 condition of Quebec ! What has Rome done there ? 
 The Protestant population of that city is not half of 
 what it was a few years ago. The Romanists have 
 just squeezed them out, made it impossible for them 
 to live. That is what they would do in Ireland 
 under Home Rule." 
 
 " But do you think if a Home Rule Bill were to be 
 passed that you could resist the power of Great 
 Britain ? Don't you see what you are doing ? " 
 
 ' We see perfectly what we are doing, but we 
 do not think you quite understand the class of 
 people you are trying to coerce. We are in deadly 
 opposition to this business, and nothing will move 
 us. You remember the riots of 1886, when Gladstone 
 brought in his first Home Rule Bill. Do you know 
 what took place ? There were 103 killed, and over
 
 " IS IT ANY WONDER ? " 81 
 
 a thousand wounded. Some of us visited the 
 hospital, and the place was a perfect hell. Do you 
 think you have any right to turn Belfast into a hell 
 again, for that is what you will do ? " 
 
 " Even now," said a large employer of labour to 
 me, " the very shadow of Home Rule has brought 
 estrangement among my workpeople, it is causing 
 bitterness and anger. There has been no open 
 trouble yet, but the fires, although smouldering, 
 are there. All this is bad for the city, bad for the 
 common weal." 
 
 " Remember this, too," said another, " our 
 opposition is different now from what it was in 
 1886. Then the riots took place among the working 
 classes, now you would find the most respected of 
 our citizens would revolt." 
 
 " But think of the general results," I urged, "and 
 remember this, too, the Government of a great 
 country like ours cannot be intimidated." 
 
 " There is passive resistance as well as active 
 resistance," was the reply. 
 
 " What do you mean by passive resistance ? " 
 
 " The Nonconformists of England showed us 
 after Balfour's Education Bill was passed." 
 
 " Which you Unionists of Ulster helped him 
 to pass," I retorted. 
 
 " Yes, and many of us are ashamed of it, for the 
 main bulk of the Presbyterians of Ulster are with you 
 in everything but this Home Rule question. But 
 
 P
 
 82 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 you must remember that the Unionist party have 
 ostensibly supported our cause, while the Liberal 
 party have ostensibly supported Home Rule. And 
 there is practically no other political question but 
 Home Rule among us. But to come back to passive 
 resistance, the Nonconformists of England resisted 
 the law, and refused to pay rates." 
 
 ' Yes, and the power of the law has worn down 
 that resistance. Nonconformists feel as bitterly 
 as ever against the Clerical rates without 
 popular representation, which the Unionists forced 
 upon them. But they could do little against 
 the law." 
 
 " Ah, but our case is different. The Noncon- 
 formists only deducted a part of the rates, a mere 
 fraction of it ; but we will deduct the whole. You 
 did not disorganise political life ; but we will. 
 It is hard to coerce over a million people ; in fact, 
 nearly a third of a nation. Remember this : we pay 
 the great bulk of the taxes, we Protestants, and 
 no Irish Government could be carried on without us. 
 Well, suppose Home Rule is granted, and we have 
 Redmond for Prime Minister, Devlin for a Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, Dillon Education Secretary, and 
 Tim Healy for Home Secretary ; of course the whole 
 thought is ludicrous, but suppose we had some 
 such arrangement, what would happen ? Taxes 
 would be levied upon Ulster, upon the Protestants 
 of Ireland generally. But we should not pay
 
 " IS IT ANY WONDER ? " 83 
 
 them. That Irish Government would never 
 receive a penny from us. Not one penny. What 
 could it do ? " 
 
 " Why force you ? " 
 
 " How ? We shall fight as one man. Warrants 
 would have to be issued, but who would issue them ? 
 If they distrain upon us for our goods, who would 
 sign the warrants ? If they tried to sell up our 
 factories, our shops, our homes, who would buy 
 them ? I tell you that to try to coerce more than a 
 million people, and that million the most prosperous, 
 the most intelligent, indeed the strongest and 
 most capable people in a country, is a tremendous 
 task. In fact, it is the testimony of history that 
 you cannot coerce a free people, when that people 
 is united and determined. No, do not be mistaken, 
 the Protestants of Ireland have counted the cost, 
 and they have made up their minds." 
 
 The Honourable Thomas Sinclair, an Irish Privy 
 Councillor, and one of the most influential Protestants 
 in Ireland, explained his position to me as follows : 
 " If the British people are determined to force Home 
 Rule upon us against our passionate protest, we 
 shall demand, on the grounds of elementary justice, 
 and having regard to the province we have built 
 up, after having been planted in Ulster by an English 
 Government for State purposes three hundred years 
 ago, that we shall remain as we are, an integral 
 part of the United Kingdom, with unimpaired
 
 84 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 representation in Imperial Parliament and subject 
 only to its direct control. 
 
 " Then, if this be not granted we shall go on with 
 the Provisional Government. In either event 
 namely, whether we remain as we are, or whether 
 we live under Provisional Government, we consider 
 that we can best assist our brethren in the South, 
 whose position we feel very keenly." 
 
 These, if I read the people aright, are the sentiments 
 of the overwhelming majority of the Protestants of 
 Ireland. I offer no opinion upon them for the 
 present, I only tell what I saw and heard, and we 
 cannot judge of the value of any great constitutional 
 change like Home Rule unless we understand the 
 temper and tone of its people. 
 
 I shall never forget the quiet tones of one elderly 
 man who spoke to me concerning this matter. 
 
 " We people of the North are not an easily 
 conquered people," he said; " I do not speak boast- 
 fully, I only speak of matters of fact of history. 
 Do you remember how after James II. had made 
 his alliance with Louis XIV., his great hope lay in 
 Ireland, and how he hoped by the possession of 
 Ireland to gain back his ascendancy over England ? 
 Tyrconnell had been made general, and been raised 
 to the post of Lord Deputy. The army had been 
 remodelled, Protestant soldiers had been discharged 
 and their places filled by Papists. All Protestant 
 judges had been replaced by Catholics, and Catholic
 
 " IS IT ANY WONDER ? " 85 
 
 mayors and sheriffs had been set over every city 
 and county. Then the terror of massacre seized 
 the people. Protestants in the South forsook the 
 country, while those of the North drew together 
 at Londonderry and Enniskillen. You know that 
 for two months Tyrconnell intrigued with William's 
 Government in order to gain time, then, William, 
 being seemingly powerless, at the beginning of 1689 
 a flag was hoisted over Dublin Castle on which the 
 words were embroidered ' Now or Never ! ' I tell 
 you it was a fateful time, not only for Ireland, but 
 for England. If James gained a firm foothold in 
 Ireland, what might not have happened to England ? 
 That flag at Dublin Castle called every Papist to 
 arms, and James sailed from France to Kinsale. 
 His first work was to crush the Protestants who 
 stood in arms in the North. Fifty thousand men 
 were gathered under TyrconnelTs standard, and 
 twenty-five thousand of them were sent to London- 
 derry, where the bulk of the Protestant fugitives 
 found shelter behind a weak wall. They had only 
 a few old guns, and not even a ditch to protect 
 them. But there were seven thousand men there ; 
 seven thousand who, like the men of Israel in 
 Elijah's time, had not bowed the knee to Baal, 
 and would not yield. Think of it ! Twenty-five 
 thousand armed Papists against seven thousand 
 almost unarmed Protestants, and yet the seven 
 thousand repulsed the attacks, nay, they made
 
 86 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 the twenty-five thousand act on the defensive, and 
 forced the Papists to turn the siege into a blockade. 
 Many Protestants died of hunger in the streets, 
 but those who lived still held on. More died of 
 fever, which was the result of hunger, but those who 
 survived still trusted in the Lord of hosts, and held 
 out against the invaders. Time after time did the 
 Papists command them to yield, and time after 
 time they sent back the answer ' No surrender ! ' 
 That siege lasted for 105 days, and only two days' 
 food remained in Londonderry, but there was no 
 thought of yielding, no not one. On the 28th of July, 
 1689, an English ship broke the boom across the 
 water, and the Papists knew they were defeated. 
 After that the men of Enniskillen turned the defeat 
 into a rout : the routed soldiers fell back on Dublin, 
 where James lay helpless among a number of 
 Papists who were well-nigh frenzied, and although 
 there was much terrible fighting afterwards, every 
 step our fathers took was a step towards victory. 
 Now, those were the men who saved Ireland for 
 England, and those men were our forefathers. 
 Do you think that we, their children, are likely to 
 yield easily ? We are fighting for our liberties as 
 they fought. We are fighting for our faith as they 
 fought, and ' No surrender ! ' is our motto as theirs 
 was." 
 
 What answer I gave to this I need not say, but I 
 realised as I never realised before how deep was their
 
 "IS IT ANY WONDER?" 87 
 
 feeling and how firm and strong was their determina- 
 tion never to yield. 
 
 We may call them bigots if we will ; doubtless 
 some of them are, but that they are sincere no one 
 can question, and that they are strong and deter- 
 mined is obvious to the most careless passer-by.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DOES THE ROMAN CHURCH DESIRE HOME RULE ? 
 
 I HAVE dwelt at length on the attitude of the Irish 
 Protestants on the question as to whether Home 
 Rule would mean Rome Rule, and especially on that 
 of the Protestants of Ulster, because I have been 
 anxious to state their case in the strongest light. 
 I do not think, moreover, if the question be viewed 
 from their standpoint, that the strength of their 
 case can be denied. It requires no subtlety of 
 thought. To them Ireland consists of two races, 
 having two religions. To give the country self- 
 government would be to place all the power in the 
 hands of the more numerous race, the race which 
 through the centuries has been opposed to England. 
 It would place Protestants under the subjection of 
 Rome, which, as is well known, regards Protestantism 
 with a deadly hatred. They quote the able and 
 scholarly editor of the British Weekly, who asks 
 Mr. Stephen Gwynn this question : " Will he tell 
 us of a single instance where a Roman Catholic 
 majority has given justice to a Protestant minority ? 
 We wait to hear." 
 
 88
 
 DOES CHURCH DESIRE HOME RULE ? 89 
 
 The case of Irish Protestants, then, and especially 
 those of Ulster, is that Home Rule would mean 
 Rome Rule, and as a consequence they mean to 
 fight to the death. 
 
 But there is another side, and it is this other side 
 that I am anxious to state with as much fairness 
 and fulness as I have stated the other. But my 
 task is more difficult, because the reasons which 
 would lead one to answer the question, " Does 
 Home Rule mean Rome Rule ? " in the negative 
 do not lie on the surface. Nevertheless, those 
 reasons must be given, and the facts that support 
 them stated. 
 
 During the whole of the time I was in Ireland, 
 and since I have returned home, and have been 
 thinking over the evidence on both sides of the 
 matter, one question has constantly faced me. 
 Does the Roman hierarchy want Home Rule for 
 Ireland ? Whatever else may be said about the 
 Roman Church, no one will deny that those who 
 guide its policy are astute men. Moreover, this is 
 certain : whatever policy they bless is the policy 
 which they think will be most favourable to the 
 Roman Church. It will not willingly abate one 
 jot or tittle of its power ; it will do nothing and, if 
 possible, allow nothing that will lessen its dominance 
 or decrease its influence. With them the Church is 
 first, the Church is everything. After all, Ireland 
 is not a large question to the Roman Church. It is
 
 90 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 only a little island with a population that has been 
 decreasing for many years. Only in so far as it is 
 associated with England has it any claim to great- 
 ness. Its people, that is its Roman Catholic people, 
 are in the main poor, and cannot be of any great 
 consequence to a body like the Roman Church. 
 
 To put it in another way, What has the Roman 
 Church to gain by an Act giving Ireland Home 
 Rule ? Will it give that Church more power than 
 it has now, will it give her a stronger hold upon the 
 people, will it increase her revenues ? Consider the 
 position of the Roman Church in Ireland. It is freely 
 admitted that nowhere else in the world can you 
 find a people so amenable to the Roman hierarchy 
 as in Ireland. No one associates Modernism with 
 the Emerald Isle. None of its priests have, as far 
 as I know, ever been accused of having "advanced 
 notions " or " liberal opinions." If there are any, 
 they dare not speak, and are so few in number that 
 they are a negligible quantity. If the general 
 opinion, as I found it in Ireland, goes for anything, 
 the Irish priests are utterly devoted to their Church, 
 and they are entirely obedient. 
 
 Could their position be improved ? Could they 
 under Home Rule have their way more completely 
 than now ? If Ireland had all its demands con- 
 ceded, and possessed complete control over Irish 
 affairs, would the position of the Church be improved 
 one jot ? Would it have greater control over the
 
 DOES CHURCH DESIRE HOME RULE ? 91 
 
 education of the people ? Would its adherents give 
 more largely or more loyally to the Church ; would 
 it dominate the destinies of the country more com- 
 pletely than it does under present conditions ? 
 Could it ? 
 
 I am pressing this question because it seems to 
 me of considerable importance. For I would again 
 urge this position : the Church only wants that 
 which will mean its own aggrandisement and an 
 increase of its power. 
 
 I give the following story for what it is worth. 
 I have every reason to believe it is true. It was 
 told me by a man who had it from the lips of one 
 who was associated with it. 
 
 As is well known, Archbishop Walsh is one of the 
 most influential men in the Roman Church in Ireland. 
 He is highly respected, not only by Romanists but by 
 many Protestants, and is regarded by some as a cleric 
 with liberal sympathies. One day a member of the 
 Senate of the New University, one of the very few 
 Protestants on that Senate, and who told the story 
 to my informant, was walking with the Archbishop. 
 The Archbishop looked troubled, and his companion 
 asked him if anything worried him. 
 
 The Archbishop admitted that his mind was far 
 from restful. 
 
 " What is troubling you ? " asked his companion. 
 
 " It is this Home Rule question," was the reply. 
 
 " Why, don't you approve of Home Rule ? "
 
 93 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 The Archbishop was doubtful if he did. 
 
 " Why don't you condemn it ? " was the query. 
 
 " Oh, there's time enough for that when the Bill 
 is introduced," was the answer. " We shall see what 
 it really means then, and if we don't like it, the 
 thing can be easily killed by Convention." 
 
 Admit for the moment that the story is true, 
 and that the Archbishop said the words I have written 
 down, what does it suggest ? The Church of Rome can 
 only rule by the will of the people, and if the Church 
 through him (the Archbishop) condemned the idea of 
 Home Rule before the Bill was introduced, it would 
 create a difficult situation. The better educated of 
 the people would feel they were not fairly treated ; 
 they would speak of it at public meetings ; general 
 unrest would result, and questions would be asked. 
 Such a state of things would be inimical to the wel- 
 fare of the Church, for it would lessen the hold of 
 the hierarchy upon the affection of the people. 
 But if on the other hand the Bill were introduced 
 into Parliament, and the Irish members came back 
 to Dublin to present their report to Convention, 
 what would happen ? The Convention, I am given 
 to understand, is made up of representatives of 
 the various societies : The Irish League, the 
 Hibernians, etc. The Convention is called a repre- 
 sentative body, but it is ruled by the Church. The 
 Church pulls the strings, the Church decides its 
 policy. This may not always appear on the surface,
 
 DOES CHURCH DESIRE HOME RULE ? 93 
 
 but it is invariably the case. If therefore the Bill 
 did not satisfy the Church it would be killed. 
 The Convention would say that it did not satisfy 
 the people, and it would seem as though the Bill 
 were killed by the people, but in reality the Church 
 would be responsible for its death. 
 
 This was what happened, as I was frequently 
 informed by the Irish Councils Bill in 1906. When 
 the Irish Secretary introduced it, he did so with the 
 consent of the Irish members, but when its details 
 were laid before the Convention, and the Church 
 saw that it would mean the beginning of popular 
 control of Irish education, it puts its veto upon it. 
 Ostensibly the Convention killed it, but all the 
 world knows that the voice of the Convention was 
 the voice of the Church. 
 
 This, as it is believed by many to whom I spoke, 
 is what will happen in relation to the Home Rule 
 Bill. If it does not please the Church, the Church 
 will try to kill it, unless it appeals to the popular 
 mind so strongly that to kill it would weaken their 
 hold upon the people. 
 
 All the same it is believed by many that the 
 Roman Church is not at all strongly in favour of 
 self-government for Ireland, and certainly when one 
 considers the case fairly there are strong reasons for 
 that belief. 
 
 What, for example, is the objective of the Church 
 of Rome ? Not Ireland. She has Ireland already,
 
 94 
 
 and it is difficult to see how her power can be 
 strengthened there. It is very rare that she obtains 
 a convert in Ireland. The Protestants of Ireland 
 are too strongly opposed to Rome ever to yield 
 to her. The Protestants of Ireland are Protestant. 
 They do not coquette with the Church of Rome as 
 many do in England. Ritualism is almost unknown 
 in the Episcopal Church of Ireland. As George 
 Bernard Shaw says in his preface to " John Bull's 
 Other Island " " In Ireland all that the member 
 of the Irish Protestant Church knows is that he is 
 not a Roman Catholic. The decorations of even 
 the ' lowest ' English church seem to him to be 
 extravagantly ritualistic and popish." Of course, 
 Mr. Shaw is a man who writes too often with his 
 tongue in his cheek to be taken seriously always, 
 but in this he is doubtless right. The Protestants 
 of Ireland Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, 
 Quakers, and Congregationalists are Protestant, 
 and are adamant against any approaches of the 
 Romanist Church. As a consequence, the objective 
 of Rome cannot be Ireland. What is it, then ? 
 As all the world knows, it is England. In order to 
 convert England Pope Pius IX. sent Cardinal 
 Wiseman to take ecclesiastical possession of Eng- 
 land long years ago, and ever since then the Papal 
 policy has been to spare no effort to regain her power 
 in England. Cardinal Manning made no secret of 
 this. " It is ours," he said, " to subjugate and
 
 DOES CHURCH DESIRE HOME RULE ? 95 
 
 subdue, to conquer and to rule an imperial race. . . . 
 Were heresy conquered in England, it would be 
 conquered everywhere. All its lines meet here, and 
 it is here that the Church of God must be gathered 
 in all its strength." 
 
 If this is true, what would the Church gain by 
 giving self-government to Ireland ? Of course, it 
 would largely depend upon the inclusion, or exclu- 
 sion of Irish members from the English Parliament. 
 But it can hardly be expected that if Home Rule is 
 granted, Irish members would be allowed to legislate 
 in purely English affairs. 
 
 If this were the case, therefore, it would mean the 
 practical withdrawal of Irish members, the great 
 bulk of whom are Roman Catholics, from any direct 
 legislation on definitely English matters, and that 
 would be a source of weakness, and not a source of 
 strength, to the Roman Church. As all the world 
 knows, Mr. Balfour's Education Bill, which placed 
 Romanists upon the rates, was supported by the Irish 
 party ; indeed, it is believed by many that it would 
 never have become law but for the Irish Catholics. 
 Cardinal Vaughan, so it is reported, said boastfully 
 when the Bill was passed, " We have dished the 
 Nonconformists." Would the Church of England 
 party have done what they did but for the help of 
 the Irish ? Again, when the Liberals came into 
 power, and the present Irish Secretary introduced a 
 Bill which was only a bundle of compromises, there
 
 96 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 is little doubt but that he was influenced by the fact 
 that the Irish members sat at St. Stephen's. No 
 one regards the English Education question as 
 settled. It must sooner or later come upon the 
 tapis again, and the withdrawal of the Irish members 
 would prove a tremendous disadvantage to the 
 Church of Rome, when a new Education Bill is 
 introduced. 
 
 Another thing has to be borne in mind. If the 
 Home Rule question were out of the way, and 
 Ireland had self-government, the minds of the people 
 would be centred on their own affairs. Moreover, it 
 follows as the night the day that two parties would 
 spring up in Ireland as they have sprung up in other 
 countries where self-government has been granted. 
 There would be a clerical party and an anti-clerical 
 party. Now, if Rome fears anything, she fears this, 
 and she is wise enough to see the danger. During 
 the last century nation after nation has slipped from 
 her grasp through free and popular governments ; 
 and Ireland, Church-bound as she is, would be likely 
 to follow in the train of France, and Italy, and 
 Portugal. 
 
 I will not discuss this question here, as I shall 
 have occasion to touch upon it again in another 
 chapter ; but it surely supports the doubt which 
 exists in the minds of many whether the Roman 
 Church really wants Home Rule for Ireland. 
 
 There have been many, too, who see in the two
 
 DOES CHURCH DESIRE HOME RULE ? 97 
 
 Papal decrees signs that the Roman Church is not 
 in love with the thought of Home Rule. Personally 
 I do not attach much importance to it, but the 
 argument which many adduce is this : The Church 
 of Rome must know that the publication of those 
 decrees could not be calculated to help Home Rule. 
 Its representatives in Ireland knew very well that 
 it would arouse the feelings of Protestants, and that 
 it would be used as an argument for refusing to 
 place Ireland under an Irish Parliament. They 
 knew that almost every newspaper would attach 
 great importance to it, and that its almost certain 
 results would be heralded far and wide. Archbishop 
 Walsh and Cardinal Logue knew the furore that 
 was created by the McCann case ; they watched it 
 step by step, and were aware of the deadly hatred 
 to Rome which it aroused in the breasts of 
 Protestants in Ulster. They were not blind to 
 the fact that the Unionists of England as well as of 
 Ireland would be likely to make the most of it, and 
 that at every step in a Home Rule measure it would 
 be adduced as an evidence of Roman aggression and 
 Roman cruelty. Of course they tried to shew up 
 the Church in its best light ; it was their policy so to 
 do ; and yet only a very little while later the Motu 
 Proprio decree was proclaimed. It is true, Archbishop 
 Walsh wrote seven columns of ambiguous rhetoric 
 to the Dublin Express, but he did not deny its 
 application to Ireland, and he knew that his letter
 
 9$ IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 would be a text for hundreds of anti-Home Rule 
 speeches. 
 
 If the Roman Church wanted Home Rule, many 
 urge that that Church would not have put such a 
 strong argument in the mouths of their enemies, and 
 thus have imperilled the chances of the thing upon 
 which they have set their hearts. But they did allow 
 it. The decrees have been proclaimed, and they have 
 aroused the antagonism of millions of people. It is 
 true, the Home Rule press have glossed over the facts, 
 and some by silence on certain salient features have 
 gone far to nullify their influence. But the facts 
 remain, and thousands are saying, " If Rome will do 
 this now, what will it not do when it has a Parliament 
 in Dublin, and when the Government of Ireland 
 is directly in its power ? " This being so, have 
 not those who believe that the Roman hierarchy 
 dislikes Home Rule, strong grounds for their belief ? 
 
 It is true that a Roman Catholic bishop told me 
 that these decrees had no political significance 
 whatever, and were simply proclaimed as necessary 
 laws of the Church ; but I could not help feeling that 
 he spoke in a very tentative way. Moreover, he is 
 by no means a political ecclesiastic, and, as far as I 
 could judge, would not be the kind of man to 
 be consulted concerning the inner workings of the 
 Roman hierarchy. 
 
 As I said, I do not attach very great importance 
 to this argument, as from my reading of Church
 
 DOES CHURCH DESIRE HOME RULE ? 99 
 
 history the Roman Church works in ways far subtler 
 than this, and if, as it has been frequently said, the 
 Jesuits dictate the policy of the Church, they would 
 adopt something far less obvious than this. As a 
 Modernist member of the Roman Communion said 
 to me some time ago : " The ways of the Church of 
 Rome are difficult to understand, and if it wanted 
 to kill Home Rule it would do it in a far more 
 subtle fashion. When it wants to kill a thing, 
 it usually makes it appear that it does not want 
 to kill it, and when the deed is done, it makes it 
 appear that it was done in spite of its behests." 
 
 Be that as it may, however, this argument is 
 frequently adduced and believed by many, and while 
 it is not of first-class importance, its supporters have, 
 prima facie, a case. 
 
 Then there is something else to be borne in mind. 
 Ever since Wyndham's Land Act was passed, the 
 priests as a body have practically withdrawn from 
 politics. Doubtless now and then they appear on 
 Home Rule platforms, but as a whole they have 
 withdrawn from the political arena, and from active 
 politics generally. Indeed, an ecclesiastic of high 
 standing in Ireland told me he very much doubted 
 whether there was anything like a strong feeling 
 among the Roman Catholic clergy in favour of 
 Home Rule. He admitted that most of the priests 
 were of peasant origin, and came from the class 
 that most strongly supported it. As a consequence,
 
 ioo IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 from the standpoint of National sentiment, and from 
 early prejudice, they were in favour of it, but they 
 did not publicly support it. 
 
 This is significant. Of course, I am quite aware 
 that the Roman Catholic clergy would be somewhat 
 particular as to what they said to me, especially as 
 those to whom I spoke were fully aware of the 
 attitude I had taken on Protestant questions. 
 But the facts speak for themselves. First, it is 
 generally admitted that the priests as a body have 
 in the main withdrawn from the public advocacy of 
 Home Rule. Second, the priests of the Roman 
 Catholic Church are bound to reflect, broadly con- 
 sidered, the feelings and wishes of the hierarchy. 
 There is not the slightest doubt that if the priests did 
 feel strongly on the question, they would, unless they 
 were forbidden by those in authority, express their 
 feelings whenever they had opportunity to do so, 
 for they would know that, especially in the rural 
 districts, they control the sentiments of the peasants. 
 And thirdly, I repeatedly heard while I was in the 
 South of Ireland, that there was a very strong doubt 
 among the people whether the Church as a Church 
 were at all anxious for Home Rule. 
 
 Indeed, to urge again the question I asked at the 
 beginning, Why should the Church want it ? Could 
 it be better off under a Home Rule Government ? 
 Could it have its own way more completely ? Has 
 it not a thousand times more to lose than to gain
 
 DOES CHURCH DESIRE HOME RULE ? 101 
 
 by Home Rule ? and if it has, would it not be the 
 height of folly for it to throw the weight of its 
 influence on the side of that political party which is 
 staking everything on giving it ? 
 
 For it is a well-known fact and that fact would 
 be amusing if it were not so sad each party, 
 Liberal and Conservative, is afraid of touching the 
 religious aspect of the question for fear of alienating 
 the Roman Catholic vote. The editor of one of 
 the most influential Unionist newspapers in Ireland 
 told me that one of the prominent Unionist 
 members of Parliament came to him with a sad 
 countenance. He said: " We have been stultifying 
 ourselves as a party, we have been emasculating 
 our arguments by for ever keeping the religious 
 aspect of the question in the background. We have 
 been told that we must not speak of the religious 
 danger of Rome Rule for fear of offending the Roman 
 Catholic Unionist. And yet this is our strongest 
 platform. As far as Ulster is concerned, it is the 
 bed-rock of all our arguments, and we shall never 
 win in this battle, unless we throw off this miserable 
 encumbrance and fight the battle on the real battle- 
 field viz., that Home Rule would mean Rome 
 Rule. Why should we hide our real feelings 
 because we fear to offend the Unionist Roman 
 Catholics ? " 
 
 Of course, I am speaking only from memory, and 
 do not claim to use his exact words ; but I have
 
 102 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 conveyed the sentiments which he expressed in 
 far stronger language than I have used. 
 
 I have noticed this, too. The Unionist papers, 
 not Irish but English, studiously refrain from using 
 language that would alienate the Roman Catholic 
 elector. On the day following the great Presbyterian 
 demonstration in Belfast (and it must be remembered 
 that this was wholly a religious demonstration, and 
 was marked by the strongest denunciation of Roman 
 tyranny), the principal Unionist journal we have 
 in England, if we except the Times, neither in its 
 descriptive article nor in its leader expressed the real 
 Presbyterian feeling. It did not even condemn the 
 Ne Temere decree, rather it justified it. It did not 
 refer to the McCann case, which has so stirred the 
 heart of Ulster ; rather it endeavoured to enlist the 
 sympathies of the Unionist Roman Catholic for 
 the Irish Protestants whose chief fear is the Church 
 of Rome. It overlooked the fact that but for the 
 religious difficulty the Ulster objection would melt 
 away like snow before the sun, and sought to 
 make it appear that the Roman Catholic Unionist 
 and the Irish Protestant Unionist had a common 
 cause. 
 
 In my letter to the Belfast paper, which I men- 
 tioned in the first chapter, I urged that the Ulster- 
 men should come to England and reveal the true 
 facts concerning Home Rule and Rome Rule, and 
 in many of the letters I received, I was told that
 
 DOES CHURCH DESIRE HOME RULE ? 103 
 
 they had received strict orders not to touch on the 
 religious question, as by so doing they would 
 alienate the sympathies of the Roman Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 The same could be said of the Liberal party. 
 The strongest Protestants, who hate Rome's 
 policy, water down their arguments on education 
 and other questions for fear of losing the " Catholic 
 vote." 
 
 If the Roman hierarchy wanted Home Rule, if 
 there was anything like a strong feeling for it, would 
 those who in England condemn Home Rule fail to 
 use this as an argument ? As a matter of fact, it 
 is extremely doubtful whether those who shape 
 Rome's policy in Ireland do favour it. Indeed, I am 
 inclined to think that they fear it, and wish it could 
 be buried and forgotten. Mr. Sydney Brooks, in 
 his very able article on " Aspects of the Religious 
 Question in Ireland," which appears in the February 
 number of the Fortnightly Review, puts the case 
 very strongly. He says : " It may be doubted . . . 
 whether the Catholic Church at all desires Ireland 
 to be a very different country. As devout Roman 
 Catholics, putting the Church before any mundane 
 interest, they have every reason to be satisfied with 
 Ireland, and the Irish people, and I will add, with 
 the British Government in Ireland, just as they are. 
 From the point of view of the Church, there can hardly 
 be any change which is not a change for the worse ;
 
 104 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 in the eyes of a zealous hierarchy the Ireland of 
 to-day must be very nearly the ideal country. The 
 people dwindle, but the Church thrives ; emigration 
 continues, but those who are left behind seem to 
 yield themselves more and more to priestly guidance 
 and authority. Convents and monasteries multiply, 
 Irish missionaries scatter over the world, the wealth 
 and power and property of the Church grow 
 from year to year, and British statesmanship have 
 thoroughly assimilated the maxim, that the road 
 to peace lies in governing Ireland in and through 
 the priesthood." 
 
 These are weighty words and worthy of careful 
 consideration. I quote them because they come 
 from the pen of a careful and unprejudiced observer, 
 and because they bear out what became a conviction 
 with me while travelling especially in the South of 
 Ireland. 
 
 As I propose giving in another chapter, my reasons 
 for believing that the Roman Church has the gravest 
 cause for regarding Home Rule with apprehension if 
 not with fear, I will not deal further with it now. 
 I cannot, however, help quoting another passage 
 from Mr. Brooks' article, because it seems so pungent 
 and strikes so deeply. 
 
 " It would be perhaps," he says, " too blunt a way 
 of putting it to say that the Church in Ireland is for 
 Home Rule only so long as it is sure of not getting it." 
 
 The truth is the Church of Rome in Ireland is
 
 DOES CHURCH DESIRE HOME RULE ? 105 
 
 playing a waiting game. Her policy there, as it has 
 been in every part of the world, is the policy summed 
 up in the lines of the famous song 
 
 And whatsoever king may reign 
 Still I'll be Vicar of Bray, sir. 
 
 The one thought of the Roman Church is its own 
 aggrandisement and power. Whatever laws are 
 passed, she will seek to utilise those laws for her own 
 advancement. If it suits her, she will endeavour to 
 drive a coach and four through any Act of Parlia- 
 ment, as she has done in the case of the Irish Univer- 
 sity Act, and she will laugh at the safeguards as 
 Cardinal Logue laughed at the safeguards in that Bill. 
 Her power is great, but great only when the people 
 are under her dominion. If there is anything she 
 hates, it is a free people who dare to think their 
 own thoughts, and act according to their judgment. 
 She wants to think for them and judge for them. 
 She is best pleased with a nation of intellectual slaves, 
 who will unquestioningly follow her bidding. All 
 through the ages the thumbscrew, the rack, and 
 the faggot have been her instruments for dealing 
 with free enquiry and the right of private judgment. 
 As a priest in Ireland told me, " We only interfere 
 with politics when questions of faith and morals are 
 involved." But what political question under 
 heaven is there of which the priest cannot say that 
 faith and morals are involved ?
 
 106 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 It has been wisely said that you cannot argue with 
 a prophet, and it is always a very dangerous thing 
 to prophesy ; nevertheless, I have little doubt as to 
 the course of events. Assuming that a Home Rule 
 Bill is brought in at any early date, the Roman Church 
 will silently wait until its details are known to the 
 world. Doubtless Archbishop Walsh and Cardinal 
 Logue know more about it now than is known to nine- 
 tenths of the members of Parliament, but they will 
 say nothing about it. By the time the particulars of 
 the Bill are known to the world they will have made 
 up their minds. If it does not satisfy the minimum 
 of their demands, they will cause Convention to 
 condemn it root and branch. They will say that it 
 is only playing at self-government, and call it a 
 sham, and an insult to the Irish people, and do their 
 best to arouse popular antagonism to it. Possibly 
 they will kill it as they killed the Irish Councils 
 Bill. But of one thing we may be sure : the great 
 question asked will be, " How does it affect the 
 Church ? " and we may depend that if the Church is 
 in any degree robbed of her power or her privileges, 
 all the might of clericalism will be brought against 
 it, and the reason given will be that it is opposed to 
 the best interests of the people at large. 
 
 If the Bill gives a liberal grant of self-government, 
 however, and appeals to the imagination of the 
 people as the thing they have waited for, then the 
 hierarchy, although not wanting Home Rule, will
 
 DOES CHURCH DESIRE HOME RULE ? 107 
 
 not oppose it ; rather, those who are at the helm 
 will take some measure of credit to themselves for 
 forcing a Protestant Government to do justice to 
 Ireland. They dare not oppose it, for they know 
 that the time is gone when they can dare to oppose 
 the will of a nation. Not that the nation would 
 disobey, but they would know that the people would 
 look upon them as enemies to the national sentiment. 
 If the Unionists succeed in destroying the Bill, the 
 Church will again make it appear that its leaders 
 favoured self-government for Ireland, and will throw 
 all the blame on English and Irish Protestants. 
 
 But of this we may be sure : the Church will seek 
 to safeguard its own interests, and preserve its own 
 power. It will seize upon every opportunity which 
 any new conditions offer to uphold the claims of a 
 power which is tottering in almost every Roman 
 Catholic country in the world, it will hold tena- 
 ciously to every shred of privilege which it now 
 possesses. 
 
 If the Roman Catholic Church can make Home 
 Rule Rome Rule, we may be sure that she will. 
 Never was that Church so greedy of power as she is 
 to-day, and never was she so loud in her demands. 
 Doubtless there are reasons for this. During the last 
 half-century she has seen whole nations slip from 
 her grasp, and she is eager not only to retain what 
 she already holds, but to conquer new lands. There- 
 fore, she will seek to hold what she has in Ireland
 
 io8 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 like grim death, and will fight desperately to obtain 
 new positions of advantage. In this respect the 
 fears of Ulstermen are not without foundation. 
 Nevertheless, I believe the Church of Rome dreads 
 and fears Home Rule. As I said, she will doubtless 
 make the best of it, but it will be in the spirit of a 
 man who makes the best of a bad bargain, who all the 
 time seeks to recoup himself for what he has lost. 
 She will not oppose it, because she dare not, but I 
 am convinced she does not want it.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IRELAND HAS ROME RULE NOW. 
 
 IN considering the question whether Home Rule 
 for Ireland would mean Rome Rule, one fact 
 has for ever been forcing itself upon me. Ireland 
 has Rome Rule now. No one who travels through 
 Ireland, reads the newspapers, talks with its people, 
 and studies its life, can deny it. It is like the 
 word " backsheesh " to the traveller in Egypt he 
 hears it on landing at Alexandria, and it is constantly 
 dinned into his ears wherever he goes. Years ago, 
 when travelling in the East, I had experience of this. 
 On my first landing, during the whole time I was in 
 Cairo, when I went to the great pyramids and after- 
 wards visited the far-off villages and ruined cities 
 on the banks of the Nile, the word more frequently 
 spoken than any other was " backsheesh." Children 
 screamed it, women whined it, and men shouted it. 
 In like manner one is met with the fact of Rome 
 Rule in Ireland. During my interview with many 
 people in the three provinces of the Emerald Isle 
 which I visited, the conversation invariably turned 
 
 log
 
 no IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 to this one topic. Whether Home Rule would mean 
 Rome Rule may be a debatable subject, but the 
 fact that Rome rules Ireland now is certain. At 
 Belfast people constantly harped on it. Home 
 Rule meant Rome Rule. Why did it mean Rome 
 Rule ? and the reply invariably given was ' ' Rome 
 rules now." There is no phase of life into which 
 the Roman priest does not enter, there is no phase 
 of life except in one part of Ulster that he does not 
 control. 
 
 In Chapters III. and IV. I have tried to state 
 the Ulsterman's objection to Home Rule, and the 
 truth underlying all the facts, and statements, and 
 arguments is this. The burden of the prosperous 
 Protestant Ulsterman's protest was " Rome is our 
 enemy, and Rome rules." When I went to Leinster 
 the same truth was evident everywhere, while in the; 
 towns and villages of Munster the fact is still more 
 apparent. The affairs of Ireland are dominated by 
 the Church. Of course, other influences and forces 
 are at work, but at the back of them all is the great 
 power which dominates and controls. 
 
 It is an interesting fact, and no one can understand, 
 or begin to understand, Ireland without realising it. 
 It is not something obscure ; it is writ large all over 
 the country. No one can study Irish history without 
 being impressed by it. Statesmen may legislate, 
 Parliaments may pass laws, and the nation's officials 
 may seek to enforce them, but it is the Church 
 that rules.
 
 IRELAND HAS ROME RULE NOW. in 
 
 Think of the outstanding features of Irish life and 
 it becomes apparent. Travel through the country 
 from end to end, and it meets you at every turn. 
 You pass through village after village, and you see 
 standing amidst a number of squalid huts a great 
 gaudy church, a comfortable presbytery, and very 
 probably a large nunnery or monastery. From 
 whence comes the money to build the gaudy church, 
 the well-built presbytery, and the huge nunneries and 
 monasteries ? It comes in the main from the people 
 who live in the wretched cabins. And just as 
 architecturally the church buildings tower over the 
 hovels, so does the priest, the Church, tower over 
 the life of the people and dominate it. Rome rules. 
 
 Glance rapidly at the questions which naturally 
 appeal to any one who takes an intelligent interest 
 in the life of a nation. 
 
 Begin with education. Who controls the educa- 
 tion of Ireland ? It is true that a section of it is 
 apparently controlled by the various Protestant com- 
 munions, but in the main the man at the helm of 
 Irish education is the priest, both in the elementary 
 schools, in the training colleges, and in the univer- 
 sities. The priests of Ireland have, as we have said, 
 between seven and eight thousand teachers absolutely 
 under their control. They have almost unlimited 
 control of the money paid to them by the State for 
 the upkeep of the schools. There is scarcely a 
 shadow of public control. The priest is not bothered
 
 H2 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 by committees or by boards. If the teacher is not the 
 obedient slave of the priest, if in opinion or action 
 he or she acts contrary to the will of the " spiritual 
 father " of the parish dismissal naturally follows. 
 What teacher dares to disobey ? He is hedged in on 
 every side. His faith commands entire obedience to 
 his " pastor and master," and even if this were not so, 
 his livelihood, his future career would be destroyed 
 if he dared to have any opinions of his own. If 
 a parish priest discharges a teacher, no matter on 
 what pretext, what can that teacher do ? All the 
 Roman Catholic schools in the land are under the 
 same authority, and therefore that teacher's career is 
 blighted, ruined. As a consequence, the teachers are 
 in the very nature of things the blind, obedient 
 servants of the Church which rules. 
 
 Then the " atmosphere " of those schools is 
 naturally " Catholic," and every child is not only 
 trained in the tenets of the Church, but breathes the 
 air of the Church. It is taught the most ultramon- 
 tane doctrines in relation to the Church, and there- 
 fore it grows up obedient to the priest. 
 
 For the moment I am not objecting to this ; 
 I am only stating the fact, and it bears out my 
 contention that you have Rome Rule in Ireland on 
 educational matters. I do not see how, under any 
 administration or any form of government, the 
 Church could rule over primary education more 
 completely than it rules now.
 
 IRELAND HAS ROME RULE NOW. 113 
 
 If you pass from the education of the children to 
 the training of teachers, the same truth stares you in 
 the face. The Church would not have its teachers 
 trained in the same college as Protestants ; there- 
 fore, she obtained grants to establish five training 
 colleges of her own under the absolute management 
 of the priests. The Church begins with life at the 
 fountain, and because she has done this, and con- 
 tinues to do it, she holds the nation in the hollow of 
 her hand. 
 
 We have seen how she has dealt with the 
 University Acts, and how Cardinal Logue's boast 
 has become an actual fact. While, beyond all this, 
 their great Maynooth College, which exclusively 
 exists for the training of priests, is fed by the State. 
 No less than 26,360 a year comes from the public 
 purse to train young priests for their work. If this 
 is not Rome Rule, what is ? 
 
 Then take the question of the newspapers. Of 
 course, in Ulster, where you have a large Protestant 
 population, you can have a free press. This also 
 obtains in Dublin, where perhaps a third of the 
 inhabitants are Protestants, and possibly in one 
 or two other large towns ; but in the small towns 
 and rural districts, the Church rules the press. 
 Unless the newspaper is the obedient mouthpiece of 
 the Church, it is killed. You hear, here and there, 
 of the proprietor of a newspaper, or a large-minded 
 editor, who refuses to subordinate the principles he 
 
 H
 
 H4 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 holds dear to the interest of the clerics ; he dares to 
 think for himself, he advocates schemes for liberating 
 and uplifting the people. He pleads for a regenerated 
 Ireland. But he is rarely ever strong enough to do 
 battle with the priest, who controls the purse, con- 
 trols the opinions and consciences of the people. 
 As a consequence, there is, as far as I can find out, 
 but one opinion in the south and west of Ireland, 
 Rome rules the press of the Emerald Isle. 
 
 One has only to give this matter a moment's 
 reflection to realise the importance of this. The 
 newspaper is a great educator. In England it is 
 one of the most powerful factors for the dissemi- 
 nation of light. Almost every subject is brought 
 under its purview, and every aspect of our nation's 
 life is freely discussed. But not so in Ireland. 
 Except in larger centres of population only one side 
 of the truth is made manifest, and every thing which 
 the Church condemns is kept out of the newspapers. 
 It is almost impossible for the people to get a true 
 idea of the thoughts that are surging in the minds 
 of a free people. 
 
 All this is naturally bound up in another fact. 
 The Church has the power to do these things, 
 because it has almost illimitable power over the 
 lives of the people. It is almost impossible to realise 
 this unless you get into close contact with them. 
 One day in the province of Munster I was introduced 
 to a man who was described as a " good Catholic,"
 
 IRELAND HAS ROME RULE NOW. 115 
 
 who was also a man of " liberal opinions." As this 
 seemed to be a rare phenomenon, if not a contra- 
 diction of terms, I was much interested in talking 
 with him. He told me that he did not always see 
 eye to eye with priests, and although he went to 
 confession regularly, he took his own course on 
 political matters. 
 
 " There have been times," he said, " when I have 
 voted in opposition to the priest's opinion, and 
 should do so again under similar conditions." 
 
 " But let us come to a concrete case," I said. 
 " Suppose the question of education were involved. 
 Suppose it was the priest's will that you should 
 vote in a certain way on this matter of education, 
 because it touched the moral and religious life of 
 the child, what then ? " 
 
 " Oh, in that case," he replied, " I should of course 
 do what the priest told me." 
 
 It can be seen, therefore, how far this man's liberty 
 went. As I have before stated, an eminent ecclesias- 
 tic told me the priest did not interfere with politics 
 except in so far as politics touched the question of 
 faith and morals. But what subject is there of any 
 importance where " faith and morals " are not 
 involved ? 
 
 I cannot perhaps do better here than to quote 
 some passages from a book which is widely read 
 among the more educated people in Ireland, and 
 which gives as true a picture of many phases of
 
 n6 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 Irish life as it is possible to find. It is a book 
 entitled " Economics for Irishmen," and is written 
 by a man who is an Irishman, who has studied the 
 life of his country closely for many years, who is a 
 Roman Catholic, and who is also a literary man, in 
 the best sense of the word. He writes for at least 
 one English review of high standing, and, as I was 
 frequently informed, dares to tell the truth. He 
 writes under the nom de plume of " Pat." In the 
 last chapter of the volume he deals with " The 
 Economic Influence of Religion." In this chapter he 
 writes as follows : 
 
 " One of the first economic necessities of Ireland 
 to-day is to teach the priest in Maynooth . . . how 
 to draw the line at making a secular instrument of 
 his sacred privilege. Liberty is essential to character, 
 and character is essential to progress, economic or 
 otherwise ; but progress of any kind is plainly 
 impossible in so far as one class of men dictates 
 their liberty, their character, and their conduct in 
 all concerns to all the other classes. 
 
 " A priest, well educated and spiritually alive to 
 his mission, could hardly turn it into a secular 
 instrument, and wherever we meet such a priest, he 
 usually confines his privilege to its purpose, going 
 into secular affairs merely in his character as a 
 citizen, and accepting the conditions of any other 
 man ; but so rare is this that the public have come to 
 regard the opposite as inevitable.
 
 IRELAND HAS ROME RULE NOW. 117 
 
 " I remember how, when a little boy, we regarded 
 the ' black man,' who inspired our awe, but never our 
 love ; how we grew up to think of him as the only 
 person whose judgment could have much value, in 
 religion or in anything else ; how it was assumed as a 
 religious duty that any attempt to differ from him, 
 even about the parish pump, must destroy our busi- 
 ness, or otherwise make ' us an example to the 
 parish ' ; how the ' education ' we got under his 
 ' management ' made us despise industry, especially 
 the industry by which we lived ; how he petted the 
 child of the wealthy publican and ignored or intimi- 
 dated the child of the poor peasant. In such cir- 
 cumstances, how is youth to develop character for 
 initiative, for economic or social enterprises ? . . . 
 
 ' Teachers are snubbed by their priest for wishing 
 to work little farms in connection with their schools 
 for the benefit of the young peasants, but that is only 
 a detail in the elaborate enslavement of the teacher, 
 whose manager (the priest) may even send to the 
 commissioners a ' confidential ' report against him 
 without affording him a possibility of defending 
 himself. 
 
 ' The priest's attitude is usually this : ' I am the 
 Church ; therefore, when you oppose me you oppose 
 the Church,' even though the subject is only butter. 
 The priest will neither leave lay matters to laymen, 
 nor allow them to apply lay canons to him when he 
 interferes. We give up our judgment to him in
 
 n8 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 theology, and he must have it as in butter and 
 bacon as well. Very often the layman who would 
 lead the creamery, or bacon factory to success, is 
 exactly the one whom the priest dislikes, and lest 
 the layman should succeed, the enterprise must fail ; 
 to have the priest at the top, Ireland must go 
 down. . . . 
 
 " Nothing is more firmly fixed in the minds of 
 many shopkeepers, and their peasant customers, 
 than that the prosperity or destruction of their 
 business is at the will of the priest, and I know 
 numerous families that have been impoverished in 
 this way, while others have risen from misery to 
 wealth, through the priest's partiality. In many 
 places it is enough to know simply that the priest 
 does not wish the people to go to a certain shop. 
 The wish generally becomes known in some way, 
 and then down goes that shop, often the shop of a 
 good fellow, while a pious ruffian prospers under 
 clerical approval at the other side of the street. . . . 
 
 " I know a doctor who is told by his neighbours 
 that they would prefer to employ him, but they 
 are afraid, because the priest wants them to employ 
 ' his own doctor.' 
 
 " A man bought a farm on which the local priest 
 had some acres from year to year. The new owner 
 was willing to continue the arrangement, but the 
 priest insisted on setting up a title of his own, in 
 return for absolutely nothing. Because the farmer
 
 IRELAND HAS ROME RULE NOW. 119 
 
 would not hand over to him one hundred pounds 
 worth of his own property for nothing, the priest 
 organised a boycott against him, and on these facts 
 he had a, police hut near to his house for several 
 years to follow. The priest's own parishioners knew 
 very well the immortal tyranny of that boycott, 
 but not a man of them ever dared to stand up for 
 honesty or liberty against the priest. This time the 
 victim was a Protestant. 
 
 . . . " A priest says, ' Any man that does not 
 vote for my candidate is a black sheep in the flock.' 
 Another says, in a ' sermon ' about the ' Christmas 
 collection,' ' If I find any one who does not pay I'll 
 take care that he is exposed. ... If I find any one 
 does not pay more than a shilling, I'll have his name 
 sounded all over the parish ! ' 
 
 " The boycotting examples are the most interesting 
 of all. A layman differs from the priest on a matter 
 of butter, bacon, or politics, and at once it is known 
 ' that the priest is agin him,' the mob is let loose on 
 him, many of them thieves, who regard it as a virtue 
 to rob him, and who even if they go to gaol, are still 
 ' on the priest's side,' under the redeeming approval 
 of ' the only true religion.' The process is essentially 
 cruel ; its methods essentially savage, and the 
 religion of Christ is employed by the priest as its 
 driving power." 
 
 In connection with these instances, and many 
 others which I have not space to quote, the writer
 
 120 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 says, " Each is a case typical of many I have per- 
 sonally investigated, but there is no need to get 
 individuals into trouble by giving names and 
 addresses, for it will be readily seen that the facts 
 are only such as can be found in most of Ireland. 
 I know of fifty to the one I mention." 
 
 Of course, to an Englishman all this seems like 
 gross exaggeration, but to the Irishman it is common- 
 place. The question will naturally be asked, Why 
 do not the people rise as one man and put an end 
 once and for ever to such a state of things ? I reply 
 that we do not know the strength of priestly 
 dominance. Remember that the Irishman is 
 essentially religious, largely superstitious, and that 
 to him the priest's voice is the voice of the Church, 
 and that the voice of the Church is the voice of God. 
 He knows that the priest has almost unlimited 
 power on earth, and he firmly believes he has the 
 keys of heaven, and that through him alone he 
 can obtain eternal felicity, but that if the priest is 
 against him there is nothing but the ghastly torments 
 of an eternal hell. When you once grasp that fact, you 
 begin to understand Rome Rule in Ireland. 
 
 Again, this writer says : " Unlike any other kind 
 of Christian the Catholic concedes to the priest all 
 right of judgment with authority in religion that is, 
 the most exalting concession that one man can ever 
 make to another, and one also representing a pro- 
 found principle in Christian Ethics. In accordance
 
 IRELAND HAS ROME RULE NOW. 121 
 
 with this principle, the peasant may rise to the 
 highest place in the highest temple, and the world 
 has hardly a more beautiful example of faith than 
 the grey patrician of fifty generations, bowed for 
 the blessing of the new-made curate who may have 
 started from the stable ; but when that curate has 
 ' got his parish,' expands his exclusive judgment on 
 religion into his exclusive judgment on everything 
 else, lays down the law for patrician and plebeian 
 together, dictates his policy to the statesman, his 
 fees to the doctw, his voting to the citizen, their 
 ' opinions ' to the public, and so turns his sacred 
 privilege into a secular weapon ; then the highest 
 things we know are dragged in the dirt, and character 
 economic and otherwise is sunk under a confusion 
 of standards that tend to make the individual a 
 machine rather than a man, with heaven itself 
 pressed into the process of human demoralisation. 
 
 That is what we have to-day in Ireland " 
 
 I have quoted at length from this writer because he 
 knows Ireland intimately, and therefore can speak 
 with an assurance and a certainty impossible to me. 
 I have quoted him, too, because while he is a Roman 
 Catholic, he has so far freed himself from the fetters 
 of which he speaks as to dare to speak the truth. 
 I ask the reader to weigh his words well, then 
 I am sure he will agree with me, that in this the 
 most vital question of life Rome rules in Ireland 
 now.
 
 122 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 From what we have seen, moreover, it will be 
 easy to understand how Rome holds the purse of 
 the country. I mentioned in a previous chapter that 
 it was freely said in Dublin that Archbishop Walsh 
 could break two of the largest banks in Ireland by a 
 few strokes of his pen. Of course, this means that he 
 is the trustee of the Church, and vast properties 
 belonging to the Church are vested in his name. 
 When one gives the slightest attention to Irish 
 affairs it is not difficult to believe. On every hand 
 is Church property, while the gifts of the faithful 
 must be enormous. 
 
 Mr. Sydney Brooks, in the article in the Fortnightly 
 Review, to which I have already referred, says: 
 
 " The Church is the second Irish landlord, and the 
 yearly tribute it receives can be little, if at all less, 
 than the moneys annually paid out by the people, in 
 rent and purchase instalments. What becomes of it 
 all, no one knows. The laity are excluded from the 
 smallest share of Church administration, and no 
 priest in Ireland renders any account of the sums 
 that pass into his hands. One reads in the 
 papers of an endless flow of bequests into the 
 ecclesiastical exchequer, of the expensiveness of 
 marriage and burial fees, and of the generous 
 proceeds of the Easter and Christmas offerings, and 
 of the half-yearly ' stations,' at which the priest 
 collects his due in person." 
 
 Let any one consider what this means, and he will
 
 IRELAND HAS ROME RULE NOW. 123 
 
 realise the enormous power the priest, the Church, 
 has, and how it must reflect on the national and 
 individual life. It will be easily seen, too, that the 
 people depend on the priests for promotion, and 
 for desired positions in life. 
 
 I was repeatedly told while in Ireland, that the 
 priest is fully cognisant of the incomes of the various 
 members of the flock, and very often of the condi- 
 tion of their banking account. Even in Govern- 
 ment offices, where the amount of salaries is sup- 
 posed to be secret, they have succeeded in learning 
 the details of those salaries, and are thereby able 
 to extract the utmost farthing from the faithful. 
 It is also well known that Romanists, if possible, 
 avoid the banks where the manager is of their own 
 faith, while it is commonly said that a Romanist 
 seldom becomes a bank manager. The reason for 
 this is obvious. 
 
 As Mr. Sydney Brooks says : " The universal 
 preference in Ireland for dealing only with the banks 
 that have Protestant managers is due to the fear 
 that otherwise the priest might learn the size of 
 each customer's account, and increase his demands 
 accordingly, and the Irish trick of looking and living 
 below one's means, while it was fostered by land- 
 lordism and mis-government, is undoubtedly main- 
 tained by the dread of priestly exactions." 
 
 In this connection, as in nearly all others, the 
 power of the Confessional plays an important part.
 
 124 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 While visiting more than one house of Protestants 
 in Ireland I found that the family conversed 
 in whispers when any question of importance was 
 introduced. " We have found it wise," they told me. 
 " Past experience has told us that certain things have 
 reached the priests' ears which could only have 
 reached them through servants. More than once 
 we have found that matters which we regarded as 
 secret, and which have never passed our lips outside 
 the house, have been known to the parish priest, and 
 we have been absolutely certain that he could only 
 have known them through the servant." 
 
 I need not enlarge on the power which the priest 
 obtains over the faithful through the Confessional, 
 while his knowledge of the private affairs of even 
 others than his own flock is easily explained. 
 
 Be that as it may, there is not the slightest 
 doubt that the priests' control over the money of 
 Ireland is simply enormous, while that control 
 makes Rome Rule in Ireland more complete. 
 
 In this respect, I am not for the moment blaming 
 the priests. They do what they believe to be their 
 duty, as instructed by the Church which is to them 
 the great, if not the only, thing on earth. Neither 
 do I hint that they are bad men. Indeed, from what 
 I can learn, many of them are good, devoted, faithful 
 men. The charges which are so often brought 
 against Continental priests in the matter of sexual 
 immorality rarely have any meaning in Ireland,
 
 IRELAND HAS ROME RULE NOW. 125 
 
 As a body they are absolutely free from this taint, 
 and in so far as they are blameless in this respect, 
 their influence is doubtless increased. I believe, 
 too, that in thousands of cases they are loyal 
 friends, as well as faithful pastors, of their 
 flocks. But they would be more than human if they 
 did not abuse the tremendous powers which they 
 possess. We must remember, too, that the priest 
 has in many cases become not only the spiritual as 
 well as the temporal dictator of the people, but 
 that he has become so because he is their traditional 
 friend. At one time in Irish history, he was their 
 only faithful friend, and because he has often been the 
 only educated man in an ignorant community, he has 
 been everything to them. Even now in certain parts 
 he is simply everything to his flock. He is their 
 spiritual shepherd, he is their teacher, general 
 adviser, family lawyer, doctor, politician, land agent 
 indeed, it is difficult to say what he is not. In 
 the past he was all these things almost universally, 
 and therefore it is no wonder that the people yield 
 to him. 
 
 Besides all this, the priest is in nearly all cases one 
 of themselves. He came from their cottages, knows 
 their struggles, and is therefore able to sympathise 
 with them in these struggles. He does not come 
 from the rich man's house as is so often the case in 
 the Church of England ; he belongs to their own 
 class.
 
 126 IS ,HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 Added to this, he has in the past, at all events, 
 often shared their sufferings, and more than once 
 has died with his people. 
 
 Let all this be admitted, and gladly admitted ; 
 for while power has often made him cruel and 
 despotic, many priests are doubtless faithful. Never- 
 theless, things are as I have said ; their absolute 
 authority over the community has, instead of pro- 
 ducing a strong, sturdy, industrious, self-reliant 
 race of people, resulted in ignorance, servility, 
 superstition, and, as a consequence, decadence. 
 
 There are signs, encouraging signs, of an awaken- 
 ing in which one rejoices, and which I shall have to 
 discuss later ; but at present the Roman Catholic 
 part of the nation is priest-ridden, Church-ridden. 
 
 Take the points I have mentioned, and con- 
 sider. The Church controls education, the greater 
 part of the press, individual life, and a vast amount 
 of the nation's wealth, how can it be otherwise than 
 that Rome Rule should obtain in Ireland ? 
 
 But this is not all. When we discuss the question 
 of Home Rule, we naturally refer to the government 
 of the country. We think of the legislators, and of 
 the laws that would be passed in Dublin. Those 
 who fear that Home Rule would be Rome Rule say, 
 and say very naturally, how can it be otherwise 
 than Rome Rule, when at least three-fourths of the 
 members of the new Parliament would be under the 
 complete control of the Church ? How can it be
 
 IRELAND HAS ROME RULE NOW. 127 
 
 other than putting the Protestant Minority under 
 the domination of the Romanist Majority ? 
 
 I insist, on the other hand, that you have Rome 
 Rule now. Consider, the legislation concerning 
 Irish affairs any time during the last half-century, 
 and what has it been but Rome Rule ? What has 
 the Church of Rome wanted which the Church of 
 Rome has not obtained ? What has become the 
 law of Ireland that has not become so with the 
 assent of the Roman hierarchy ? 
 
 It has become a standing joke in Ireland, or it 
 would be a joke, if it were not so serious, that if 
 you want anything done, you must first of all get the 
 consent of the Church. The Lord Lieutenant of 
 Ireland, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, have prac- 
 tically no power but what is allowed to them by 
 those who speak for Rome. These highly-salaried 
 officials quickly learn that in order to do anything 
 they must have the Church on their side. The 
 English Government, no matter which party is in 
 power, is like a henpecked husband, who is legally 
 responsible for everything, and who has to pay all 
 the bills, but who takes his orders from his wife, and 
 dare do only the things which she graciously permits. 
 
 We speak of our laws as supreme, and yet when 
 the Church of Rome overrides them the Government 
 stands meekly by and says nothing. We claim 
 that the laws of the State concerning marriage 
 are binding and authoritative, but the Roman
 
 128 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 Church issues a decree that a marriage of a Protestant 
 with a Roman Catholic, unless performed by a 
 Roman priest, is mere concubinage, that it is not 
 marriage at all, and that the offspring of such 
 marriage are illegitimate. It goes further, and 
 breaks up a home, and leaves a mother childless. 
 But does the Government interfere ? Does it 
 condemn the Ne Temere decree ? If it has done 
 so, I have never heard of it. 
 
 After the McCann case was brought to light, a 
 great meeting was held in London, at which a 
 resolution was passed that the Prime Minister should 
 be asked to receive a deputation on the Ne Temere 
 decree. Did he receive this deputation ? If so, 
 what result has there been ? 
 
 If the Presbyterian or the Episcopal Churches of 
 Ireland had issued a decree having the same 
 effect on life which this Ne Temere decree has, and 
 the Roman Church had protested against it, as the 
 Protestant Church has protested against this thing, 
 would no notice have been taken ? Would the 
 Irish Parliament have allowed the matter to rest, 
 until it had been repealed ? 
 
 After reading what literature I can on the question, 
 and after making the most careful enquiries I have 
 been able among all grades of society, and among 
 people holding all sorts of opinions in Ireland, the 
 conviction has been forced upon me that it is almost 
 impossible for Ireland (with the exception of Ulster)
 
 IRELAND HAS ROME RULE NOW. 129 
 
 to be more under Rome Rule than it is at present. 
 To quote Mr. Sydney Brooks again : " Protestant 
 government is indeed one of the main bulwarks of the 
 secular power of Irish Catholicism. Every cfficial in 
 the country, from the Lord Lieutenant to an inspector 
 on the staff of a Board of Works, quickly learns that 
 to get anything done he must have the Church on his 
 side. Every Secretary of State soon becomes aware 
 that the bishops and their subordinates are their most 
 useful friends or their most powerful enemies and 
 never more powerful than when they appear to be 
 altogether indifferent and in the background of the 
 policies he projects. There is hardly a Board or 
 Council or Committee anywhere in Ireland, outside of 
 a corner of Ulster, that is not directly or indirectly 
 swayed by clerical influence. Whatever party is in 
 power in Great Britain, the Church acts largely as its 
 intermediary in the government of Ireland, distributes 
 no small proportion of the official patronage, and may 
 always be sure that its wishes and representations 
 will be listened to with the most cordial deference. 
 Its hold over education is such as it hardly possesses 
 in any other land." . . . 
 
 This would seem to explain why no steps were 
 taken in the McCann case until the children were 
 placed in safe keeping under Roman Catholic con- 
 trol, and it explains, too, the general belief that the 
 Lord Lieutenant and Chief Secretary of Ireland are 
 merely instruments doing the bidding of Rome, and 
 
 I
 
 130 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 why the British Government is laughed at. The 
 British Government only seems to rule Ireland. The 
 Roman Church really rules. I can conceive of nothing 
 more humiliating to any Government, and yet if 
 facts prove anything, they prove this. 
 
 And here lies the reason of Irish troubles. Any 
 country dominated by Rome has a cancer in its 
 body corporate, poisoning its life blood, and 
 drying the springs of its vitality. 
 
 Charles Dickens, in a letter to Mr. Foster, 
 written from Lausanne in 1846, says : "I don't 
 know whether I have mentioned it before, that in 
 the valley of the Simplon hard by here, where this 
 Protestant Canton ends, and a Catholic Canton 
 begins, you might separate two perfectly distinct 
 and different conditions of humanity by drawing a 
 line with your stick in the dust on the ground. 
 On the Protestant side, neatness, cheerfulness, 
 industry, education, continual aspiration at least 
 after better things. On the Catholic side, dirt, 
 disease, ignorance, squalor, misery. I have so 
 constantly observed the like of this since I first 
 came abroad, that I have a sad misgiving that the 
 religion of Ireland lies deep at the root of all its 
 sorrows." 
 
 And yet no one can pass through Ireland, and 
 meet the Irish people, without loving them. By 
 nature they are a sunny-hearted, loving people ; 
 superstitious and emotional no doubt, but witty
 
 IRELAND HAS ROME RULE NOW. 131 
 
 and intelligent. They are not a sullen, sour people, 
 but kind and forgiving ; a people who under true 
 influences could become a great nation. And God 
 Almighty is for ever calling to them, saying, "Arise, 
 stand upon thy feet," but they cannot, they dare not. 
 The Church of Rome will not permit. 
 For Ireland is under Rome Rule.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WHAT IS THE POWER THAT CAN BREAK THE 
 TYRANNY OF ROME ? 
 
 IF what I have written in the previous chapter is 
 true, if Ireland is under Rome Rule now, and every 
 phase of Irish Roman Catholic life is dominated 
 by Rome, the question naturally arises, What is 
 the power that can break the tyranny of Rome ? 
 As we have seen, Acts of Parliament avail little 
 as long as the Roman Church can set them at 
 defiance. While bishops and priests hold the reins 
 of government on the one hand, and dominate the 
 life of the people on the other, what hope is there ? 
 Lord Beaconsfield once said, " Countries are not 
 governed by statesmen and parliaments, but by 
 public opinion," and if the Church of Rome rules 
 in Ireland, it is because they have an obedient 
 people at their beck and call. Rome Rule will 
 remain in Ireland until you have an independent 
 people, a people who will dare to think and act 
 for themselves unhindered by the dictum of priest 
 and Church." 
 
 132
 
 WHAT CAN BREAK THE TYRANNY ? 133 
 
 Here, then, is the problem that faces any one who 
 tries to take an intelligent interest in the life of 
 Ireland. Acts of Parliament will mean little except 
 in so far as they tend towards the liberation of the 
 intellect, the freedom of the soul. The Church 
 rules through the people, not indeed through the 
 people's active will, but by their acquiescence to 
 the demands of the Roman power. What can set 
 the people free ? 
 
 The obvious reply is " Religious Liberty." But 
 that only touches the surface. They hug the chains 
 that bind them, because they believe that by 
 breaking them they would be defying God, and 
 condemning themselves to an eternal hell. There 
 is no power on earth so subtle, so difficult to destroy, 
 as priestly tyranny. The obedient Irish Romanist 
 thinks himself free while all the time he is bound 
 by ten thousand invisible chains. The man who 
 fears the wrath of the Church is ten thousand 
 times more a slave than he whose limbs are bound 
 with iron chains, lying in a dungeon. The " good 
 Catholic " is more under the control of the priest 
 than ever was a South American negro under the 
 will of his owner. Simon Legree could command 
 " Uncle Tom's " body. He could do as he liked 
 with it, but because " Uncle Tom's " soul was free 
 he was powerless to touch it. Ireland has religious 
 liberty now as far as Acts of Parliament can give it ; 
 according to the law the Irishman can, if he will.
 
 134 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 defy the Church, but Acts of Parliament cannot free 
 the soul. While that is in bondage to priestly 
 ideas, the priest rules. 
 
 As far as I know the Protestant Church makes 
 very few converts in Ireland. The Irish Roman 
 Catholic is afraid to become a Protestant, afraid 
 to demand the right of private judgment in religious 
 matters, afraid to disobey his spiritual master 
 because of the fetters on his soul. If one went to 
 Ireland and urged upon a Roman Catholic audience 
 the duty of thinking its own thoughts unfettered 
 by Church or priest, he would arouse antagonism, 
 he would be regarded as an enemy to God. The 
 people fervently believe in the authority and power 
 of the priest, and the light of knowledge has never 
 entered their uninformed intellects. " Anything 
 that is opposed to the dictum of the Church is 
 opposed to the will of God," is an axiom of their faith. 
 They are a religious people, and they cannot think 
 of religion except through and by the Church, 
 and thus they shut their ears to everything that the 
 priest condemns. Their faith is the result of many 
 generations of faith; it is an ingrained fact. The 
 priest speaks with the voice of God, therefore they 
 must obey. The priest has supernatural power, 
 the priest holds their eternal destiny in the hollow 
 of his hand, therefore his word is law, while the mighty 
 Church at his back is a mysterious and awesome 
 power which is greater than kings or governments.
 
 WHAT CAN BREAK THE TYRANNY ? 135 
 
 When the mind is enslaved, when the conscience 
 is controlled, Acts of Parliament are powerless. 
 Added to this, the priest has obtained enormous 
 power over the mundane affairs of life, and has often 
 fought and worked on the people's side. 
 
 It will be seen, then, that the power of Rome 
 cannot be broken in a day. The subtle power of 
 Rome must be combated by a power that works 
 slowly but surely, and will in the end lead to the 
 enfranchisement of the mind, the liberty of the soul. 
 What is this John the Baptist that shall prepare 
 the way of the Lord of Light and Freedom ? What 
 is the iconoclastic power that shall slowly but 
 surely break the idols of the past, just as surely as 
 Hezekiah broke the brazen serpent, and called it 
 " a bit of brass " ? 
 
 The power of responsibility, of self-government. 
 There is one thing Rome has never been able 
 successfully to combat, one thing against which she 
 has been powerless a responsible, self-governing 
 people. 
 
 All history is false if this be not true, and no man 
 can study the history of the Roman Catholic nations 
 of Europe without realising it. What has destroyed 
 priestly power and tyranny in Italy, and France, 
 and Portugal ? Education, self-government, respon- 
 sibility. A little more than half a century ago Italy 
 was as much a child of the Roman Church as Ireland 
 is to-day. Her people were ignorant, the country was
 
 136 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 split up into warring sections, the Pope was not 
 only spiritual but temporal ruler over a large part 
 of the country, and the Vatican lay at the heart 
 of the nation. Then Mazzini, and Cavour, and 
 Kossuth, and others, arose and sowed the seeds 
 of truth and liberty. But for these sowers 
 Garibaldi would have been powerless. Little by 
 little the people of Italy gained self-government, 
 they became responsible, and from that time the 
 shackles of the Church fell off. Of course, it was 
 not done in a day, but it was done. To-day, Italy, 
 the home of the Vatican, is perhaps as free from the 
 dictum of the priest as any nation in Europe. In 
 France the power which destroyed priestly terrors 
 was the power of responsibility, and the enlightenment 
 which came through it. Of course, it was realised in 
 a different way, and the nation became deluged in 
 blood before its emancipation came, and no one can 
 read the history of France during the Reign of 
 Terror without a shudder. But what of the Reign 
 of Terror before the Revolution when the country 
 was governed by the Aristocracy and the Church ? 
 What of that Reign of Terror when, because a man 
 did not fall on his knees at the passing of a religious 
 procession, he was hanged and quartered after 
 suffering unnameable outrages ? I know it will be 
 urged, as it has been urged, that throwing off the 
 authority of the Roman Church meant years of 
 wild infidelity and ghastly sacrilege. I know that
 
 WHAT CAN BREAK THE TYRANNY ? 137 
 
 Paris set up a lewd woman as the Goddess of Reason 
 at whose shrine it worshipped, while the people 
 danced wild dances as the Marseillaise was played 
 in the Paris churches. But against this it must be 
 said that here was only the natural revolt against 
 spiritual tyranny and the intellectual slavery under 
 which they had suffered. Has France less reed faith 
 to-day, than it had during the time of the Louis*, 
 when every decency of life was outraged, and religion 
 was a cloak in which to serve the devil ? Can 
 anything be worse than that terrible period when all 
 rights of humanity were set at naught, and the 
 common people were treated worse than we should 
 treat snarling dogs, under the name of religion ? And 
 now that a century has passed away, is not France 
 infinitely better, infinitely more moral than she was 
 when, with the blessing of the Church, the high 
 places of France were so many brothels ? 
 
 And I have no fear that light and liberty in 
 Ireland would result in the same licentiousness as 
 took place in France ; not only has a hundred 
 years passed away since then, but Ireland is a 
 different country, and her liberty would express 
 itself in a different way. 
 
 In any case, I am sure of this : responsibility 
 has ever meant the awakening of the mind, the 
 asking of questions, and these things have ever 
 been the precursors of light and advancement. 
 
 In past days I looked at the question of Home
 
 138 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 Rule for Ireland as a matter of political justice. 
 Prima facie, it seemed right that the overwhelming 
 majority should control the affairs of the nation. 
 Ireland as a nation is as old as England, and has 
 a history which, although often sad, is not without 
 its romance and its glory. It is true it is a conquered 
 nation, but it has never been easy to govern. It 
 has ever been desirous of governing itself. We have 
 given self-government to other parts of our great 
 Empire, why then should not Ireland control- its 
 own internal affairs ? Thus, on the face of it, it 
 seemed just to grant Home Rule. But I was held 
 back by one doubt. Would Home Rule mean 
 Rome Rule ? Would not the Protestants be crushed 
 by an autocratic ecclesiastical power ? That, and 
 that alone, kept me from believing that Home 
 Rule should be given to Ireland. It might be 
 politically just, but was it right to hand over the 
 nation to Rome ? What about Protestant Ulster 
 as well as the Protestants of the South ? Was 
 there not a greater justice than mere political 
 justice ? Could it be right to place almost complete 
 power under the control of the Roman hierarchy 
 who cared for nothing in comparison with the 
 aggrandisement of the Roman Church ? Could it 
 be just to place the reins of a nation, Protestant 
 and Catholic alike, in the hands of a Church which 
 would seek only to advance its own purposes ? 
 Now, however, I look upon the matter as some-
 
 WHAT CAN BREAK THE TYRANNY ? 139 
 
 thing greater and more important than a question 
 of political justice, great and important as that 
 may be. The more I have thought about it, 
 especially since my return from Ireland, the more 
 I have examined evidences on both sides of the 
 question, the more do I realise that the whole 
 matter goes deeper. As the Protestants of Ulster 
 have repeatedly said to me, it is a religious question 
 from top to bottom. Settle that and all the rest 
 could be adjusted. But Home Rule is Rome Rule. 
 I do not believe it. The more I have thought, the 
 more have I been convinced that not only does not 
 Home Rule mean Roman Rule, but it means the 
 one saving power from Rome Rule. If all the 
 experience of the ages is not false, then directly a 
 people has responsibility and political power, that 
 people begin to work out their own salvation. 
 
 It has been urged that, while this may be true, 
 the people of Ireland are not yet ready for such 
 responsibility, and that it will be like placing power 
 in the hands of a savage race. A few minutes' 
 consideration will, I think, lead us to see other- 
 wise. Ireland is not to-day the Ireland of fifty 
 years ago, and there are signs of the times 
 which not only shew that Ireland is rising out of 
 the grave of its sloth and ignorance, but the events 
 of the past twenty years are proving that the little 
 responsibility which they already have has worked 
 wonders in the life of the people. Moreover, there
 
 140 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 are already clouds in the horizon of the Church, 
 which although not bigger than a man's hand, yet 
 shew that the floods are surely coming. Take two 
 or three examples of this. 
 
 A few years ago the County Councils Act was 
 passed. That Act meant taking the power out of 
 the hands of jurors who were mostly Protestant 
 magistrates, and placing a certain amount of power 
 in the hands of the people ; immediately politics 
 became a new thing to the Irishman. Local events 
 revealed themselves to him in a new light. The 
 appointment of a new master to a workhouse was 
 a matter of importance to the people. It was dis- 
 cussed in the village streets, and lanes, and shops, 
 and meeting places, and this fact, although it seems 
 very little, has been an enlightenment to the people 
 themselves. It has given them a deeper interest in 
 the life of the country in which they are living, and 
 that deeper interest has meant opening their eyes 
 to things which they had not thought of before. 
 In fact, the vote under the County Councils Act has 
 meant to a large extent that the Irishman has been 
 re-born. 
 
 Another thing, we must realise ; ideas, new ideas, 
 have been slow percolating into the country. I 
 know that education in Ireland is almost completely 
 under clerical control. I know, too, that the most 
 ultramontane things are taught in those schools. 
 I know that all the teachers must, from the very
 
 WHAT CAN BREAK THE TYRANNY ? 141 
 
 nature of the case, be the creatures of the priests, 
 and that, as a consequence, the boys and girls, as 
 they grow up to young men and women, are saturated 
 with the idea of the divinity of the Church and the 
 sacredness of the priest. But in spite of all this, 
 their education has meant something. The facts 
 of history, even although they may be coloured by 
 prejudice, still remain a working force in life ; the 
 people have learned to read, and the reading has 
 led to an acquaintance with the newspapers, and the 
 newspapers, although also largely under the con- 
 trol of the Church, have brought a certain amount of 
 light into their unenlightened minds. As a con- 
 sequence, the Irishman is not as ignorant as he was 
 half a century ago, and the lessening of ignorance has 
 meant that he is less dependent on the priest for 
 guidance and authority. 
 
 In addition to this, new ideas from England and 
 from America have been constantly finding their 
 way into the country. Years ago the ports of Ireland 
 were filled with people going away from the old 
 country, but during the last few years a large 
 number of those who went away are returning 
 home, not all of them to stay, but still to visit the 
 old homesteads and to talk with the old companions. 
 Intercourse with other countries has meant the bring- 
 ing of light into the minds of the simple peasants. 
 
 An incident occurred some time ago which illus- 
 trates what I mean. A man came back from
 
 142 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 America to his old home ; naturally, he was regarded 
 as somewhat of an oracle. His old companions 
 gathered around him and listened to what he had 
 to say concerning the wonders of the new world. 
 He went away a Roman Catholic, he came back 
 a Roman Catholic, but the Roman Catholic of 
 America is utterly different from the Roman Catholic 
 of Ireland. He said to his old friends, " You remind 
 me of Rip Van Winkle ; you have been asleep for 
 this last thirty years ; you have not moved forward 
 with the times." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked his old companions. 
 
 " Why, just think," was the reply. " Your 
 priest is your master ; he is not simply your guide ; 
 you are like little children, you have to do what- 
 ever he tells you ; you are kept in the dark about 
 everything." 
 
 " We do not understand," said the villagers. 
 " Give us examples." 
 
 " Well," he said, " what do you know about the 
 way the money you give is spent ? A new school- 
 room has been built. How much did it cost ? 
 You do not know ; you gave your money, but you 
 had not a word to say as to how that money has 
 been employed. You have no power, no vote in 
 anything done in the parish ; everything is done by 
 the priest, and your duty is to pray, pay, and obey." 
 
 " But," said the Irish people, " what do you do 
 in America ? "
 
 WHAT CAN BREAK THE TYRANNY ? 143 
 
 " Oh," replied the other, " in America things are 
 different. We built a new church in the parish where 
 I was, but do you think we placed everything in 
 the hands of the priest ? Not we ! We formed a 
 committee, we appointed a treasurer, secretary, 
 president, auditor. We knew everything that was 
 going on ; we were consulted about everything that 
 was done, and the priest was no more than any one 
 else. Of course, we are Catholics still, and we listen 
 to the exhortations of the priest from the pulpit 
 concerning spiritual things ; but when it comes to 
 other matters, we tell the priest to mind his own 
 business, and we will attend to ours." 
 
 Of course this came upon the simple inhabitants of 
 this village in Sligo somewhat as a thunderbolt. The 
 idea that they should dare to have control over Church 
 affairs was something too remarkable for words. 
 
 " But do you mean," they said, " that if the 
 priest holds to one opinion, and you have another, 
 you dare to tell him that he is wrong ? " 
 
 " Certainly we do," was his reply. " I tell you, 
 you are like Rip Van Winkle,you have been sleeping 
 for these last thirty years while other people have 
 been awake." 
 
 Of course, this presently came to the priest's ears, 
 and naturally he was very much annoyed that the 
 man from America should come back and utter such 
 disturbing truths to his congregation, and a little 
 later the visitor from America had the privilege
 
 144 IS' HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 of hearing a sermon mainly about himself. The 
 priest utterly denounced this man for coming back 
 and disturbing the minds and faith of the people. 
 He maintained that the priest should have absolute 
 authority on all matters in relation to the Church 
 and education in the parish, while the people should 
 do as they were told, and then, looking towards 
 the visitor from America, he exclaimed, " Sure, 
 and I would rather see the devil come into the 
 church than an Irish-American ! " 
 
 Now this story was told me by one who had it 
 from the lips of this said Irish-American, and although 
 it may seem of little importance, it is not really 
 so. From that time that little village was not so 
 dead and alive as it had been before. The man's 
 visit meant the coming of new ideas, and with new 
 ideas a new spirit among the people. They are 
 asking questions one of another, they are looking 
 at things as they never looked at them before, 
 and although this, of course, is a solitary instance, 
 yet it is representative of hundreds more throughout 
 the country. Slowly these new ideas for they are 
 new to them are percolating through the Irish mind, 
 and the people are being influenced by what is done 
 in free and responsible countries. 
 
 Then other forces are at work which go towards 
 liberating the mind. In past years the priest has 
 demanded big fees at weddings and similar functions, 
 and the people have paid without question, but now
 
 WHAT CAN BREAK THE TYRANNY ? 145 
 
 they are beginning to ask questions. While I was 
 in Ireland a case was brought before my notice. 
 A man who shewed me much kindness in Ireland 
 pointed out two shops to me. " The one," said 
 my companion, "is kept by a Roman Catholic, 
 the second by a Protestant. They were both young 
 men, and they both decided to get married. The 
 business of the two was about equal, and as they 
 were both thrifty fellows they were equally well off. 
 When the wedding day came the Roman Catholic 
 found that he had to pay 50 to the priest in order 
 to get married. The Church demanded it, the 
 priest told him, and it was his duty to pay. The 
 Protestant, on the other hand, had only to pay 
 a guinea to his minister. The marriage over, 
 the Catholic naturally asked questions. "Why," 
 he says to himself, "should I have to pay 50 
 while the Protestant only paid a guinea ? Why 
 should the priest have the power to come 
 into my home and demand from me this large 
 sum of money ? " Of course, he had paid the 50, 
 but the fact rankled in his heart, and he with others 
 is asking questions about it. Now thirty years 
 ago they did not even dare to ask the questions, 
 but to-day their whole attitude is changed. I do 
 not say or suggest that they are in revolt against 
 the priest. I expect no such thought has ever 
 entered their minds, but they are asking questions, 
 and questions are death to ecclesiastical authority. 
 
 K
 
 146 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 Besides all this, the people are beginning to hate 
 the slavery under which they live. They are seeing, 
 just as other countries have seen, that Protestant 
 lands thrive and become strong, while Roman 
 Catholic countries grow weaker and weaker; they 
 see that the Protestant is prosperous, while the 
 Roman Catholic is in poverty. They ask why 
 this is so, and they are beginning to say that it is 
 because they have been impoverished ; that their 
 hard earnings have been taken from them to build 
 huge and costly churches ; that while they live in 
 mud hovels, the priest has his comfortable presbytery. 
 All this and more is disturbing them, and the fact 
 is dawning upon their minds that the Church has 
 been like a leech sucking the blood of the body 
 corporate. 
 
 There is another fact, too, which is significant. 
 For many years the Roman Catholic Church in 
 Ireland has been demanding a university with a 
 Catholic atmosphere, urging as a reason that the 
 better class of Catholic young men of the country 
 had no chance of a university education. When 
 the new University Bill was passed, they thought 
 that the young men who could afford a university 
 education would flock to the Catholic colleges with- 
 out question, and yet I am given to understand 
 that never was Trinity College, Dublin, so full of 
 Roman Catholic young men as it is at the present time. 
 This year, so official figures state, there is a record
 
 WHAT CAN BREAK THE TYRANNY ? 147 
 
 number of Roman Catholic students in the college 
 which the hierarchy condemned as a danger to their 
 religious life. Now, all these things taken together 
 shew that while the movement towards liberty may 
 not be very strong, yet there is a movement. 
 Irish people are thinking, and their thoughts are 
 leading them to demand responsibility, and if 
 history means anything, it means that Ireland is 
 beginning to wake up from its long sleep ; that the 
 call of other lands has reached the Emerald Isle 
 and told them that morning is coming. 
 
 Now, then, what would happen under Home Rule ? 
 Suppose that this year a Home Rule Bill were 
 passed, and that in the year 1913 a Dublin Parliament 
 were set up, and Ireland had control of its own 
 affairs ? What would be the result ? This first 
 Rome would take advantage of the new set of 
 conditions and would seek to make those new con- 
 ditions work towards its own advancement. Let 
 there be no doubt that, while I believe that Home 
 Rule would finally destroy Rome Rule in Ireland, 
 I have no illusion about the fact that the Roman 
 Church would try to make Home Rule Rome Rule. 
 I feel certain they would grasp at every bit of 
 power possible, and, it may be, make life hard for 
 the Protestants. That has been the history of Rome 
 for many generations, and I do not suppose it would 
 falsify its history now. 
 
 Do not let us think that the people of Ulster
 
 148 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 have had no ground for their fears, or that when they 
 utter their grim determination, " We will not have 
 Home Rule ! " they have no reason for it. Ulster 
 has reason for her grievous fears, and there is no 
 doubt whatever that if Home Rule were passed, 
 Rome would seek to make the Dublin Parliament 
 the instrument for doing its own work. In saying 
 this, I do not urge, or even suggest, that individual 
 Catholics would do this if they were left alone. 
 I am sure that Protestants and Catholics would 
 live on the best of terms together. As far as I dis- 
 covered, there is nothing but the kindliest feelings 
 towards Protestants by Catholics. As I have before 
 said, the Roman Catholics of Ireland are a kind- 
 hearted, witty, and loving people, whose nature it 
 is not to do cruel deeds but to do kind ones, whose 
 wish it is to live on the best of terms with their 
 neighbours. I doubt whether in all Europe can be 
 found a people less given to meditated revenge 
 than the Irish people, and if they were left alone 
 nothing but the kindest feelings would obtain 
 between Irish Roman Catholics and their Protestant 
 neighbours. But individual Roman Catholics must 
 be distinguished from the Roman hierarchy. The 
 Roman Church as a Church hates Protestantism, 
 and because it hates Protestantism it is envious of 
 the prosperity of Protestants. As a consequence, 
 I am sure that it would seek to enforce marriage 
 laws, which would bear grievously upon Protestant
 
 WHAT CAN BREAK THE TYRANNY ? 149 
 
 hearts and consciences. I am sure that it would hold 
 the reins of power with a tight hand. I am sure 
 that it would try and get back all the old ecclesiastical 
 buildings. I am sure that it would leave no stone 
 unturned to make the whole of Ireland a Roman 
 Catholic country ruled from Rome and by Rome. 
 
 But having said all that, I still maintain that 
 Home Rule would be the first step towards a destruc- 
 tion of Rome Rule, because it would mean the 
 beginning of a new era, an era of liberty, of enlighten- 
 ment, and responsibility among the Irish people. 
 Hitherto, politics has been something a long way 
 off. The Catholic peasant has had no real interest 
 in English politics, and hitherto the thought upper- 
 most in his mind in sending the members to Parlia- 
 ment (when there has happened to be an election 
 in the constituency in which he resides) is that he 
 is sending men to demand Home Rule, to demand 
 self-government. It has scarcely entered into his mind 
 to consider what a Dublin Parliament would do. 
 Home Rule is a national sentiment ; the practical 
 application of that national sentiment is a different 
 thing, but if Home Rule were passed, then politics 
 would become vital. These people would take a 
 deep interest in what the Dublin Parliament was 
 doing ; the Land Question, Education, Government 
 of the Church, Church Property, Taxation, would be 
 brought infinitely nearer to him. He for the first 
 time in his generation would take a direct part in
 
 150 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 the government of his own country ; he would 
 become a force in the Ireland which he so much 
 loves. Then something else would follow, as surely 
 as the night follows the day. 
 
 There are in Ireland, as elsewhere, Keir Hardies 
 and Ramsay Macdonalds, men with democratic 
 sentiments with socialistic ideas too, perhaps, 
 although Socialism is not yet a great power in 
 Ireland these men will tell him what working- 
 men have done in other countries, and how, in face 
 of opposition, they have obtained many of the 
 blessings which are now unknown to them. On the 
 other hand, the Church of Rome has never been 
 democratic ; it has always been conservative, always 
 craving for authority, and holding it fast with an 
 iron hand. That Church would have its advocates 
 in the country, opposing and fighting to the death 
 anything like new ideas. Hitherto, in the main, 
 when the Irishman has had to take sides, he has had to 
 decide between Protestants and Roman Catholics ; as 
 a natural consequence he has placed himself on the 
 side of the faith of his fathers, and on the side of 
 the men who enforce that faith. In the future, the 
 opposing parties will be of the same faith, and he 
 will be called upon to make his choice between the 
 two. Of course, his priest will demand that he 
 shall vote and use his influence on the side which he, 
 the priest, represents ; but again the Irishman will 
 begin to ask questions. He will see that the Church
 
 WHAT CAN BREAK THE TYRANNY ? 151 
 
 will curse those democratic principles which have 
 appealed to him as not only just but essential to 
 the progress of the people. Thus before ten years 
 are over, there will certainly be an anti-Clerical party 
 in Ireland. That anti-Clerical party will probably be 
 Roman Catholic, but it will be opposed to Clericalism. 
 The Irish peasant will see that the Irish Church 
 opposes him and opposes the interest of the common 
 people. Both parties will have their newspapers, 
 discussions will take place in the village street and 
 village lane ; doubtless strong words will be 
 uttered ; but what is more to the point, a new 
 spirit will be realised, a disintegrating force will be 
 at work in the life of the people, destroying old 
 superstitions, opening their minds to new ideas, and 
 bringing in the era of a larger life. 
 
 This may not come in a day, but it must surely 
 come, and the advent of that new spirit will 
 presage the fall of Rome. There will be no armed 
 battalions, and no civil war, but a revolution 
 will surely take place, and although that revolution 
 may be bloodless, it will surely create a new Ireland. 
 Old things will have passed away, and all things 
 will have become new. 
 
 In the Belfast News Letter for January 22nd, 
 1912, I find the following significant passage from 
 one who is evidently a strong Unionist, and who 
 writes strongly from the Unionist standpoint. He 
 says : "I would go further and say that just
 
 152 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 in proportion as the Church of Rome tightens 
 her grip on the people, in like manner is she nearing 
 the time when the people will cast off her restraint 
 as they have done in France and Portugal ! " 
 Exactly, but what will help them to cast off that 
 restraint ? What will help the Irishman, whose 
 mind has been enslaved for so many years, to break 
 his shackles ? The merest tyro in history will 
 know that there is no awakening power greater than 
 that which comes through a sense of responsibility. 
 Possibly, nay probably, there will be a great rebound 
 from the Church which has so long held the people 
 in chains. This seems almost inevitable; it was so 
 in France, it was so in Italy, it was so also in 
 Portugal, and even in Spain. If all one hears and 
 reads is not a lie, the people are throwing off the 
 yoke of their bondage, and standing erect in their 
 new-found intellectual liberty. This I say is natural, 
 it can scarcely be otherwise, and it may be that a 
 period of revolt against organised creeds may be one 
 of the means by which Ireland will work out its 
 salvation. But, " we can do nothing against the 
 truth but for the truth," said St. Paul. Personally, 
 I have no fear that faith will die, because truth 
 cannot be destroyed, and truth must in the long 
 run prevail. Thus, although in her new-found 
 freedom Ireland may do things which may disturb 
 the minds of many, she will at length find a way 
 to green pastures and still waters.
 
 WHAT CAN BREAK THE TYRANNY ? 153 
 
 This may seem to some an optimistic dream, 
 and yet if the reader will consider carefully, he will 
 see that it is something more than optimism it is 
 a conclusion founded upon fact. Consider the 
 state Ireland is in at present. To quote Mr. George 
 Bernard Shaw's preface to " John Bull's Other 
 Island " again : " Realise then," he says, " that the 
 popular party in Ireland is seething with rebellion 
 against the tyranny of the Church. Imagine the 
 feelings of an English farmer if the parson refused 
 to marry him for less than 20, and if he had 
 virtually no other way of getting married ! Imagine 
 the Church Rates revived in the form of an unofficial 
 Income Tax scientifically adjusted to your taxable 
 capacity by an intimate knowledge of your affairs 
 verified in the Confessional ! Imagine being one of 
 a peasantry reputed the poorest in the world, under 
 the thumb of a priesthood reputed the richest 
 in the world ! Imagine a Catholic middle class 
 continually defeated in the struggle of professional, 
 official, and fashionable life by the superior educa- 
 tion of its Protestant competitors, and yet forbidden 
 by its priests to resort to the only efficient univer- 
 sities in the country ! Imagine trying to get a 
 modern education in a seminary of priests, where a 
 modern book worth reading is on the Index, and the 
 earth is still regarded, not perhaps as absolutely 
 flat, yet as being far from so spherical as Protestants 
 allege ! Imagine being forbidden to read this preface
 
 154 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 because it proclaims your own grievances ! And 
 imagine being bound to submit to all this because 
 the popular side must hold together at all costs in 
 the face of the Protestant enemy ! That is, roughly, 
 the predicament of Roman Catholic Ireland." 
 
 But go further and imagine the people free, 
 realising for the first time power and responsibility, 
 and seeing new avenues of prosperity before them 
 with the light of a new day dawning upon their lives. 
 Can we not see a new Ireland ? They have all 
 their old characteristics of quick intelligence, a 
 bright wit, a keen sense of humour and a vivacious 
 nature scarcely known to us Saxons. Can we not 
 see Ireland rising like Samson of old to shake 
 herself free from the ropes which bound her. Can 
 we not see her laughing at the old superstitions and 
 defying those who had put chains upon her mind ? 
 And can we not also see her moving towards the 
 true and only Light which has been hidden by the 
 dark clouds of mediaevalism in which she has so 
 long lived ?
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IF HOME RULE WERE GRANTED, WOULD PROTESTANTS 
 BE PERSECUTED ? 
 
 I HAVE been so uncertain of this, that for several 
 years I have never been able to make up my 
 mind about Home Rule. It has been urged upon 
 me repeatedly by those opposing self-govern- 
 ment for Ireland, that to give Home Rule to that 
 country would mean the persecution of Protestants. 
 It was stated that Roman Catholic hatred and 
 bitterness were only held in check by the fact that 
 the country was governed from England. " Once 
 give Home Rule to Ireland," it was said, " once let 
 there be a Parliament in Dublin, which must be 
 subservient to the Roman Church, and Protestants 
 will never be able to live." I received letter after 
 letter from Ireland stating that if Home Rule 
 were granted, Protestants would have to sacrifice 
 their homes, their businesses, and to go to some 
 land of freedom. It was repeatedly urged that 
 the priests had such power over the people, and that 
 their hatred of Protestants was such, that neither 
 property nor life would be sacred. In the letter to 
 
 155
 
 156 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 which I referred in the opening chapter, I said 
 that if Home Rule meant Rome Rule, if Protestants 
 would be persecuted, and that if the English Noncon- 
 formists could be convinced of this fact, Home Rule 
 would be as dead as Queen Anne. That under no cir- 
 cumstance should Home Rule be allowed in Ireland, 
 if a quarter of the population had to be crushed as 
 a consequence. On the other hand, if it could be 
 proved that Irish Protestants would have just treat- 
 ment by the Roman section, then the case against 
 Home Rule, as far as English Protestants were 
 concerned, would largely break down. But that was 
 the question on which I desired light, and con- 
 cerning which the British public needed information. 
 Personally, I would be the last to advocate 
 Home Rule : rather, I would fight against it to the 
 very death, if it meant anything like crushing 
 my fellow Protestants. Consequently, I was very 
 anxious about this, and indeed it was largely in order 
 to find out the truth concerning it, that I went to 
 Ireland. 
 
 If granting what three-fourths of the nation desire, 
 meant the persecution of those remaining, if placing 
 power in the hands of a Dublin Government, meant 
 destroying the industries, breaking up the homes, 
 and ruining the lives of the most prosperous and 
 the most loyal people in the Empire, then Home 
 Rule would be something, not only to which we 
 must object, but against which we must fight to the
 
 WOULD PROTESTANTS BE PERSECUTED ? 157 
 
 bitter end. I therefore made the most careful 
 inquiries in Ulster, in Leinster, and in Munster. 
 Before going I made a list of questions which I thought 
 covered the whole ground, the answers to which 
 must lead to a correct understanding of the facts. 
 In answering the question whether Home Rule 
 would mean the persecution of Protestants by 
 Roman Catholics, I wish the reader carefully to 
 consider the facts which I shall now set down. Mr. 
 Redmond, in an article on this question, repudiated 
 the idea. He said that the Irish as a race were 
 never guilty of religious persecution, and he 
 challenged any one to prove that there had ever 
 been any persecution of Protestants because they 
 were Protestants by the people of Ireland. 
 
 I would like to bear my testimony to the truth 
 of that statement. Of course, there have been times 
 when mad passions have been aroused, when dark 
 and bloody deeds have been committed. No doubt, 
 back in the times of James II. deeds too awful to 
 mention were done, and it cannot be denied that 
 in after years revenge and religious hatred made 
 Ireland a hell. The Irish are undoubtedly a wild 
 and, under some circumstances, an almost un- 
 governable people ; and in those years of strife and 
 bitterness things were done which can only be 
 thought of with a shudder. But this is true, not 
 only of Roman Catholics but of Protestants. There 
 has been bitterness on both sides ; deeds of revenge
 
 158 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 committed by both Romanists and Protestants. 
 But that does not disprove Mr. Redmond's state- 
 ments. Ireland is not a persecuting nation. The 
 Irish are not a persecuting people. I do not think 
 that any one who travels from north to south or 
 from east to west, and tries to understand the life 
 of this sunny-hearted, witty people, would assert 
 that they are. During the visits I have made to 
 that country, I have tried, as well as a stranger 
 could, to estimate their true character, and I have 
 been led to the conclusion that with all their faults 
 and their failings they are not guilty of this. They 
 may be lazy, they may be thriftless, they may be 
 superstitious, but at heart they are kind and loving, 
 and although they would at the bidding of their 
 priests do things against which they would naturally 
 revolt, yet the priests themselves would never dare 
 to urge anything like a persecution of individual 
 Protestants, except when the anger and rage of the 
 people were roused by some great national strife. 
 Doubtless, the Irish Roman Catholic is more true 
 to his faith than the Romanist of any other country ; 
 doubtless, too, he is completely dominated by 
 clerical authority. But the Irish priest, although he 
 may be bigoted and ignorant, is not by nature cruel. 
 He, too, is an Irishman, and by nature full of the 
 milk of human kindness. I believe that while he 
 would strive with his Church for complete authority 
 and complete power in the government of the
 
 WOULD PROTESTANTS BE PERSECUTED? 159 
 
 country, he would never be guilty of the persecution 
 of Protestants as a class. I think, too, that I shall 
 be able to prove that what I have said is not the 
 outcome of my own imagination, but is true to the 
 facts as they are written large over the face of 
 Ireland to-day. 
 
 The Protestants of Ulster, in talking about this, 
 have repeatedly assured me that they would not 
 have so much fear for themselves, because they are 
 in the majority, but they do fear for those parts of 
 the country where Protestants are in the minority. 
 " In the south, down in Galway, and Kerry, and 
 Clare, where the Protestants are few in number," 
 they have urged, " what chance would they have 
 against the majority of Catholics ? " It is a remark- 
 able fact that the hatred of Home Rule is not 
 nearly so strong in the South of Ireland where the 
 Protestants are in the minority, as it is in the North, 
 where they are in the majority. In Waterford, for 
 example, Mr. John Redmond's constituency, the 
 Protestants there are far less numerous than they are 
 in Belfast, but they are far less violent in their 
 opposition. It is true that in the main they do not 
 desire Home Rule, but they utter no very strong 
 opinions about it. This seems to me a significant 
 fact, but what is more significant is that, although 
 they live in a part of the country where Roman 
 Catholics are at least ten to one, and where, there- 
 fore, from the point of numbers, they predominate
 
 160 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 completely, Protestants are far more prosperous than 
 Roman Catholics. Indeed, it is one of the most 
 striking things that I know of. If ever you see a 
 prosperous shop, a big manufactory of any sort, 
 unless it be a place for the manufacturing of alcohol, 
 you may be sure it is owned by a Protestant. If 
 you see a big house you may be sure it belongs to 
 a Protestant. In fact, I was told repeatedly that, 
 although the Protestants formed scarcely a tithe 
 of the population, the main bulk of the prosperous 
 business of the town belongs to the minority. Yet 
 their customers are in the main Roman Catholics. 
 Protestants live by the good will of those belonging 
 to the Roman Church, and if they were boycotted, 
 their business would be ruined in a week. But it is 
 not so. 
 
 A respected Quaker of that town told me he had 
 done business there for thirty-five years. He is a 
 Unionist, and is desirous of maintaining the existing 
 state of things ; yet he admitted that, although 
 at least nine-tenths of the people who come to his 
 place of business are Roman Catholics, never during 
 the thirty-five years had he ever once suffered any 
 indignity or incivility at the hands of his Romanist 
 neighbours. He had begun life there as a poor 
 man, and he has grown to be rich, and he owes it to 
 the good will of the people who were entirely opposed 
 to him in matters of faith. Another man assured 
 me that even in the two or three cases where large.
 
 WOULD PROTEST ANTS BE PERSECUTED? 161 
 
 shops were owned by Roman Catholics, practically 
 all the heads of departments and managers were 
 Protestants. Now, if there were anything like 
 religious persecution, would it be possible that such 
 testimonies could be given ? How could a man do 
 business in an almost completely Roman Catholic 
 town, and succeed, as the Protestants of the South 
 of Ireland have succeeded, if the fears of the North 
 had any real foundation ? 
 
 In talking over this matter one day to an Irishman 
 (who is a fairly large landowner and a Unionist), 
 he told me that instead of it being a disadvantage to 
 be a Protestant, as far as success was concerned, in the 
 South of Ireland, it was quite the opposite. ' You 
 see," he said, " these people regard the Protestants 
 as their superiors, for where Romanists have failed 
 Protestants have succeeded. As a consequence the 
 ignorant peasant looks upon them with respect. 
 To the Irishman prosperity is something to be 
 admired, and therefore he looks with extreme 
 admiration upon the man who has succeeded where 
 he himself has failed. But not only this, the 
 Protestant is held to be a man of moral integrity. 
 After all, it is character that tells, and the Protestants 
 of Ireland are regarded as more sober, more indus- 
 trious, more trustworthy, and better educated than 
 the Roman Catholics. Thus it comes about that as 
 the Roman Catholics watch the lives of their neigh- 
 bours, as they see their general integrity, theirdevotion 
 
 L
 
 162 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 to business, their sobriety, and their faithfulness to 
 their promises, they look upon them with so much 
 respect, that it has become not a disadvantage but 
 an advantage to be a Protestant. Of course, the 
 priest could tell his people to avoid the Protestant 
 shop and go to their own Catholic shop, but in the 
 main he does not. If persecution takes place, or 
 if boycotting takes place, it is not from religious 
 reasons, but from something far other." 
 
 Again and again, even the Protestants of Ulster 
 have told me that they have no fear whatever of the 
 Irish people if they are left to themselves, because 
 the Irish people are kind and charitable ; their only 
 fear is of the Church as a hierarchy. 
 
 Let me give another illustration of what I mean. 
 Some years ago a Roman Catholic priest in Ireland 
 was led to give up his faith. The circumstances were 
 made public at the time, and discussed not only in 
 the Irish but in the English press. I had an inter- 
 view with this gentleman while in Ireland, and he told 
 me his story. He said that for years he had been living 
 a double life. His intelligence told him that the 
 Roman Catholic Church and doctrines were built 
 on false foundations, but the blood of many genera- 
 tions of Romanists was in his veins ; the fear of 
 the Church fought with his intelligence. Thus for 
 years he acted as a priest of that Church, even while 
 he had no faith in its doctrines. He was enslaved 
 by long associations, and by the ingrained terror of
 
 WOULD PROTESTANTS BE PERSECUTED ? 163 
 
 being faithless to what he had been led to think of 
 as the one true Church of God. He knew too that if 
 he left that Church openly he would be covered by 
 ignominy and abuse, for to a devoted Catholic 
 there can be few things worse than a renegade priest. 
 He, therefore, planned his escape. He obtained a 
 suit of layman's clothes, and then, taking a boat, 
 rowed out into the Shannon as if for a bathe. 
 Presently the boat was discovered without an 
 occupant, while the priest's clerical garb was found 
 in the boat. It was therefore given out that this 
 priest while bathing had been drowned. His saintly 
 character was also enlarged upon from pulpit 
 and from altar, and he was spoken of as a godly 
 priest of the Roman Church who had gone to his 
 reward. Presently, however, this man returned. 
 He had changed his faith, he had found the truth, 
 as he believed, in a faith which his old Church 
 condemned; but that Church could say nothing 
 against him. It could not contradict its public 
 statements made a few months before ; nevertheless, 
 naturally the bitterest of feelings were aroused. 
 How could it be otherwise ? As I said, nothing is 
 worse, except it be the case of a nun who gets 
 married, than for a priest to cease being a priest. 
 That man eventually became a Protestant minister, 
 he has a mission in Dublin, he has travelled all over 
 Ireland conducting missions, and yet he is in Dublin 
 to-day safe and unmolested. Of course, there have
 
 164 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 been times when feelings have been aroused against 
 him, and when he has had to have police protection, 
 but these times have been rare, and the very fact 
 that a man well known as a priest, and now well 
 known as a Protestant minister, can go into the most 
 extreme Catholic towns in the South of Ireland 
 and conduct his missions, Protestant missions, un- 
 molested, without persecution, and without bodily 
 harm, goes a long way to prove that there is very 
 little religious persecution in that country. 
 
 Another thing that goes to prove this ; my inform- 
 ant, who also was a most respected Quaker of the 
 South of Ireland, told me that during over thirty 
 years he had lived in a Roman Catholic town, he 
 had only on one occasion known anything like a 
 disturbance at Protestant services, and that was 
 when the Salvation Army first came. The coming 
 of the army, of course, created a great deal of 
 interest, and many Roman Catholics were led to 
 come to the services, and for a time there was 
 strong feeling against its adherents ; but presently 
 things settled down to their natural course, and the 
 Salvation Army now conducts its meetings without 
 fear of harm or molestation as freely as it does in 
 England. 
 
 On this point I can quite understand that some 
 will object and say, " What about the cases of boy- 
 cotting and persecution which no doubt have been 
 common in Ireland during the last few years, and
 
 WOULD PROTESTANTS BE PERSECUTED ? 165 
 
 how can you say there is no religious persecu- 
 tion in the face of the incidents which are public 
 property ? " 
 
 I know that a section of the press teems with such 
 incidents, and on the surface they are hard to 
 reconcile with much that I have said. The 
 examination of those incidents, however, goes to 
 prove not that there was persecution or boycotting 
 on account of religion, but because of agrarian or 
 political reasons. Sometimes Protestants have been 
 persecuted, sometimes Roman Catholics have been 
 persecuted, in connection with some agrarian or 
 political trouble, when party feeling has run high, 
 but this has nothing whatever to do with my main 
 contention that Protestants as Protestants have not 
 been persecuted for many years, neither are they likely 
 to be under any change of Government. If it were 
 in the nature of the people to persecute, or if the 
 priests desired to persecute for religious reasons, 
 they would have had plenty of opportunities, 
 especially in those parts of the country where 
 Roman Catholics are in a large majority. On the 
 whole, then, I think we can dismiss this fear from 
 our minds. It does not bear the light of day. 
 
 In this connection I may say that I interviewed 
 at least a dozen people in the South of Ireland both 
 Protestant and Romanist, and without exception 
 they laughed at the idea of persecution. " Surely," 
 was their reply, " the fact that Protestants are the
 
 166 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 most prosperous people in Ireland, whether in the 
 North or in the South, that they own nearly all the 
 prosperous businesses, that they live in nearly 
 all the big houses, and that they hold most of the 
 permanent positions in the country, is sufficient 
 proof that no such thing as persecution exists." 
 
 If further proofs were needed, the following facts 
 are certainly significant. I take them from the 
 Parliamentary reports, and they say that there 
 are 807 Episcopalian Justices of the Peace in Ireland. 
 But there are only 251 Catholic Justices, 157 Presby- 
 terians, 38 Methodists, and 19 " various." As to the 
 Lord Lieutenants and Deputy Lieutenants of Coun- 
 ties, at least eight out of every ten are Episcopalians. 
 The Irish Privy Council consists of 43 Episcopalians, 
 10 Catholics, 9 Presbyterians, and 10 others. The 
 Stipendiary Magistrates include 41 Episcopalians, 
 19 Catholics, and 6 Presbyterians. The Judges of 
 the High Court number 7 Episcopalians, 4 Catholics, 
 and 2 Presbyterians ; whilst the Land and Estates 
 Commissioners consist of 3 Episcopalians, 2 Catholics, 
 and i Presbyterian. The County Inspectors of 
 Police are 37 in number, of whom only 4 are Catholics, 
 and nearly all the others are Episcopalians. It may 
 be added that when the Conservatives went out of 
 office in 1905, the Assistant Land Commissioners, 
 Inspectors, and Assistant Inspectors, were con- 
 stituted of 39 Episcopalians, 16 Catholics, and 12 
 Presbyterians, whilst the Recorders and County
 
 WOULD PROTESTANTS BE PERSECUTED ? 167 
 
 Court Judges included 10 Episcopalians, 8 Catholics, 
 and 2 Presbyterians. The Liberal Government has 
 since reduced the disproportion under the last two 
 heads. Lastly, there are 174 Irish Peers, of whom 
 only 14 are Catholics, and at least 150 are 
 Episcopalians. 
 
 This goes to prove that the fears I had before I 
 went to Ireland were groundless. On every hand, 
 except in point of numbers, the Protestants' position 
 is supreme. The Protestants are in the main masters, 
 and the Roman Catholics the servants ; the Protes- 
 tants the employers and the Roman Catholics the 
 employees. The Protestants are in a position of 
 authority, while the Roman Catholics are in the 
 main in positions of subservience. 
 
 Is it likely, then, that if Home Rule be given 
 and the Roman Catholics realise the dream of their 
 life, that they will be likely to persecute for conscience' 
 sake ? They have not done so when their hopes 
 were unfulfilled, and the sky of their life black, 
 how much less would they do so then, when the 
 dreams of many generations became a reality ? 
 
 It is freely admitted that the Protestant popula- 
 tion in Ireland is the most enlightened, the most 
 prosperous, the most virile ; as a consequence they 
 have obtained most of the positions of authority 
 and wealth. Cannot the people having these 
 qualifications take care of themselves ? Even if 
 Roman Catholics shewed a desire to persecute, and
 
 168 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 there are no signs that such would be the case, 
 is it likely that the people who have the brains, 
 the culture, the wealth, and the commanding 
 positions in the nation would be powerless to defend 
 themselves ? Such a state of things is unthinkable.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 IN writing the concluding chapter of this little book, 
 I cannot, perhaps, do better than to consider briefly 
 the two policies before us. 
 
 The first is the policy of Ulster, of those who 
 would reject any thought of self-government 
 for Ireland. What strikes any one who gives it a 
 moment's thought is that it is purely negative. 
 The cry of at least two-thirds of the nation is to be 
 disregarded, the hopes of long years is to come to 
 nothing. All the dreams that have been dreamt 
 will be idle and the national sentiment trodden under 
 foot. It is well to meet this matter fairly. The 
 minority of Ireland will have their way, while the 
 majority will be denied that for which they have 
 been longing. 
 
 What will be the practical results of this ? I am 
 asking the question in no party spirit, for in this 
 study I have banished all thoughts of party from 
 my mind. 
 
 The first result will be that Ulster will remain 
 169
 
 170 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 satisfied, and that her prosperity will remain un- 
 impaired. This must, of course, be admitted 
 without question. Whether it will be best for 
 Ulster eventually must be considered later, but for 
 the present that province, which has been noted 
 for its growing population, its increasing prosperity, 
 and general well-being, will remain the one bright 
 spot on a " distressful country." Ulster's people 
 will still live in their comfortable homes, and the 
 forces which have gone to making the province, 
 in the main, contented and prosperous, will remain. 
 Its Lord Mayor will probably still be able to boast 
 of the small pauper rate, the diminutive police 
 rate, and probably of a growing commerce. The 
 Presbyterian and other schools will remain under 
 the same control, the churches will probably continue 
 to be well attended, and the ministers will be able to 
 do their great work unhindered by new and disturb- 
 ing influences. Probably, too, a number of Roman 
 Catholics from the South will move to this prosperous 
 corner of the Island, and catch something of that 
 larger life and broader outlook which is common 
 among a people who have thrown oft the chains 
 of ecclesiasticism. 
 
 But what about Ireland as a whole ? We must 
 remember that in the Emerald Isle we have two 
 distinct races, having two religions, and governed 
 by different forces. It would be madness to legislate 
 for one quarter of the people, however worthy and
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 171 
 
 whatever noble qualities they may possess, and 
 leave the other three-fourths in a state of discontent 
 to be governed by the same decadent influences. 
 Numerically speaking, that would be a repetition of 
 the old figure of the tail wagging the dog. As a 
 consequence, if Ireland be refused her demand for 
 self-government, there would be a great outcry among 
 the Catholics of the South. Old wounds would be 
 opened, old enmities revived, and the old discontent 
 intensified. It is useless to say that Ireland as a 
 whole, (of course excepting a part of Ulster,) does not 
 desire Home Rule. I was told by those who opposed 
 any change in the Government of Ireland that the 
 farmers who had bought their land no longer desired 
 self-government for Ireland. It may be so in a 
 certain number of cases. I cannot say. This I 
 know. Every farmer to whom I spoke, and I had 
 interviews with several, were all eager for Home 
 Rule. I remember one especially, a really good 
 specimen of the peasant farmer, who had been able 
 to buy his land under the Wyndham Land Act. 
 He fanned something about sixty acres, and told me 
 that while he could barely make a living in the old 
 days of landlordism, he now managed comfortably. 
 He had also become a member of the County Council, 
 and took an intelligent interest in the affairs of his 
 district. From the standpoint of worldly affairs, 
 therefore, he was comfortably situated, and belonged 
 to that class, which is spoken of as having changed
 
 172 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 its views, and as desiring no longer Home Government 
 for Ireland. 
 
 " Do you still want Home Rule ? " I asked. 
 
 " I believe in it more strongly than ever," was 
 his reply. 
 
 " Do your feelings on the matter represent those 
 of men situated as you are, or do you stand alone ? " 
 
 " There may be other farmers situated as I am 
 who do not want Home Rule," he replied, " but if 
 there are, they are very rare around here. I know 
 of none." 
 
 " And why do you desire it ? " 
 
 " Because we are Irishmen, and because we want 
 to govern our country according to Irish ideas. We 
 feel now that Ireland is governed by men who 
 don't understand us, who are out of sympathy with 
 the things which are dearest to us. We as a nation 
 are as old as you are, and we want to feel that 
 Ireland is governed by Irish people. There is only 
 one Ireland for us, you know, sir. We want, as you 
 may say, to work out our own salvation." 
 
 " And suppose Home Rule is not granted ? " 
 
 " Then, sir," and the man's eyes hardened, 
 " there'll be all the old troubles. There'll be rioting 
 and outrage and misery. You'll never have any 
 peace, you can't have while Ireland is governed from 
 England." 
 
 " But you don't mean that things will be as bad 
 as they were, say, in the 'eighties ? "
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 173 
 
 " I don't say that quite, but there'll be terrible 
 doings. The people are set upon it. Home Govern- 
 ment is our right, sir, our right, and if we don't 
 
 have it now, then " and the man looked away 
 
 towards a miserable cluster of mud huts, as though 
 he were picturing what the peasants there would do. 
 
 This man, as I was convinced, expressed the feel- 
 ings of the people in the South and the West of 
 Ireland, and as I reflected on Ireland's past history, 
 I realised that Ireland would not be a pleasant place 
 to live in, especially for those who had opposed the 
 national sentiments, if Home Rule were not given. 
 
 But to return to the question which I have all 
 along kept in mind in writing these pages ; Ireland 
 would still remain under Rome Rule, and the 
 rejection of the people's claims would mean the 
 strengthening of Rome's claims. As I have insisted 
 all along, Ireland is under Rome Rule now, and if 
 Ireland is disappointed in her hopes, she would be 
 more under Rome Rule than ever. 
 
 Protestants in Ireland complain, and justly com- 
 plain, of the power that the Roman hierarchy has 
 in the country. In all vital matters, such as educa- 
 tion, the Church is practically supreme. Fancy 
 6,000 schools under the absolute control of the 
 priests ! Fancy more than 7,000 teachers whose 
 whole professional career is at the mercy of men 
 who contribute nothing to their maintenance. Fancy 
 five training colleges, supported by the State, under
 
 174 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 the complete control of the priests ! Fancy the 
 Church dictating to the Government what she will 
 have, and what she will not have ! Fancy Cardinal 
 Logue laughing at the Government's " safeguards " 
 in relation to the Universities Act, and telling the 
 people that the Church will see to it that, in spite 
 of all English Nonconformists can do, moneys 
 voted for undenominational purposes shall be 
 devoted to Catholic uses ! For that is what his 
 boast meant. Fancy Maynooth College, after having 
 received a huge sum towards its building, receiving 
 between 20,000 and 30,000 a year for the training 
 of Roman Catholic priests ! Yet all this and much 
 more goes on under the existing state of things, 
 and would continue if self-government is not granted. 
 
 I do not believe that the Church as a Church 
 desires Home Rule. It is far better off as it is. 
 Under no Home Government could she rule so 
 completely, so absolutely, as she rules now. Under 
 no form of self-government could she dictate her 
 will as she dictates it now. And this rule would 
 continue, and in all probability be strengthened, if the 
 hopes of Home Rule were dashed to the ground. 
 
 This also would follow. The Church would make 
 it appear to the people that she sided with them. 
 As I have said in an earlier chapter, the Church is 
 playing a waiting game. She is not, as a Church, 
 expressing herself openly in this matter. Which- 
 ever way the scale turns, she means to win, but she
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 175 
 
 will have a far greater chance of strengthening her 
 power if Home Rule is not granted. She will 
 make it appear to the people that she has been all 
 along on their side, and that she grieved that a 
 Protestant Government refused their just demands. 
 The Irish peasant, for his part, betrayed by the very 
 Protestants who should stand for liberty and freedom, 
 will turn back to his Roman champion with renewed 
 faith and confirmed loyalty. 
 
 If I read the case aright, moreover, it would 
 revive all the old bitterness between Protestant and 
 Romanist. For to-day in Ireland the division of 
 parties may be roughly divided into two camps. 
 Protestant and Unionist on the one hand, against 
 Romanist and Nationalist on the other. And the 
 Irish peasant would be led to confuse Protestantism 
 with Unionism, and would thus look on the Protes- 
 tant as his natural enemy. If I know the Roman 
 Church aright, moreover, she would encourage the 
 thought, and thus, whatever friendliness has existed 
 in the past, would be largely destroyed. 
 
 In this way, because the people were more than 
 ever drawn to the Church, which they would regard 
 as their great friend, Rome Rule would be stronger 
 than ever, the people would be more than ever 
 under her control. And this would work out in a 
 terrible way for the Irish people. Light would be 
 kept out, liberty of opinion forbidden, and the 
 Irish as a race would be debarred from entering
 
 176 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 into that promised land of freedom, and light, and 
 responsibility which alone can make a people strong 
 and great. 
 
 Ireland would still be the open sore of British 
 politics, while the natural and legitimate business 
 of our British Parliament would be congested, and 
 made almost impossible by the eighty Nationalist 
 members who would in all probability hold the 
 balance of power between the two parties. Of this 
 I think there can be no doubt, and I do not envy 
 the position of any Prime Minister in the House of 
 Commons, be he Liberal or Conservative, who tries 
 to conduct the business of State, while eighty dis- 
 appointed and angry Nationalists, seek to give vent 
 to their feelings. 
 
 Added to this, those eighty Nationalists will seek 
 to advance the interests of the Roman Church in 
 England, and make anything like a just settlement 
 of our own ecclesiastical questions impossible. Our 
 education anomalies will still remain, while the 
 Nationalist votes will make Dr. Clifford's famous 
 phrase " Rome on the Rates," more than ever a 
 reality. 
 
 All this we must face and more ; but the chief 
 thing that troubles me is that three-fourths of the 
 people of Ireland will remain in the thraldom of 
 Rome. The forces which would have caused the 
 life-blood of religious freedom to flow through 
 their veins will not be liberated, while the old
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 177 
 
 numbing, paralysing influences of priestly authority 
 will still exert their influence over the minds and 
 souls of the people. They may hear the cry " Come 
 forth," but the stone will not be rolled away from 
 the tomb, and even if it were their grave clothes 
 will bind them fast. 
 
 I do not say that Ireland's regeneration will never 
 come. A people intelligent by nature cannot for 
 ever be kept in darkness. " The schoolmaster is 
 abroad," even although it be the priests' schoolmaster, 
 and a free press, even such as exists in Roman Catholic 
 Ireland, facilities for travel, and the general dissemi- 
 nation of ideas, must slowly filter their way into 
 Ireland. But it will be very slow. The clock of 
 Irish life will be very nearly at a standstill, even if it 
 be not put back for many years. Rome Rule will 
 be the condition of Ireland far longer than it need 
 to be, and subsequent history will proclaim to the 
 British Government, " If thou hadst known even in 
 thy day the things that belonged to thy peace. 
 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." 
 
 And now let us look at the other side of the 
 question. Suppose Ireland were granted self- 
 government ? Suppose that this Nationalist senti- 
 ment, which has existed so long, and been so strong 
 in the Irish heart, were fulfilled ? 
 
 If all history has not been a lie, the mind of 
 Ireland would be awakened from its long sleep. 
 Direct responsibility for the affairs of their own 
 
 M
 
 i;8 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 country would quicken into life potentialities and 
 powers lying dormant. That sense of responsibility, 
 moreover, would give the Irishman new ideas of life, 
 and finally lead him to throw off the shackles by 
 which he has been so long bound. 
 
 As George Bernard Shaw says, in view of Home 
 Rule becoming law, " the Roman Catholic Church 
 against which Dublin Castle is powerless would 
 meet with the one force that can cope with it 
 victoriously. That force is democracy." 
 
 At least, it would be a positive policy. As I have 
 said, the Ulster policy is purely negative. Under it 
 all the old discontent and all the old trouble would 
 remain. Nothing would be done to satisfy the 
 longings of the people's hearts ; nothing to meet 
 the national sentiment. But if Home Rule were 
 passed, at least an endeavour would be made to give 
 them what they desire. It is possible that mistakes 
 may be made in that new Bill ; but he who never 
 makes mistakes never makes anything. As a con- 
 sequence, the feeling that England refuses to listen 
 to their cry would no longer have a meaning and in 
 that respect, at all events, their grievance would be 
 taken away. 
 
 But what about Ulster ? All along, the great 
 difficulty that stands in the way of Irish Home 
 Rule has been this province of the North. No doubt 
 Ulster has a strong case, and I would be the very last 
 to minimise it. We have to meet the question
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 179 
 
 " Shall we make Ulster discontented that the rest 
 may be contented ? " We cannot ignore such a 
 Convention as was held in Belfast early in February. 
 We cannot afford to close our eyes to the fact that 
 perhaps the strongest and most influential body of 
 people in Ireland, represented by 50,000 men, 
 uttered their protest a protest that was strong and 
 grim and determined. 
 
 Sir William Crawford, who is not given to speak 
 lightly, the head of the greatest linen manufactory 
 in the world, the employer of many thousands of 
 people, expressed their feelings in no uncertain 
 terms. " Fellow Presbyterians," he said, " we are 
 here to pledge ourselves to do our part in this 
 momentous crisis. I have no doubt that when the 
 proposals of the Cabinet now a dark secret are 
 revealed, they will be interleaved with paper 
 guarantees and safeguards. I have no doubt that 
 we shall have promises of freedom and toleration for 
 all men from Nationalist leaders leaders whose 
 words were threats not long ago, and who are them- 
 selves at the mercy of forces they could not control 
 for a single year. Let none of these guarantees or 
 promises deceive you. A Dublin Parliament we 
 will not have. Its laws we will not obey. Its 
 demands for money we will throw into the fire. 
 Our Nationalist countrymen may, if they so desire, 
 establish their claim to manage their own affairs 
 they will not manage ours. Let an Irish Govern-
 
 i8o IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 ment be formed. Let it send its officers here to 
 take taxes by force : we will not pay. Our decision 
 is final and unchanging. We trust in the God of our 
 fathers and our duty is clear." 
 
 Words like these, I say, and from such a man, 
 cannot be ignored ; and, undoubtedly, Sir William 
 Crawford and those who think with him, have 
 grounds for their fears. As I have repeatedly urged, 
 the Roman Catholic Church would undoubtedly seek 
 to take advantage of the new conditions. Past 
 history has shewn us what that Church desires. 
 Losing power in almost every country in the world, 
 it will seek to strengthen it in these British Isles. 
 Therefore, the Ulster claim must be met. Personally, 
 I would have nothing to do with Home Rule except 
 to fight it if I thought Protestantism would event- 
 ually suffer from the change. But surely the British 
 Parliament can do what is necessary ? Ulster does 
 not complain so much of existing laws, and its 
 people seem to regard the provisions of those laws as 
 sufficient to safeguard them. 
 
 Therefore, before any Home Rule Bill is passed, 
 there must be laws making it impossible for a 
 Dublin Parliament to interfere with their existing 
 rights. All their marriage laws must be regarded 
 as sacred ; and there must be no possibility of any 
 Dublin Parliament acceding to the demands of the 
 Roman Church by interfering with them. Their 
 position in relation to education must not be
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 181 
 
 weakened. At present they at least have control 
 over the education of Protestants. That control 
 must be safeguarded by the most stringent Acts 
 of Parliament. 
 
 Undoubtedly the Roman Church has its eye upon 
 ecclesiastical property once held by that communion, 
 but which, in the course of events, has passed over 
 to the Protestant Church. Long association, and 
 many years of possession, have led them to regard 
 that ecclesiastical property as inviolably theirs. 
 Again, laws must be passed that no interference 
 with that property shall be made possible. 
 
 In the speech from which I have quoted, Sir 
 William Crawford refers to dangers to industrial 
 life which will, he says, undoubtedly be the outcome 
 of Home Rule. Every danger to industrial progress 
 must be made impossible as far as laws can 
 accomplish this. 
 
 Sympathising with Ulster as I do, respecting 
 and admiring its strong, stalwart, loyal people, 
 as any one must who has learnt to know them, I 
 feel we can do no other. That people, which has made 
 the North of Ireland a green spot in a commercial 
 desert, cannot be disregarded. And so I say that 
 it would be criminal for any Government to attempt 
 to deal with this question unless by every power 
 represented by an Act of Parliament it made them 
 feel that their fears of the coming change are 
 groundless.
 
 182 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 But some one will say " What is the use of 
 safeguards when the Roman Catholic Church takes 
 no note of safeguards ? Having the Dublin Parlia- 
 ment under its control, it would laugh at them 
 even as it has laughed at other safeguards." But, 
 surely, the objection is not valid. Even under 
 Home Rule, Ireland would be a part of the British 
 Empire ; Ireland would be closely associated with 
 our home life. The Imperial Parliament would 
 always remain as their strong fortress. Besides, if 
 safeguards are of no use, of what use are existing 
 laws ? The ultimate strength of any law resides 
 in the power behind it the Imperial Parliament. 
 Indeed, I do not see, realising that the power 
 of Great Britain is ever behind them to protect and 
 succour them, why they need fear for their future 
 under Home Rule more than now. The laws of 
 the realm would still remain ; and if such rigorous 
 provisions were made for their safety as I have 
 suggested, they could defy the Roman Church to 
 do its worst, as much as, if not more than, they 
 have been enabled to do in the past. 
 
 But, more than this, I do not believe Ulster would 
 suffer. It will be remembered that, when Mr. 
 Gladstone brought in his Bill for the disestablish- 
 ment of the Irish Church, that Bill was protested 
 against as strongly as a Home Rule Bill is being 
 protested against to-day. It was urged that, if 
 the Irish Church were disestablished, Rome would
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 183 
 
 crush Protestantism out of the land. The Episcopal 
 Church painted all sorts of dark pictures of the 
 future of religion if the Episcopal Church ceased 
 to be the State Church of Ireland. But what has 
 happened ? After half a century has passed away 
 those fears have been shewn to be groundless. 
 Instead of Protestantism losing ground, it has 
 gained. Protestantism was never so strong in 
 Ireland as it is to-day never so strong in numbers, 
 in wealth, in position, in power, if we consider the 
 population, as a whole. 
 
 If our Protestantism is real, we need not be 
 afraid for it. It stands upon the foundation of 
 truth, and while we are faithful we can defy the 
 inroads of Romanism. It has ever been the case 
 that a possible danger to Protestantism has drawn 
 the faithful more closely together ; it has meant 
 renewed energy, greater devotion, and hence the 
 forward march of the truth. 
 
 Think, for example, of the growth of Noncon- 
 formity in England. At the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century it was only a small fragment 
 of the population. At the close of the century it 
 was more than fifty per cent, of the population ! 
 And yet it suffered under all sorts of indignities and 
 difficulties. Nonconformists were looked upon as 
 interlopers, and were seemingly regarded as having 
 no right to existence. They were unjustly taxed. 
 They were in apparent danger of being crushed out
 
 184 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 by a privileged State Church. They were not 
 allowed to marry their people or to bury their 
 dead. It was demanded of them that they should 
 support the State Church and at the same time 
 maintain their own. Their people were poor and 
 almost all their income came from the pockets 
 of the working classes. Yet, so strong is the power 
 of truth, that they became mighty, and to-day 
 they form more than one-half of the worshipping 
 community of Great Britain. Why, then, need 
 Protestantism fear in Ireland ? The Protestants 
 form one million out of the four millions of the 
 population ; and it is readily conceded that that 
 million contains the intelligence, the personal force, 
 the wealth, and, to a very large extent, the leading 
 minds in Ireland. Is it likely, then, that this one 
 million, possessing such powers and occupying such 
 positions, would be swept away before the other 
 three millions, who, although three to one in number, 
 are, for the most part, ignorant, unenlightened, and 
 subservient to the will of the priest ? Have 
 Protestants no faith in their principles ? Do they 
 not believe in the power of truth even although 
 a Dublin Parliament legislated for them ? 
 
 On the other hand, if what I have said in previous 
 chapters is true, if the new responsibility, the 
 enlightenment, and the strength of character which 
 is sure to come through responsibility, break the 
 shackles which have bound the Roman Catholics
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 185 
 
 for so long and make them a free people, will not 
 their position be far better than under the numbing 
 and paralysing influences of a mediaeval Church ? 
 
 I cannot, in dealing with this subject, refrain 
 from looking at an aspect of the question which has 
 no direct bearing upon my subject. I stated at the 
 outset that I was not going to deal with questions 
 other than the one which gives the title to this 
 little book. At the same time, it was so often urged 
 upon me that Home Rule would destroy the 
 industry of Ulster that I cannot help looking at it 
 for a moment. It was repeatedly stated, while 
 I was in the North of Ireland, that a Dublin Parlia- 
 ment would mean two things. First, it would 
 mean that an endeavour would be made to tax 
 Protestants of Ulster out of existence ; and, 
 secondly, that Home Rule would bring about such 
 a state of things as would make it impossible for 
 Ulster to retain her great industrial position. 
 
 Look at those two points. First, would it be likely 
 that a Dublin Parliament would try to tax Ulster 
 out of existence ? That Parliament would know 
 that a large bulk of its revenues the revenues on 
 which it would depend for the maintenance of the 
 country must come from Ulster. It is there that 
 its trade chiefly exists. The rest of Ireland is, in 
 the main, agricultural ; and save for its distilleries 
 and breweries, there are practically no other means of 
 industry. It is from Ulster that its revenues must
 
 186 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 largely come. Is it likely that a Dublin Parliament 
 would seek to " kill the goose that lays the golden 
 egg " ? Even suppose the Nationalist members 
 had complete control over that new Parliament, 
 they would know that the eyes of the world would 
 be upon them, and they dare not, for their own sakes, 
 do anything that would jeopardise their position. 
 
 But this is not all. How has the trade of Ulster 
 been built up ? I shall never forget my visit to the 
 renowned York Street linen mills. It is, I suppose, 
 the greatest linen factory in the world. As some one 
 has said, " It clothes England in fine linen." It 
 employs between five and six thousand people. To 
 go through its many departments and watch how 
 the flax becomes the linen that decorates our tables, 
 makes one wonder. What the turnover in capital 
 of this great industry may be, I have no knowledge. 
 But when one of its largest owners said to me, 
 ' This would be all destroyed under Home Rule," 
 I could not help thinking that the statement was 
 utterly groundless. " What," I asked, " has built 
 up this mighty enterprise ? What has made the 
 whole of Belfast so prosperous ? " While the city 
 of Cork has remained in poverty and its population 
 stationary, Belfast has sprung from obscurity to 
 greatness. What has made the city great ? What 
 has built up the huge industries of this city of the 
 North ? It has been the character of the people. 
 The Ulster people boast that while the linen
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 187 
 
 industries were destroyed in the other parts of the 
 world, they kept it alive in Belfast and they did 
 it by their strength of will, by their foresight, by 
 their enterprise, and by their integrity of character. 
 Nothing else could have made Belfast great or 
 Ulster prosperous. 
 
 As I walked through the various departments of 
 those great works, I was informed that nearly 
 all the products were sent abroad. The trade of 
 Belfast is, in the main, an export trade. Contracts 
 for years ahead are made both for buying and for 
 selling. Now, then, suppose Home Rule were to pass. 
 Suppose, even, that trade for a time were to be 
 affected. Would the men who made the industries 
 of the North allow all they have done in the past 
 to be destroyed ? Would they nullify all the con- 
 tracts they have made ? Would all these vast 
 schemes come to nought ? It is unthinkable. 
 The force of character for which Ulster is so notable 
 would remain, and the prosperity of Ulster would 
 remain, too, as a consequence. 
 
 But more than this. Would it not also mean 
 an increase of trade ? As I have said, at present 
 nearly all the Ulster goods are exported. The 
 Irish people cannot afford to buy what they manu- 
 facture. The South of Ireland is poverty-stricken. 
 But under the new conditions, with a re-awakened 
 peasantry, with a sense of responsibility such as 
 they never had before, with a new spirit working
 
 i88 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 in the lives of the people, we should have a new 
 prosperity. There is no reason why the South 
 and the West of Ireland should for ever remain in 
 poverty. The Irish people have done well in other 
 lands. In America they have risen to wealth and 
 eminence and taken prominent places in the life 
 of that great Republic. Why is it ? It is universally 
 agreed that when they have left the atmosphere of 
 superstition and oppression they have become the 
 men God intended them to be. The power of Rome 
 has killed the enterprise of the Roman Catholics of 
 Ireland ; give them a sense of responsibility, give 
 them the enlightenment which must surely come 
 through self-government, and it will quicken their 
 pulses and stir them to work out their own salvation. 
 Thus, a richer South and West of Ireland would 
 mean new markets for the North ; and, instead 
 of Home Rule being a source of weakness to Ulster, 
 it may become a strength. 
 
 But this, by the way. And I crave pardon for 
 attempting to touch on a subject not only outside 
 the question discussed in this book, but outside my 
 own domain. In looking back over what I have 
 written, and again asking the question, " Does 
 Home Rule mean Rome Rule ? " the answer comes 
 in no uncertain way. I begun to study this subject, 
 feeling that the cry of Ulster was right. That to 
 give self-government to Ireland would be to place 
 that unhappy country more than ever under the
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 189 
 
 dominion of Rome. But now, after having read 
 much literature (more against Home Rule than for 
 it) ; after having talked with many Irish people 
 (more Unionists than Home Rulers), I am con- 
 vinced that self-government is the one power 
 which will break the tyranny of Rome. All history 
 supports that conviction. Cardinal Manning said 
 " that the true government of Ireland is in the 
 bishops and the priests," That government must 
 ever mean as it has ever meant decadence, 
 corruption, and ruin. And the only power which 
 can destroy the tyranny of clerical control is the 
 power of an enlightened and responsible democracy. 
 I have tried to think of Ireland as a whole, and not 
 of one part of it only, and I have tried to understand 
 the dangers of self-government both to the North and 
 to the South. I hope I have done justice to the 
 Ulster position ; if I have not, it is my misfortune 
 and not my intention. I can quite understand its 
 fears. Possibly, probably, Ulster, under Home Rule, 
 would for a time be in the wilderness as far as public 
 representation is concerned, as has already happened 
 in regard to the County and District Councils, 
 but only for a time. Probably, too, the Church of 
 Rome will use all her influence, and it is tremendous, 
 to unprotestantise the North. It is her policy to 
 do so. But the Protestants of Ireland are not 
 weaklings, and they will be like adamant in the 
 face of encroaching forces. Ere long, too, they will
 
 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 assert their true position. The power of a narrow 
 ecclesiasticism is dying. It is doomed to die. 
 Strength, virility, integrity, enterprise, and a mighty 
 faith in the principles which have made Ulster 
 great in the past, will be its strength in the future. 
 That which has made Protestantism such a power, 
 since Luther's mighty voice shook the world, still 
 abides. Belfast and Londonderry and the towns 
 and villages of Protestant Ireland need not fear, for 
 tkere be more for them than against them. 
 
 But it is not alone of Ulster that I am thinking. 
 " Pat," in an article he has just contributed to the 
 English press, says, " The real problem is to restore 
 the use of their wits to the Irish people. We want 
 peasant proprietorship in mental freedom. We 
 want self-governorship for the peasant." Exactly ; 
 but how can they obtain this ? I have tried to 
 shew how. 
 
 But I realise the danger in mental freedom. In 
 other Roman Catholic countries it has meant a 
 period of revolt against organised creeds. It seems 
 as though agnosticism were the inevitable rebound 
 from a rigid ecclesiasticism. But the price of 
 liberty has to be paid, and Ireland is bound to 
 obtain her liberty ; if not sooner, then later. But 
 the revolt against iron-bound creeds need not be 
 a revolt against the truth, and even if it be, the truth 
 will be finally triumphant. Besides, there can never 
 be a true manhood without liberty, never a great
 
 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 191 
 
 national life without spiritual freedom. " Where 
 the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." With this 
 new-found freedom I can see Ireland standing erect, 
 instinct with new life. 
 
 " It is a tremendous risk," some one will urge. 
 But the essence of life is risk ; and surely the hope 
 of making a nation free is worth the risk ! I ask 
 the Protestants of Ireland to think of this. They 
 have become great and strong through their spiritual 
 freedom ; will they not risk something to give that 
 freedom to their Irish brethren ? Already there is 
 a glow in the Eastern sky, and many are daring to 
 say, " The morning is coming." Shall we not meet 
 the dawn with gladsome hearts ? At any rate, I 
 cannot believe that they will long entertain the 
 fear that self-government for Ireland will mean the 
 continued and perhaps the increased dominion of 
 Rome. It is opposed to the very genius of their 
 Protestant faith. Our forefathers were not afraid 
 of liberty, liberty to all, and in their courage they 
 became mighty, and left to us the heritage that is 
 our joy and our crown. Surely this is the great 
 opportunity of Irish Protestants. It is theirs to 
 shew that they do not fear for the truth, and that 
 their faith in the Gospel for which their fathers 
 died is mightier than their doubts. Let them shew 
 their priest-bound countrymen that they at least 
 believe in a living Christianity, the essence of which 
 is justice and liberty and love.
 
 192 IS HOME RULE ROME RULE ? 
 
 I am sure, too, that their fears are groundless. 
 The movement of the age is towards the breaking of 
 bonds, and setting at liberty those who are captive. 
 And Ireland, which has been bound for many years, 
 is asking for freedom. Perhaps its simple people 
 hardly realise how that freedom will work out, and 
 none of us know altogether, for the purposes of God 
 are unknown to men. Be that as it may, however, 
 every movement towards enlightenment, towards 
 progress, and towards individual responsibility, 
 whether civil or religious, is from God, and augurs 
 the advance of the people. I cannot believe, there- 
 fore, that Home Rule means Rome Rule; on the 
 contrary, I firmly believe that it will be the first 
 step in the way of freedom from the bondage of 
 Rome. It will break the shackles of the past, and 
 usher in an era of liberty. And in my heart of 
 hearts is the conviction that it will prepare the way 
 for the coming of the Evangel, for which Ireland 
 has so long waited. 
 
 LONDON : WARD, LOCK & Co., LIMITED.
 
 ,,^,f?. U .!!. E .2JONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 

 
 NOVELS BY 
 
 JOSEPH HOCKING. 
 
 Cloth gilt. Illustrated. 3/6. 
 
 MR. HOCKING'S novels have been (by the Spectator] com- 
 pared to Baring Gould's, and by other Journals to those of 
 Thomas Hardy, Hall Cuine, and Stanley Weyman ; but they are, 
 one and all, stamped with striking and original individuality. Bold 
 in conception, strenuously high and earnest in purpose, daring in 
 thought, picturesque and lifelike in description, it is not to be 
 wondered at that Mr. HOCKING'S novels are eagerly awaited by a 
 great and ever-increasing public. 
 
 THE PURPLE ROBE. 
 
 THE 5CARLET WOMAN. 
 
 LEST WE FORGET. 
 
 THE STORY OF ANDREW FAIRFAX. 
 
 ISHMAEL PENQELLY: An Outcast. 
 
 THE MONK OF MAR-SABA. 
 
 ZILLAH. 
 
 JABEZ EASTERBROOK. 
 
 ALL MEN ARE LIARS. 
 
 FIELDS OF FAIR RENOWN. 
 
 WEAPONS OF MYSTERY. 
 
 THE BIRTHRIGHT. 
 
 MISTRESS NANCY MOLESWORTH. 
 
 AND SHALL TRELAWNEY DIE? 
 
 GREATER LOVE. 
 
 ESAU. 
 
 THE COMING OF THE KING. 
 
 ROGER TREWINION. 
 
 THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD. 
 
 GOD AND MAMMON (Just Ready). 
 
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