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Page 27
In the first place, even if any policy of oppression were in our minds,
it is not in our power. The overlordship of the Imperial Parliament
remains in any scheme of Home Rule unimpaired, and any man damnified
because of his religion can appeal in last resort to the Imperial Army
and Navy. Shankhill Road is mathematically safe. After all there are in
England some forty millions of Protestants who, whatever their religious
temperature may be, will certainly decline to see Protestantism
penalised. The Protestants in Ireland have a million and a quarter, and
they make noise enough for twice the number. There are about three and a
quarter millions of Irish Catholics. History concedes to Catholic
Ireland the cleanest record in respect of religious tolerance to be
found anywhere in Europe. We never martyred a saint, and amid all the
witch-hunting devilries of Scotland and England we burned only one
witch, a namesake of my own. Deny or suppress all this. Imagine into
the eyes of every Catholic neighbour the slumbering but unquenched fires
of Smithfield. But be good enough to respect mathematics. Do not suggest
that the martial qualities induced by the two religions are so
dissimilar that two Catholics are capable of imposing Home Rule on
twenty-five Protestants.
The suggestion that we shall overtax "Ulster" is even more captivating.
But how are we to do it? Of course we might schedule the sites given up
to Protestant church buildings as undeveloped land. Or we might issue
income-tax forms with an assessment printed on one side, and the decrees
of the Council of Trent on the other. Or we might insist on every orator
desirous of uttering that ennobling sentiment, "To Hell with the Pope!"
taking out a licence, and charge him a small fee. Positive treason, such
as the proclamation of Provisional Governments, would of course pay a
higher rate. All these would be most interesting experiments, and would
add a picturesque touch to the conventionality of modern administration.
But if we were to overtax sugar or coffee, corn or butter, flax or wool,
beer or spirits, land or houses, I fear that we should be beating
ourselves rather severely with our own sticks. Our revenge on "Ulster"
would be rather like that of Savage, the poet, who revenged himself on
a friend by sleeping out the whole of a December night on a bridge. The
whole suggestion is, of course, futile and fantastic. It is a bubble
that has been pricked, and by no one so thoroughly as by Lord Pirrie,
the head of Harland and Wolff, that is to say the leader of the
industrial North.
The clamour of the exploiters of "Ulster" is motived on this point by
two considerations, the one an illusion, the other a reality. The
illusion, or rather the pretence, consists in representing the Unionists
as the sole holders of wealth in Ireland. It would be a sufficient
refutation of this view to quote those other passages in which the same
orators assert with equal eloquence that the Tory policy of land
purchase and resolute government from Westminster has brought enormous
prosperity to the rest of the country. On _per capita_ valuation the
highest northern county ranks only twelfth in Ireland. It is the
reality, however, that supplies the clue. While the masters of Orangeism
do not represent the wealth of Ireland they do certainly represent the
largest, or, at least, the most intense concentration of unearned
incomes. What they fear is not unjust but democratic taxation. They
cling to the Union as a bulwark against the reform movement which in
every modern state is resuming for society a small part of certain vast
fortunes which in their essence have been socially created. But even on
the plane of their own selfishness they are following a foolish line of
action. The Union did not save them from the Land Tax Budget, nor, as
regards the future, is salvation of the English Tories. Should they ever
return to power they will repeat their action respecting the Death
Duties. Having in Opposition denounced the land taxes with indecent
bitterness they will, when back in office, confirm and extend them.
"Ulster" had far better cast in her lot with Ireland. She will find an
Irish Assembly not only strikingly but, one might almost add, sinfully
conservative in matters of taxation. As to the conflict between the
agrarian and the manufacturing interests, that also exists in every
nation on the earth. But neither has any greater temptation to plan the
destruction of the other than a merchant has to murder his best
customer.
There remains the weltering problem of mixed marriages and the _Ne
Temere_ decree. It is perhaps worth observing that marriages get mixed
in other countries as well as in Ireland. It grieves one that men should
differ as to the true religious interpretation of life. But they do in
fact differ, and wherever two human beings, holding strongly to
different faiths, fall in love there is tragic material. But they do in
fact fall in love. The theme recurs, with a thousand reverberations, in
the novel literature of England, France, and Germany. The situation
occurs also in Ireland. But I am bewildered to know in what way it is an
argument for or against Home Rule. Let us appeal once more to colonial
experience and practice. There is a Catholic majority in Canada and an
overwhelming Catholic majority in Quebec. The policy of the Catholic
Church towards mixed marriages is precisely the same there as in
Ireland. Does Protestantism demand that the constitutions of the
Dominion and the Province respectively shall be withdrawn? Since no such
claim is made we must conclude that the outcry on Orange platforms is
designed not to enforce a principle but to awaken all the slumbering
fires of prejudice. The _Ne Temere_ decree introduces no new departure.
Now, as always, the Catholic Church requires simply that her members
shall consecrate the supreme adventure of life with the Sacrament of
their fathers before the altar of their fathers. It is strange that the
Orangemen, believing as they do that the Pope is anti-Christ, should be
so annoyed at finding that the Pope teaches a doctrine different from
theirs on the subject of marriage. The Pope can inflict no spiritual
penalties on them since they are outside his flock. He can inflict no
civil penalties on anybody. There is undoubtedly in the matter of
divorce a sharp conflict between Catholic ideas and the practice and
opinion of Protestant countries. That exists, and will continue, under
every variation of government. It is an eternal antinomy. But whom does
it aggrieve? We Catholics voluntarily abjure the blessings of divorce,
but we should never dream of using the civil law to impose our
abnegation on those of another belief. If there is any doubt upon that
point it can very easily be removed. The civil law of marriage can be
conserved under one of the "safeguards."
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