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Is Ulster Right

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the Union between Scotland and England, he would have fought against it; but, living a century later and seeing the benefit that it had been to his country, his feelings were all on the other side. That is what the Presbyterians of Ulster say to-day. They point to the way in which Ulster has, under the Union, been able to develop itself; with no richer soil, no better climate, and no greater natural advantages than other parts of Ireland, the energy, ability, and true patriotism of the people have enabled them to establish and encourage commerce and manufactures which have brought wealth and prosperity to Ulster whilst the other Provinces have been stationary or retrograde. There cannot be a better instance of the different spirit which animates the two communities than the history of the linen industry. Michael Davitt bitterly described it as "Not an Irish, but an Orange industry." And from his point of view, he was quite right; for it is practically confined to Ulster. In that Province it has during the nineteenth century developed so steadily that the annual export now exceeds 15,000,000 in value and more than 70,000 hands are employed in the mills. Not long ago, a Royal Commission was appointed to enquire whether it was not possible to grow flax in the south and west, and if so why it was not done. The Commission made careful enquiries, and reported that in both Munster and Connaught efforts had been made to establish the industry (notably by the late Lord Bandon, one of the much-abused landlord class, who had let land for the purpose at a nominal charge, obtained seed and brought experts from the north to instruct the people); that it had been proved that both soil and climate were quite as well adapted for it as in Ulster; but that after a few years the buyers refused any longer to purchase the flax as it was so carelessly and badly prepared that it was valueless; and so the industry had died out. In both south and west the people expressed their readiness to revive it if a large grant were made to them by the Government, but not otherwise. Then again we may take the growth of the cities. It seems hard now to realise that one reason why the people of Dublin opposed the Union was because they feared lest, when their city ceased to be the capital, Cork might grow into a great industrial centre and surpass it. Cork has remained stationary ever since; Belfast, then an insignificant country town, has become a city of 400,000 inhabitants, and the customs from it alone are more than double those from all the rest of Ireland put together. And what is true of Belfast is true also on a smaller scale of all the other towns north of the Boyne. This remarkable contrast between the progress of the north-east and the stagnation of the rest of the country is no new thing. It has been observed ever since the Union. So long ago as 1832 the Report of the Commission on the linen manufacture of Ireland contained the following words:-- "Political and religious animosities and dissensions, and increasing agitation first for one object and then for another have so destroyed confidence and shaken the bonds of society--undermined men's principles and estranged neighbour from neighbour, friend from friend, and class from class--that, in lieu of observing any common effort to ameliorate the condition of the people, we find every proposition for this object, emanate from which party it may, received with distrust by the other; maligned, perverted and destroyed, to gratify the political purposes of a faction.... The comparative prosperity enjoyed by that portion of Ireland where tranquillity ordinarily prevails, such as the Counties Down, Antrim, and Derry, testify the capabilities of Ireland to work out her own regeneration, when freed of the disturbing causes which have so long impeded her progress in civilization and improvement. We find there a population hardy, healthy and employed; capital fast flowing into the district; new sources of employment daily developing themselves; a people well disposed alike to the government and institutions of their country; and not distrustful and jealous of their superiors.

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