Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Economic conditions; Land tenure -- Ireland
majority are passionately loyal to the British Throne and to the
maintenance of the integrity of the United Kingdom.
These things being so, it seems to Ulster Unionists that a grave
responsibility rests on their English and Scottish fellow-citizens, with
regard to our position, should any constitutional changes be imposed
upon our country. We are in Ireland as their trustees, having had
committed to us, through their and our forefathers, the development of
the material resources of Ulster, the preservation of its loyalty, and
the discharge of its share of Imperial obligations.
It cannot be denied, on an examination of the history of the last three
centuries, and especially of that of the one hundred and ten years since
the establishment of the Legislative Union, that, through good report
and ill report, and allowing for all our shortcomings, we have not
unsuccessfully fulfilled our trust. Our forefathers found a province,
the least favoured by nature of the four of which Ireland consists, and
it is to-day the stronghold of Irish industry and commerce. Its capital,
Belfast, stands abreast of the leading manufacturing centres in Great
Britain; it contains the foremost establishments in Europe, in respect
of such undertakings as linen manufacturing, ship-building, rope-making,
etc. It is the fourth port in the United Kingdom in respect of revenue
from Customs, its contributions thereto being L2,207,000 in 1910, as
compared with L1,065,000 from the rest of Ireland. Ulster's loyalty to
the British King and Constitution is unsurpassed anywhere in His
Majesty's dominions.
The North of Ireland has contributed to Imperial service some of its
greatest ornaments. England owes to Ulster Governors-General like Lord
Dufferin and Lord Lawrence; soldiers like John Nicholson and Sir George
White; administrators like Sir Henry Lawrence and Sir Robert Montgomery;
great judges like Lord Cairns and Lord Macnaghten. At the recent Delhi
Durbar the King decorated three Ulster men, one of them being Sir John
Jordan, British Ambassador at Pekin. Ulster produced Sir Robert Hart,
the incomparable Chinese administrator, who might also have been our
Ambassador to China had he accepted the position.
The Ulster plantation is the only one which has fulfilled the purpose
for which Irish plantations were made. The famous colonisation on both
sides of the Shannon by Cromwell entirely failed of its design, the
great proportion of its families having, through inter-marriage, become
absorbed in the surrounding population.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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