Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Economic conditions; Land tenure -- Ireland
Ulster Unionists, therefore, having conspicuously succeeded in
maintaining the trust committed to their forefathers, and constituting
as they do a community intensely loyal to the British connection,
believe that they present a case for the unimpaired maintenance of that
connection which is impregnable on the grounds of racial sentiment,
inherent justice, social well-being, and the continued security of the
United Kingdom and of the Empire. They cannot believe that their British
fellow-citizens will, at this crisis, turn a deaf ear to this claim.
Three or four decades after the Ulster plantation, when, in the midst of
the horrors of 1641, the Scotch colony in Ulster was threatened with
extermination, it appealed for help to its motherland. It did not appeal
in vain. A collection for its benefit was made in the Scottish churches,
supplies of food and several regiments of Scottish soldiers were sent to
its aid, and its position was saved. We are confident that the
descendants of these generous helpers will be no less true to their
Ulster kith and kin to-day.
The history and present condition of Ulster throw an important light on
what is currently described as the national demand of Ireland for Home
Rule. There is no national Irish demand for Home Rule, because there
never has been and there is no homogeneous Irish nation. On the
contrary, as Mr. Chamberlain long ago pointed out, Ireland to-day
consists of two nations. These two nations are so utterly distinct in
their racial characteristics, in their practical ideals, in their
religious sanctions, and in their sense of civic and national
responsibility that they cannot live harmoniously side by side unless
under the even-handed control of a just central authority, in which at
the same time they have full co-partnership. Ireland, accordingly,
cannot make a claim for self-government on the ground that she is a
political unit. She consists of two units, which owe their distinctive
existence, not to geographical boundaries, but to inherent and
ineradicable endowments of character and aims. If, then, it is claimed
that the unit of Nationalist Ireland is to be entitled to choose its
particular relation to the British Constitution, the same choice
undoubtedly belongs to the Unionist unit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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