Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Economic conditions; Land tenure -- Ireland
Again, Home Rule would involve Ulster industry and commerce in excessive
taxation. No one who is aware of the passionate desire amongst Irish
agitators and their friends for lucrative jobs, of the efforts that
would be made to subsidise industries with Government funds, of the
determination of the clergy to have their monastic, Christian Brothers',
monastic and convent schools largely supported by the State, and of the
impossibility, in view of the social disorder all over Ireland that
would follow Home Rule, of reducing further the police force or the
Judiciary, entertains any doubt that retrenchment in Irish expenditure
would be impossible. On the contrary, Irish taxation would increase, and
as recent legislation has placed upon Irish farmers imposts greater than
they think they can bear, the additional revenue would be sought for
mainly from the industrial North. But with business disorganised,
incomes decreased and unemployment increased, the yield of taxation
would be much reduced, and the rate must therefore be made higher. All
this would fortify Ulster in her determined refusal to pay Home Rule
taxation, and the bankruptcy of the Dublin Exchequer would be complete.
It is from having regard to considerations such as I have outlined, and
of the validity of which she is profoundly convinced, that Ulster has
registered the historic Convention declaration, "We will not have Home
Rule." Her position is plain and intelligible. She demands no separation
from her Nationalist countrymen. On the contrary, she wishes, under the
protection of the Legislative Union, to live side by side with them in
peaceful industry and neighbourly fellowship, with the desire that they
and we may in common partake of the benefits conferred on Ireland by
generous Imperial legislation and repay it by sympathetic and energetic
contribution to the service of the Empire.
But if Home Rule legislation should be passed contrary to Ulster's
earnest and patriotic pleading, then she claims--not a separate
Parliament for herself, but that she may remain as she is in the
unimpaired enjoyment of her position as an integral portion of the
United Kingdom and with unaltered representation in Imperial Parliament.
She wishes to continue as an Irish Lancashire, or an Irish Lanarkshire.
In this relationship to Great Britain she is confident she will best
preserve, not only her own interests, but also those of her fellow
loyalists, Roman Catholic as well as Protestants, whose lot is cast in
the other provinces and whose welfare will always be her responsible and
earnest concern.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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