Home rule -- Ireland; Ulster (Northern Ireland and Ireland) -- Politics and government; Unionism (Irish politics)
to talk in terms of the plough, the loom, and the ledger, and not in
terms of the wolf-dog and the orange-lily, and will render fruitful for
the service of the country innumerable talents, now unknown or estranged
by political superstitions. It will do all that State action can do to
generate a boom in Irish enterprises, and to tempt Irish capital into
them in a more abundant stream. And the proceedings and conclusions of
such a body, circulated broadcast somewhat after the Washington plan,
will provide for all classes in the community a liberal education in
Economics. Will "Ulster" fight against such an attempt to increase its
prosperity? Will the shipbuilders, the spinners, and the weavers close
down their works in order to patronise Sir Edward Carson's performance
on a pop-gun? It is not probable.
Work is the best remedy against such vapours, and an Ireland, occupied
in this fashion-with wealth-producing labour, will have no time for
civil war or "religious" riots.
As for concrete projects, the Irish Parliament will not be able to
begin on a very ambitious scale. But there are two or three matters
which it must at once put in hand. There is, for instance, the drainage
of the Barrow and the Bann. These two rivers are in a remarkable degree
non-political and non-sectarian. Just as the rain falls on the just and
the unjust, so do their rain-swollen floods spoil with serene
impartiality Nationalist hay and Orange hay, Catholic oats and
Presbyterian oats. Will "Ulster" fight against an effort to check the
mischief? Then there is re-afforestation. As the result mainly of the
waste of war, Ireland, which ought to be a richly wooded country, is
very poor in that regard. In consequence of this, a climate, moister
than need be, distributes colds and consumption among the population,
without any religious test, and unchecked winds lodge the corn of all
denominations. Re-afforestation, as offering a profit certain but a
little remote, and promising a climatic advantage diffused over the
whole area of the country, is eminently a matter for public enterprise.
Are we to be denied the hope that fir, and spruce, and Austrian pine may
conceivably be lifted out of the plane of Party politics? Further, to
take instances at haphazard, the State, whatever else its economic
functions may be, will be one of the largest purchasers of commodities
in the country. It is thinkable that the Irish State may give its civil
servants Irish-made paper to write on in their offices. It may even so
arrange things that when Captain Craig comes to the House of Commons at
College Green he shall sit on an Irish-made bench, dine off a cloth of
Belfast linen, and be ruthlessly compelled to eat Meath beef, Dublin
potatoes, and Tipperary butter. In such horrible manifestations of Home
Rule I do not discern the material for a revolution. Again, it may be
proposed that in order to develop manufactures, municipalities and
county councils may be given power to remit local rates on newly
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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