is concerned, on modern principles—­that is to say, in much the same way that England, Australia and New Zealand are governed to-day.  The Nationalists, whatever they may say in England or the Colonies, have never in Ireland from the commencement of the movement attempted to deny that their object is to see Ireland governed on principles which are totally different and which the Ulstermen detest.  As long ago as 1886, the Freeman’s Journal, the leading Nationalist organ, said:—­

“We contend that the good government of Ireland by England is impossible ... the one people has not only accepted but retained with inviolable constancy the Christian faith; the other has not only rejected it, but has been for three centuries the leader of the great apostasy, and is at this day the principal obstacle to the conversion of the world.”

And as recently as December 1912, Professor Nolan of Maynooth, addressing the Roman Catholic students at the Belfast University, said:—­

“Humanly speaking, we are on the eve of Home Rule.  We shall have a free hand in the future.  Let us use it well.  This is a Catholic country, and if we do not govern it on Catholic lines, according to Catholic ideals, and to safe-guard Catholic interests, it will be all the worse for the country and all the worse for us.  We have now a momentous opportunity of changing the whole course of Irish history.”

Then another of their papers, the Rosary, has said:  “We have played the game of tolerance until the game is played out”; and has prophesied that under Home Rule the Church will become an irresistible engine before whom all opposition must go down.  And whatever the educated laity may desire, no one who knows Ireland can doubt that it is the clerical faction that will be all-powerful.  The leading ecclesiastics are trained at the Gregorian University at Rome; and one of the Professors at that institution, in a work published in 1901 with the special approval of Pope Leo XIII, enunciated the doctrine that it is the duty of a Christian State to put to death heretics who have been condemned by the Ecclesiastical Court.  Of course no one supposes that such a thing will ever take place in Ireland; but what the Ulstermen object to is putting themselves under the rule of men who have been trained in such principles and believe them to be approved by an infallible authority.

In 1904 some foreign merchants at Barcelona wished to build a church for themselves.  Republican feeling is so strong in the municipality that permission was obtained without difficulty.  But the bishop at once protested and appealed to the King.  The King wrote back a sympathetic letter expressing his deep regret that he was unable to prevent this fresh attack on the Catholic faith.

We are constantly being told that the tolerance and liberality shown by the majority in Quebec is sufficient of itself to prove how foolish are the apprehensions felt by the minority in Ireland.  Well, I will quote from a journal which cannot be accused of Protestant bias, the Irish Independent, one of the leading organs of the Nationalist-clerical party in Ireland:—­