Is Ulster Right? eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 240 pages of information about Is Ulster Right?.

Is Ulster Right? eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 240 pages of information about Is Ulster Right?.
as in many of his speeches, he carefully used the expression “he had been told”—­so that what he said may be literally true, even though when he heard the statement he knew that it was false.) And Stephen Gwynn, M.P., in his “Case for Home Rule,” says:  “In Belfast, Catholics are a third of the population; but the Corporation pays L51,405 in a year in salaries, of which only L640 goes to Catholics.”  And about the same time as Mr. Birrell’s oration, Mr. Redmond, speaking at Swindon, said that in Galway, Cork, Westmeath and King’s County (where Roman Catholics form the large majority of the population) Protestants held 23 per cent. of the salaried appointments in the gift of the Councils.

But when we descend from the airy height of Nationalist rhetoric to the prosaic region of fact, we find that the rates of the City of Belfast amount to about L342,000; of this sum, Roman Catholic ratepayers pay less than L18,000.  There are nine hundred Roman Catholics in the employment of the Corporation, and they receive in salaries about L48,000 per annum.  And as to the figures quoted by Mr. Redmond, we find that he omitted to state that not one of the 23 per cent. had been appointed by a County Council; they were all survivals of the system in force before 1899, whose positions were secured by statute; and in not one of the counties he mentioned has a Unionist been appointed to any salaried office since that date.  To take the County of Cork as a specimen; there are ninety-four salaried offices in the gift of the County Council; of these nine are held by Protestants—­but they were all appointed before 1899.  Of the thirty-three salaried offices in the gift of the City Corporation, two are held by Protestants—­but these also were appointed before 1898; and yet the Protestants pay nearly half the rates.  And in Ireland there is not the slightest attempt at concealment in the matter; thus in one case a District Council adopted by formal resolution the request of the local priests not to support any candidate who did not produce a testimonial from the parish priest; as a Councillor remarked, it was the simplest way of stating that no Protestant need apply.

But it is in the appointment of medical officers ("dispensary doctors” as they are technically called in Ireland) that the policy of the Nationalists has been most marked.  Many years ago, the late Cardinal Cullen ruled that it was a mortal sin to vote for a heretic for such an office; now, however, the bishops have gone further.  There are three medical schools in Dublin—­Trinity College, the College of Surgeons, and the Catholic University School; and three in the provinces—­at Belfast, Cork and Galway.  The Medical School of Trinity College has a world-wide reputation.  The students are required to complete their Arts course before specializing in medicine (thus ensuring that they shall be men of general culture and not merely of professional training); the professors and lecturers are amongst the ablest men of the day;

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Is Ulster Right? from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.