that under the compulsion of their priests a considerable part of the Irish electorate falsely declared themselves to be illiterate, so that the secrecy of the ballot might be avoided and their votes might be regulated by the clergy.  On a comparison of the statistics of illiterate voters and the Census of illiteracy a similar proportion was found to exist as that between the total number of voters and the whole population, in this way completely disproving the allegation.

A great deal of capital has of late been made of the alleged excessive church building in Ireland during the last few years.  In the light of the fact that less than forty years have passed since the money of these same peasants for the expenditure of which so much concern is now expressed, was devoted to the maintenance of what Disraeli admitted to be an alien Church, it is a little surprising to hear this taunt from Englishmen and Protestants.  Relieved, as the people have been only in the last generation, from this obligation it is not strange that the work of providing churches for their own worship should have been undertaken.  The Catholic churches have in large measure been built by the contributions of successful emigrants, subscribed in many instances with the secondary object of providing work in building during times of distress.  There are 2,400 Catholic and 1,500 Protestant churches in Ireland at the present moment, and there is one Episcopalian Protestant church for every 320 members of that creed and one Catholic church for every 1,368 Catholics.

Sir Horace Plunkett, who started this new fashion of attack by giving it the cachet of respectability in the first edition of “Ireland in the New Century,” after declaring that he has “come to the conclusion that the immense power of the Irish Roman Catholic clergy has been singularly little abused,” goes on to add in connection with the topic on which we are touching that “without a doubt a good many motives are unfortunately at work in the church-building movement which have but remote connection with religion.”  What is meant by this I cannot pretend to say.  It seems to me unworthy of a gentleman in Sir Horace’s position, and with his acknowledged good intentions to adopt an attitude which can only be compared to that which Pope satirised in the lines:—­

  “Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
  And without sneering teach the rest to sneer,
  Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
  Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.”

But the remarkable part of the facts about this unframed charge is that in the popular edition of Sir Horace’s book, published in 1905, the passage which I have quoted is omitted, and in spite of the fact that nearly forty pages are devoted to an Epilogue containing answers to his critics, the author makes no mention of its omission, and gives no reason for the implied retractation of what may be interpreted as being a very grave charge.