able to hold our own in competition with the most progressive nations in the world.  Our success has been achieved under a system and a polity in which we believe.  Its non-interference with the business of the people gave play to that self-reliance with which we strove to emulate the industrial qualities of the people of Great Britain.  It is now proposed to place the manufactures and commerce of the country at the mercy of a majority which will have no real concern in the interests vitally affected, and who have no knowledge of the science of government.  The mere shadow of these changes has so depressed the stocks which represent the accumulations of our past enterprise and labour that we are already commercially poorer than we were.’[11]

My sole criticism of those leaders of commerce and industry in Belfast, who, whenever they turn their attention from their various pre-occupations, import into Irish politics the valuable qualities which they display in the conduct of their private affairs, is that they do not go further and take the necessary steps to give practical effect to their views outside the ranks of their immediate associates and followers.  Had the industrial section made its voice heard in the councils of the Irish Unionist party, the Government which that party supports might have had less advice and assistance in the maintenance of law and order, but it would have had invaluable aid in its constructive policy.  For the lack of the wise guidance which our captains of industry should have provided, Irish Unionism has, by too close adherence to the traditions of the landlord section, been the creed of a social caste rather than a policy in Ireland.  The result has been injurious alike for the landlords, the leaders of industry, and the people.  The policy of the Unionist party in Ireland has been to uphold the Union by force rather than by a reconciliation of the people to it.  It has held aloof from the masses, who, bereft of the guidance of their natural leaders, have clung the more closely to the chiefs of the Nationalist party; and these in their turn have not, as I shall show presently, risen to their responsibility, but have retarded rather than advanced the march of democracy in Ireland.  If there is to be any future for Unionism in Ireland, there must be a combination of the best thought of the country aristocracy and that of the captains of industry.  Then, and not till then, shall we Unionists as a party exercise a healthful and stimulating influence on the thought and action of the people.

I cannot, therefore, escape from the conclusion that whilst the Irish section of the party to which I belong is, in my opinion, right on the main political question, its influence is now for the most part negative.  Hence I direct attention mainly to the Home Rule party, as the more forceful element in Irish political life; and if it receives the more criticism it is because it is more closely in touch with the people, and because any reform in its principles or methods would more generally and more rapidly prove beneficial to the country than would any change in Unionist policy.