It is not, of course, to the causes of the defections from a creed to which I do not subscribe that my criticism is directed.  I refer to the matter only in order to emphasise the large share of responsibility which belongs to the Roman Catholic clergy for what I strongly believe to be the chief part in the work of national regeneration, the part compared with which all legislative, administrative, educational or industrial achievements are of minor importance.  Holding, as I do, that the building of character is the condition precedent to material, social and intellectual advancement, indeed to all national progress, I may, perhaps, as a lay citizen, more properly criticise, from this point of view, what I conceive to be the great defect in the methods of clerical influence.  For this purpose no better illustration could be afforded than a brief analysis of the results of the efforts made by the Roman Catholic clergy to inculcate temperance.

Among temperance advocates—­the most earnest of all reformers—­the Roman Catholic clergy have an honourable record.  An Irish priest was the greatest, and, for a brief spell, the most successful temperance apostle of the last century, and statistics, it is only fair to say, show that we Irish drink rather less than people in other parts of the United Kingdom.  But the real question is whether we more often drink to intoxication, and police statistics as well as common experience seem to disclose that we do.  Many a temperate man drinks more in his life than many a village drunkard.  Again, the test of the average consumption of man, woman and child is somewhat misleading, especially in Ireland where, owing to the excessive emigration of adults, there is a disproportionately large number of very young and old.  Moreover, we Irish drink more in proportion to our means than the English, Scotch, and Welsh, whose consumption is absolutely larger.  Anyone who attempts to deal practically with the problems of industrial development in Ireland realises what a terribly depressing influence the drink evil exercises upon the industrial capacity of the people.  ’Ireland sober is Ireland free,’ is nearer the truth, than much that is thought and most of what is said about liberty in this country.

Now, the drink habit in Ireland differs from that of the other parts of the United Kingdom.  The Irishman is, in my belief, physiologically less subject to the craving for alcohol than the Englishman, a fact which is partially attributable, I should say, to the less animal dietary to which he is accustomed.  By far the greater proportion of the drinking which retards our progress is of a festive character.  It takes place at fairs and markets, sometimes, even yet, at ‘wakes,’ those ghastly parodies on the blessed consolation of religion in bereavement.  It is intensified by the almost universal sale of liquor in the country shops ‘for consumption on the premises,’ an evil the demoralising effects of which are an hundredfold greater than those of the ‘grocer’s licences’ which temperance reformers so strenuously denounce.  It is an evil in defence of which nothing can be said, but it has somehow escaped the effective censure of the Church.