What economic, what intellectual problem in Ireland have you not marred and muddled, England, my England (as the late Mr W.E.  Henley used to say)?  You have worsened the maledictions of the Bible.  The sins of your fathers will lie as a damnosa haereditas, a damnable heritage, upon the mortgaged shoulders of our children.  It is better, as Plato taught, to suffer injustice than to inflict it.  In the light of that ethical principle you are long since judged and condemned.  But with the customary luck of England you are allowed what others were not allowed, the opportunity of penitence and reform.  The messengers of the new gospel are at your doors, offering you in return for the plain rudiments of justice not only forgiveness but friendship.  It is for you to accept or reject.  We, the Irish, whom you have wronged, look to your decision with interest rather than with concern.  Why should we be concerned?  Our flag has been an Aaron’s serpent to swallow yours.  Your policies, your ambitions, your administrations have passed by us like the transient and embarrassed phantoms that they were.  We remain.  All the roads lead to Rome, and all the years to retribution.  This is your year; you have met the messengers on your threshold.  Your soul is in your own wardship.  But yet we cannot wholly separate your destiny from ours.  Dedicated as we are to the general progress of humanity and to all the generosities of life, we await expectantly your election between the good and the evil side.

CHAPTER VII

THE HALLUCINATION OF “ULSTER”

Ulster Unionism, in the leaders, is not so much a programme of ideas as a demand for domination.  In the rank and file it is largely a phenomenon of hysteria.  I do not know whether my readers have ever participated in an agreeable game known as odd man out.  Each player tosses a penny, and whoever disagrees with the rest, showing a head to their tails or vice versa, captures the pool.  Such is in all essential particulars the “Ulster Question.”  We find ourselves there in presence of a minority which, on the sole ground that it is a minority, claims that in the government of Ireland it shall be not merely secure but supreme.  Sir Edward Carson as odd man out (and I do not deny that he is odd enough for anything) is to be Dictator of Ireland.  If eighty-four Irish constituencies declare for Home Rule, and nineteen against Home Rule, then, according to the mathematics of Unionism, the Noes have it.  In their non-Euclidean geometry the part is always greater than the whole.  In their unnatural history the tail always wags the dog.  On the plane of politics it is not necessary to press the case against “Ulster” any farther than that.  Even majorities have their rights.  If a plurality of nine to two is not sufficient to determine policy and conduct business in a modern nation, then there is no other choice except anarchy, or rather an insane atomism.  Not merely every party, but every household and, in last resort, every individual will end as a Provisional Government.  Separatism of this type is a very ecstasy of nonsense, and none of my readers will think so cheaply of his own intelligence as to stay to discuss it.  It is in other terms that we must handle the problem of “Ulster.”