a deaf ear to this claim.  Three or four decades after the Ulster plantation, when, in the midst of the horrors of 1641, the Scotch colony in Ulster was threatened with extermination, it appealed for help to its motherland.  It did not appeal in vain.  A collection for its benefit was made in the Scottish churches, supplies of food and several regiments of Scottish soldiers were sent to its aid, and its position was saved.  We are confident that the descendants of these generous helpers will be no less true to their Ulster kith and kin to-day.

The history and present condition of Ulster throw an important light on what is currently described as the national demand of Ireland for Home Rule.  There is no national Irish demand for Home Rule, because there never has been and there is no homogeneous Irish nation.  On the contrary, as Mr. Chamberlain long ago pointed out, Ireland to-day consists of two nations.  These two nations are so utterly distinct in their racial characteristics, in their practical ideals, in their religious sanctions, and in their sense of civic and national responsibility that they cannot live harmoniously side by side unless under the even-handed control of a just central authority, in which at the same time they have full co-partnership.  Ireland, accordingly, cannot make a claim for self-government on the ground that she is a political unit.  She consists of two units, which owe their distinctive existence, not to geographical boundaries, but to inherent and ineradicable endowments of character and aims.  If, then, it is claimed that the unit of Nationalist Ireland is to be entitled to choose its particular relation to the British Constitution, the same choice undoubtedly belongs to the Unionist unit.

But Mr. Birrell, for example, would tell us that the Nationalist unit in Ireland is three times as large as the Unionist unit, and that therefore the smaller entity should submit, because, as he has cynically observed, “minorities must suffer, for that is the badge of their tribe.”  But a minority in the United Kingdom is not to be measured by mere numbers; its place in the Constitution is to be estimated by its contribution to public well-being, by its relation to the industries and occupations of its members, by its association with the upbuilding of national character, by its fidelity to law and order, and by its sympathy with the world mission of the British Empire in the interests of civil and religious freedom.  Tried by all these tests, Ulster is entitled to retain her full share in every privilege of the whole realm.  Tried by the same tests the claim of 3,000,000 Irish Nationalists to break up the constitution of the United Kingdom, of whose population they constitute perhaps one-fifteenth, is surely unthinkable.

Other writers in this volume have discussed Home Rule as it affects various vital interests in Ireland as a whole.  It remains for me briefly to point out its special relation to the Northern province—­