Mr. Balfour, in returning his thanks for the enthusiasm with
which he was received, remarked that there was real reason to fear that religious feeling may have something to do with the movement in Ireland, since, in spite of the fact that the Pope had condemned both " Boycotting " and the "Plan of Campaign" as immoral instruments, the Pro- testant tenants are almost the only ones who have held aloof from the "Plan of Campaign" on any Irish estate on which it has been instituted, while the Catholic tenants, advised and encouraged by a priest, have usually to a man joined it. Mr. Balfour very naturally assumed that, considering the Pope's advice to the contrary, the Catholic priests who thus support the "Plan of Campaign" are acting not as spiritual advisers, but as politicians. But none the less, said Mr. Balfour, it is the fact that the boycotters are almost invariably Roman Catholics, and the boycotted almost invariably Pro- testants; so that, though the root of the antagonism is not a religious root, the dividing lines are coincident with religious divisions.
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