BOOKS.
MAYNOOTH AND THE UNION.*
IT is a piquant surprise to find a Professor in the Faculty of
Theology at Maynooth analysing and rejecting most of the familiar arguments used by the Irish Nationalists. Maynooth, where the Irish priesthood is trained, is more truly the centre of political power in Ireland than Dublin Castle. We are interested to know that even in Maynooth the still small voice of reason can make itself heard. Dr. McDonald's book, which has been licensed by the Roman Catholic authorities of West minster with the consent of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, is an attempt to deal with the current Home Rule theories "in scientific fashion and on Catholic lines." The author, who is proud of his own Irish ancestry and who favours a moderate form of Home Rule for Nationalist Ireland, has a dry and caustic humour which is not commonly found in Irish writers. He also shows what we must call a very un-Irish respect for the truth. " Truth is bitter," he says, quoting an Old Irish proverb, but " like other bitter things it is wholesome," and he proceeds to give his countrymen a good dose of it. He begins with the question whether Ireland is a nation. The Roman Catholic Bishops, in common with the Nationalist laity, gave as their reason for opposing Conscription last year that it was imposed " against the will of the Irish nation." The Jesuit Father Finlay contended that one people could not impose Conscription on another people, while admitting " generally " that the Union Parliament could make laws for Ireland. Dr. Coffey, a Maynooth colleague of the author, went so far as to say that " England has not now and never has had any moral right to rule or govern Ireland." The author points out, in a brief and accurate summary of Irish history, that, like ancient Greece, ancient Ireland was not one nation but many, and that her chiefs, who could not unite under a native head, recognized the English conqueror who ruled over all Ireland. Ireland repeatedly acknowledged England's supremacy. O'Connell took the oath of allegiance. The Church, in obedience to a decree of the Inquisition in 1870, banned the Fenians as conspirators against the legitimate civil power of the United Kingdom. The
author reminds his colleague Dr. Coffey that if " no fully independent nation ceases to be so de jure unless by the free consent of its people," the heirs of the pre-Milesian tribes of Ireland or the North American Indians may put in awkward
claims. He concludes therefore, quoting the seventeenthcentury Jesuit Lessius, that usurpation may be legitimized by prescription, and that it is idle for Nationalists to try to ignore all that has happened since the year 1170, or to pretend that Ireland has been protesting through the centuries against English rule.
Dr. McDonald deals ironically with " self-determination." Are the two Irish districts—Down and Antrim, and the author's native Ossory—where the old tribes held out against the Miksians to be free to resume their isolation ? Was Lincoln wrong in compelling the South to remain in the Union ? Dr. McDonald concludes that, so far from being an ethical principle, " selfdetermination " may be utterly wrong when peoples have reached the stage at which it is necessary for them to combine. The question is whether the Union has benefited Ireland as well as Great Britain. The author would say that it has. Irish trade is dependent on British trade. " Thus while England con fesses that she wants our help in trade, we who pretend that we have no great need of her sink or swim with her in spite of ourselves." " Contributing to her prosperity, we secure our own."
The author foresees a new era of fierce competition. " We are being assured that, thrown on ourselves, we in Ireland can hold our own ; we who were not able to hold it in the easygoing world of the past "
" There is only one way in which we could hope to better ourselves by separating from Britain—by continuing to share in the fruits of her trade without doing our part to maintain it ; taking of the profits without paying the price. If permitted, it might succeed for a time, but would surely le ad to ruin ulti"mately. In any case, it is not the way of honour."
The author lets it be seen that he thought his Nationalist countrymen wrong in refusing to help the British Empire, the Allies, and America in the war. Unlike his ecclesiastical superiors, he 'could not "approve of any such active or passive resistance to a Government recognized as legitimate as would leave this country exposed to be crushed by a powerful foreign enemy." In a very plain-spoken appendix he tells Irishmen that the well-worn complaints against the Unica. as having impoverished Ireland are untrue. The population increased rapidly after 1800 up to the potato famine of 1846. It was not the Union but the repeal of the Corn Laws and the importation of American corn that hit the Irish farmer hard. It was not the Union that killed industries in the South and West. " Belfast in the first place
flourished mightily under the Union ; without any special favour that I can discover " :— "Why is not Waterford another Belfast ? Why did the Vulcan foundry, the graving dock, and the glass industry fail ? Because, I suppose, they were not dry-nursed from the public exchequer ; as if Harland and Woolf s, or Goodbody's jute works, or Jacob's biscuit factory, were fostered in that way. . . . The fact is, I fear, that we Gaels have not the business turn of mind, and so do not build factories even now, anywhere ; on the banks of Hudson or Mississippi any more than on Suir or Liffey. We never built them—never were a commercial people. . . . We hoped that a new era had dawned : that our people were beginning to fee 1 their way to real independence, through commerce. But wh ilo the Great Powers of the world were in de 4th-grips, bleeding from every vein in the battle for trade, we looked on, pluining ourselves on the ` spirit' that would not allow us to mix in such a squabble. We saw our only customer steitened and in immi nent danger of being bled white ; and we folded our arms, as if the result were no concern of ours those of us who did not rejoice in the wounds she received, and in the prospect of her approaching impoverishment. With the result that, now that she has saved her trade and ours—if indeed she has-saved it—we go hat in hand to Mr. Wilson. And we call this self-reliance I "
Dr. McDonald has a profound contempt for the meanness of Sinn Fein.
As for North-East Ulster, the author shows that if Nationalist Ireland, a minority in the United Kingdom, be entitled to local self-rule, Protestant Ulster, as a minority in Ireland, has an equal right to the same privilege. Ho admits that " the Pro testants of Ulster differ from the majority in the rest of the island, not only in religion, but in race, mentality, culture generally." He would not, however, agree to the separation of North-East Ulster from the rest of Ireland. That would, he says, be as great an error as the independence which the Sinn Feiners vainly claim. We need not pursue the argument further.
The significance of this frank and reasonable book lies in its origin. If the facts of Irish history arc known at Maynooth, there is some reason to hope that they may penetrate hereafter the minds of the Irish people. The Sinn Fein agitation is fed upon intense ignorance. Dr. McDonald has done something to dissipate that ignorance by telling his countrymen as bitter truth.
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