Mr. BilTOWEI first speech as Irish Seoretary, in answer to
Mr. Long, can hardly be called satisfactory in tone. We. do not, of course, object to Mr. Birrell calling himself a Home' ruler, for we are quite aware that when the Liberal leaders let it be understood that they did not mean to make Home- rule proposals during the present Parliament, they made it clear that they continued in the abstract to favour Mr. Gladstone's policy. We must, however, protest against Mr. Birrell's suggestion that Ulster ie flourishing because the Irish Protestants were favoured by the Government, and the Roman Catholics in the rest of Ireland depressed. The great and amazing prosperity of Belfast and its neighbourhood is in no sense due to Government help or protection, and has grown up during a time—i.e., during the last fifty years when it is not too much to say that more Government help and patronage has been given to the Roman Catholic section. of the Irish population than to the Protestant. Can it be alleged that the shipbuilding industry of Belfast, which is its greatest source of prosperity, has had any assistance from Government which has been withheld from Cork and Queens- town ? Belfast is prosperous because of the energy and enter- prise of its inhabitants, and for no other reason. We are heartily in sympathy with Mr. Birrell when he appeals to the representatives of Ulster not to mumble the dry bones of a belated bigotry, but he should remember that there are other belated bigotries than those associated with the Northern Protestants, and that a capital example is the bigotry of those who pretend that the evils from which Ireland has suffered, and is suffering, are exclusively due to her connexion with England and Scotland.
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