ir faith in the impecunious and
blatant scoundrelism which fattens upon the discord and misery which
it provokes in the name of Patriotism. Our Commissioner believes that
the priests, who have an even stronger hold upon the people than the
politicians, would find their power weakened if it were possible to
greatly extend the system of peasant proprietary which it was the
purpose of the Land Purchase of 1891 to foster. Land hunger lies at
the root of Irish disaffection, and the Romish hierarchy have found in
the deep-rooted prejudices and the ignorant superstitions of the
people a foundation upon which they have reared an appalling
superstructure of social and spiritual tyranny. Politicians have
taught the peasantry to believe that they have been robbed of the land
which is their only means of subsistence in a country that is
destitute of mineral wealth, that lacks capital, and is overshadowed
by the enormous commercial energy of Great Britain. The priests have
adopted the theses of politicians, and have brought the terrors of
their sacred calling into play in order to make themselves the masters
of the people.

Home Rule would be the signal for a ghastly civil war, ruinous to
Ireland, and fatal to that spirit of religious toleration by which the
Roman Catholics and the Protestants have obtained equal rights of
citizenship under the rule of the Queen and the Imperial Parliament.
The cultured Roman Catholics of England and Ireland look with pain and
regret at the insensate bigotry and domineering intolerance which made
the exposures in County Meath possible. They see in these wild claims
of absolutism in the domain of temporal as well as spiritual affairs,
a grave danger to all pure religion. They perceive that the revival of
the old sectarian passions in Ireland cannot fail to react on Great
Britain, and even if the Keltic priesthood triumphed over the Ulster
Protestants their victory would be a fatal one to all who hold by the
Roman Catholic faith in England. Home Rule would bring misery and
disaster in its train, and even the Parnellite section of the Irish
people, who have shaken off clerical domination, tremble at the
prospect of it while nine-tenths of their co-religionists are
destitute of personal freedom. We must find the solution of Ireland's
disaffection in another way, and mainly by a bold handling of the
agrarian question, which lies at the root of all. The task before the
Unionist party is not a light one.