RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY UNDER HOME RULE

(ii) THE NONCONFORMIST VIEW

BY REV. SAMUEL PRENTER, M.A., D.D. (DUBLIN),

_Moderator of General Assembly of Presbyterian Church in Ireland in_
1904-5.

For obvious reasons, the Religious Difficulty under Home Rule does not
receive much attention on the political platform in Great Britain. But
in Ireland a religious problem flames at the heart of the whole
controversy. This religious problem creates the cleavage in the Irish
population, and is the real secret of the intense passion on both sides
with which Home Rule is both prosecuted and resisted. Irishmen
understand this very well; but as Home Rule, on its face value, is only
a question of a mode of civil government, it is almost impossible to
make the matter clear to British electors. They say, What has religion
got to do with Home Rule? Home Rule is a pure question of politics, and
it must be solved on exclusively political lines. Even if this were so,
might not Englishmen remember that the Nationalist Members of Parliament
have been controlled by the Church of Rome in their votes on the English
education question? I mention this to show that under the disguise of
pure politics ecclesiastical authority may stalk in perfect freedom
through the lobbies of the House of Commons. Is it, then, an absolutely
incredible thing that what has been done in the English Parliament in
the name of politics may be done openly and undisguised in the name of
politics in a Home Rule Parliament? That such will be the case I shall
now attempt to show.

Let us begin with the most elementary facts. According to the official
census of 1911 the population of Ireland is grouped as follows:--

Roman Catholics 3,238,656
Irish Church 575,489
Presbyterians 439,876
Methodists 61,806
All other Christian denominations 57,718
Jews 5,101
Information refused 3,305

I beg the electors of Great Britain to look steadily into the above
figures, and to ask themselves who are the Home Rulers and who are the
Unionists in Ireland. Irish Home Rulers are almost all Roman Catholics,
and the Protestants and others are almost all stout Unionists. Does this
fact suggest nothing? How is it that the line of demarcation in Irish
politics almost exactly coincides with the line of demarcation in
religion? Quite