l Commission sat to investigate the
facts about sweated women workers in Belfast, and issued a report in
which the prevalence of sweating was demonstrated beyond the doubt of
any but a blind man. Instead, however, of directing their indignation
against the evils of a system in their own midst, the Ulster
Unionists--at least, one of their organs in the Press--straightway
sent one of their representatives down into the South of Ireland to
prove how bad wages and conditions of life were there. What a waste of
indignation all this was! Munster was full of indignation against the
disease of sweating in Belfast, which it could not cure. Ulster, on
the other hand, was full of indignation against the disease of bad
housing in Dublin, which it could not cure. There is a flavour of
hypocrisy in much of this anger against sins that are outside the
circle of one's own responsibility. I do not mind how many sins a man
is angry with provided they include the sins he is addicted to himself
and that are at his own door. There is little credit in a rich
manufacturer's indignation against the evils of the land system if he
is indifferent to the evils of the factory system, and landlords who
denounce industrial evils but see nothing that needs redressing in the
lot of the agricultural labourer are in the same boat. Perhaps, in the
end, the world is served even by this outside virtue. The landlords,
in order to distract attention from their own case, have more than
once brought a useful indignation to bear on the case of the
manufacturers, and _vice versa_, and ultimately the bewildered,
ox-like public has begun to drink in a little of the truth. On the
other hand, this is an unhealthy atmosphere for public virtue. It
gives rise to cynical views such as are expressed in the proverb,
"When thieves fall out, honest men come by their own," and in the
lines concerning those who

Compound for sins they are inclined to
By damning those they have no mind to.

We all do it, unfortunately. The Presbyterian speaks with horror of
the way in which the Catholic breaks the Sabbath, and the Catholic
thinks it a terrible thing that the Presbyterian should go to a
theatre on Good Friday. Montaigne, who was by inclination a
sensualist, looked with disgust on the man who drank too much, and the
drunkard retorts that every vice except his own is selfish and
anti-social. Even when we admit our own sins we are half in love with
them. It seems a less into