injure him our first step is to inquire not into his
grievance but into his sanity. One finds the same difficulty in
discussing Irish politics in terms of the three hallucinations specified
that one finds in discussing, say, Rugby football with a Dresden-china
fellow-citizen. It is better not to make the attempt, but to substitute
a plain statement of obvious facts.

In the first place, even if any policy of oppression were in our minds,
it is not in our power. The overlordship of the Imperial Parliament
remains in any scheme of Home Rule unimpaired, and any man damnified
because of his religion can appeal in last resort to the Imperial Army
and Navy. Shankhill Road is mathematically safe. After all there are in
England some forty millions of Protestants who, whatever their religious
temperature may be, will certainly decline to see Protestantism
penalised. The Protestants in Ireland have a million and a quarter, and
they make noise enough for twice the number. There are about three and a
quarter millions of Irish Catholics. History concedes to Catholic
Ireland the cleanest record in respect of religious tolerance to be
found anywhere in Europe. We never martyred a saint, and amid all the
witch-hunting devilries of Scotland and England we burned only one
witch, a namesake of my own. Deny or suppress all this. Imagine into
the eyes of every Catholic neighbour the slumbering but unquenched fires
of Smithfield. But be good enough to respect mathematics. Do not suggest
that the martial qualities induced by the two religions are so
dissimilar that two Catholics are capable of imposing Home Rule on
twenty-five Protestants.

The suggestion that we shall overtax "Ulster" is even more captivating.
But how are we to do it? Of course we might schedule the sites given up
to Protestant church buildings as undeveloped land. Or we might issue
income-tax forms with an assessment printed on one side, and the decrees
of the Council of Trent on the other. Or we might insist on every orator
desirous of uttering that ennobling sentiment, "To Hell with the Pope!"
taking out a licence, and charge him a small fee. Positive treason, such
as the proclamation of Provisional Governments, would of course pay a
higher rate. All these would be most interesting experiments, and would
add a picturesque touch to the conventionality of modern administration.
But if we were to overtax sugar or coffee, corn or butter, flax or wool,
beer or spirits, land o