unworthy conception of religion. I am quite aware that it
is only a small and decreasing minority of my co-religionists who are
open to the charge of intolerance, and that the geographical limits of
the July orgy are now strictly circumscribed. But this bigotry is so
notorious, as for instance in the exclusion of Roman Catholics from many
responsible positions, that it unquestionably reacts most unfavourably
upon the general relations between the two creeds throughout the whole
of Ireland. The existence of such a spirit of suspicion and hatred, from
whatever motive it emanates, is bound to retard our progress as a people
towards the development of a healthy and balanced national life.

Many causes have recently contributed to the unhappy continuance of
sectarian animosities in Ireland. The Ritualistic movement and the
struggle over the Education Bill in England, the renewed controversy on
the University Question in Ireland, instances of bigotry towards
Protestants displayed by County, District, and Urban Councils in the
three southern provinces of Ireland, the formation of the Catholic
Association, the question of the form of the King's oath, and, more
remotely, the protest against clericalism in such Roman Catholic
countries as France and Austria, have one and all helped to keep alive
the flame of anti-Roman feeling among Irish Protestants.[16]

There are, happily, other influences now at work in a contrary
direction. Among the industrial leaders a better spirit prevails. A
well-known Ulster manufacturer told me recently that only a few years
ago, when an applicant for employment appeared at certain Northern
factories, which my friend named, the first question always put was,
'Are you a Protestant or Roman Catholic?' Now, he said, it is not what a
man believes, but what he can do, which is considered when engaging
workers. And outside the cities there are most gratifying signs of
better relations between the two creeds. We are on the eve of the
creation of a peasant proprietary, involving the rehabilitation of rural
life, and one essential condition of the successful inauguration of the
new agrarian order is the elimination of anything approaching to
sectarian bitterness in communities which will require every advantage
derivable from joint deliberation and common effort to enable them to
hold their own against foreign competition. I recall a trivial but
significant incident in the course of my Irish work which left a