This is partly true and partly not true. It is true that he is
not quite the political and social autocrat that he once was. But it is
not true that the Church of Rome is less powerful in Ireland than she
was. On the contrary, as an ecclesiastical organisation Rome was never
so compact in organisation, never so ably manned by both regular and
secular clergy, never so wealthy nor so full of resource, never so
obedient to the rule of the Vatican, as at the present moment. Give her
an Irish Parliament, and she will be complete; she will patiently subdue
all Ireland to her will. Emigration has drained the country of the
strong men of the laity, who might be able to resist her encroachments.
Dr. Horton truly says: "The Roman Church dominates Ireland and the Irish
as completely as Islam dominates Morocco." By Ireland and the Irish Dr.
Horton, of course, means Roman Catholic Ireland. Are you now going to
place a legislative weapon in her hand whereby she will be able to
dominate Protestants also? It is bad statesmanship; bad politics; bad
religion. For Ireland it can bring nothing but ruin; and for the Empire
nothing but terrible retribution in the future.

CONSTRUCTIVE

XIII

UNIONIST POLICY IN RELATION TO RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN IRELAND

BY THE RIGHT HON. GERALD BALFOUR

"_For the last two and twenty years, at first a few and now a goodly
company of rural reformers with whom I have been associated, and on
whose behalf I write, have been steadily working out a complete scheme
of rural development, their formula being better farming, better
business, better living."_--SIR H. PLUNKETT, letter to the _Times_,
December, 1911.

"_Ireland would prefer rags and poverty rather than surrender her
national spirit."_--MR. JOHN REDMOND, speech at Buffalo, September 27,
1910.

It should never be forgotten that the maintenance of the legislative
Union between Ireland and Great Britain is defended by Unionists no less
in the interests of Ireland than in that of the United Kingdom and of
the Empire. That the ills from which Ireland has admittedly suffered in
the past, and for which she still suffers, though in diminished measure,
in the present, are economic and social rather than political, is a
fundamental tenet of Unionism. Unionists also believe that economic and
social conditions in Ireland can be more effectively dealt with under
the existing political constitution than under any form of Home Rule.
Ireland is a