than a century has passed since the Irish Catholics
were treated as helots under a penal code, and that, if they have been
behind hand in the industrial race, account must be taken of the lead in
the saddle to which in that way they were subjected. The resulting
preponderance of Protestants among the landed gentry led to a further
factor in the ostracism which in the past they exercised as employers of
labour, whether agricultural or industrial, which, besides its direct
effect of breeding and perpetuating sectarian hate, served in an
economic sense to unfit Catholics for employment, and to persuade those
who in fact were least unfitted and retained their perceptive faculties,
that the scope for their energies was to be found only abroad, and so
tended to leave behind a residue of labourers rendered unfit for
employment as against the time when the prejudice of the richer classes
was removed. The non-application in the more purely Protestant parts of
Ulster of the principles which held the field in other parts of Ireland
made for prosperity in that province by tending towards an economic
condition of the labour market, unimpeded by artificial restrictions,
arising from religious differences and imposed at the hands of employers
of labour. Another factor in the contentment of the Ulster Presbyterians
under the varying vicissitudes of Irish government is to be found in the
history of the Regium Donum. The Scottish settlers in 1610 having
brought with them their ministers, the latter were put in possession of
the tithes of the parishes in which they were planted. These they
enjoyed till the death of Charles I., but payments were stopped on their
refusal to recognise the Commonwealth. Henry Cromwell, however, allowed
the body L100, which Charles II. increased to L600, per annum, but
towards the end of his reign, and during that of James II., it was
discontinued. William III. renewed the grant, increasing it to L1,200,
and it was still further augmented in 1785 and 1792. After the Union
Castlereagh largely increased the amount of the Regium Donum, and
completely altered its mode of distribution, making it in fact
contingent on the loyalty of the parson to the Union. The spirit in
which it was granted is well shown in a letter in Castlereagh's memoirs,
in which the writer, addressing the Chief Secretary just after the votes
had been passed by Parliament, declared--"Never before was Ulster under
the dominion of the British Crow