r houses, I fear that we should be beating
ourselves rather severely with our own sticks. Our revenge on "Ulster"
would be rather like that of Savage, the poet, who revenged himself on
a friend by sleeping out the whole of a December night on a bridge. The
whole suggestion is, of course, futile and fantastic. It is a bubble
that has been pricked, and by no one so thoroughly as by Lord Pirrie,
the head of Harland and Wolff, that is to say the leader of the
industrial North.

The clamour of the exploiters of "Ulster" is motived on this point by
two considerations, the one an illusion, the other a reality. The
illusion, or rather the pretence, consists in representing the Unionists
as the sole holders of wealth in Ireland. It would be a sufficient
refutation of this view to quote those other passages in which the same
orators assert with equal eloquence that the Tory policy of land
purchase and resolute government from Westminster has brought enormous
prosperity to the rest of the country. On _per capita_ valuation the
highest northern county ranks only twelfth in Ireland. It is the
reality, however, that supplies the clue. While the masters of Orangeism
do not represent the wealth of Ireland they do certainly represent the
largest, or, at least, the most intense concentration of unearned
incomes. What they fear is not unjust but democratic taxation. They
cling to the Union as a bulwark against the reform movement which in
every modern state is resuming for society a small part of certain vast
fortunes which in their essence have been socially created. But even on
the plane of their own selfishness they are following a foolish line of
action. The Union did not save them from the Land Tax Budget, nor, as
regards the future, is salvation of the English Tories. Should they ever
return to power they will repeat their action respecting the Death
Duties. Having in Opposition denounced the land taxes with indecent
bitterness they will, when back in office, confirm and extend them.
"Ulster" had far better cast in her lot with Ireland. She will find an
Irish Assembly not only strikingly but, one might almost add, sinfully
conservative in matters of taxation. As to the conflict between the
agrarian and the manufacturing interests, that also exists in every
nation on the earth. But neither has any greater temptation to plan the
destruction of the other than a merchant has to murder his best
customer.

There remains the weltering pr