ost important of all the
commandments of the spirit that there should be brotherhood between
men will be deliberately broken to the ruin of the spiritual life of
Ireland.

18. So far from Irish Nationalists wishing to oppress Ulster, I believe
that there is hardly any demand which could be made, even involving
democratic injustice to themselves, which would not willingly be granted
if their Ulster compatriots would fling their lot in with the rest of
Ireland and heal the eternal sore. I ask Ulster what is there that they
could not do as efficiently in an Ireland with the status and economic
power of a self-governing dominion as they do at present. Could they not
build their ships and sell them, manufacture and export their linens?
What do they mean when they say Ulster industries would be taxed? I
cannot imagine any Irish taxation which their wildest dreams imagined
so heavy as the taxation which they will endure as part of the United
Kingdom in future. They will be implicated in all the revolutionary
legislation made inevitable in Great Britain by the recoil on society
of the munition workers and disbanded conscripts. Ireland, which luckily
for itself, has the majority of its population economically independent
as workers on the land, and which, in the development of agriculture now
made necessary as a result of changes in naval warfare, will be able to
absorb without much trouble its returning workers. Ireland will be much
quieter, less revolutionary and less expensive to govern. I ask what
reason is there to suppose that taxation in a self-governing Ireland
would be greater than in Great Britain after the war, or in what way
Ulster industries could be singled out, or for what evil purpose by an
Irish Parliament? It would be only too anxious rather to develop still
further the one great industrial centre in Ireland; and would, it is
my firm conviction, allow the representatives of Ulster practically to
dictate the industrial policy of Ireland. Has there ever at any time
been the slightest opposition by any Irish Nationalist to proposals made
by Ulster industrialists which would lend color to such a suspicion?
Personally, I think that Ulster without safeguards of any kind might
trust its fellow-countrymen; the weight, the intelligence, the vigor
of character of Ulster people in any case would enable them to dominate
Ireland economically. But I do not for a moment say that Ulster is not
justified in demanding safeguards