The Port Gibson reveille. [volume] (Port Gibson, Miss.) 1890-current, 1891-08-12

the naDlt OI attrlDutinB tne misery anu
ignorance that prevails in Ireland
to tho Catholic religion. ''LoOk at
Protestant Ulster" they exclaim.
Compare its prosperity with the
wretchedness Of the Catholic counties
and you must acknowledge that Roman
ism is responsible for the degradation
Of the latter" This comfortable doc
trine is generally accepted by Protes-
tants, who, however, find it convenient
not to apply similar test to France, a
country that is.nOt only highly prosper
GUS, but Catholic to the core.
A far different reason, and probably
the true one, for the contrast between
the Protestant and Catholic parts Of
Ireland is assigned by Henry George.
That fair and broad-minded Protestant
who has visited ireland and studied its
s.cial condition for himself, remarks:
"If the very men who are now trying
to persuade Irish-American voters that
Ireland has been impoverished BY
British free trade were privately ask
ed the cause Of the greater prosperity
of Ulster over other parts of Ireland,
they would probably give the answer
Inadefamiliar by religious bigotry-that
Ulster is enterprising and prosperous
because it is Protestant, while the rest
of Ireland is sluggish and poor because
It is Catholic. But the true reason is
plain. 1t is, that the land tenure IN
Ulster has been such that larger pOr-
ton Of the wealth produced has been
left there than IN other parts of Ireland,
and that the mass of the people have
not been 50 remorselessly hunted and
oppressed. In Presbyterian Skye the
same general poverty. the same primi-
tive conditions of industry exist as in
Catholic Connemara, and its cause is 10
be seen IN the same rapaciOus system Of
landlordism which has carried off the
fruits of industry and prevented the ac-
cumulation Of capital. To attribute the
backwardness Of industry. among peO-
pie who are steadily stripped Of all they
can produce above a bare living, TO re-
ligious opinions, is like attrlbuting the
sinking Of scuttled ship to the loss Of
her fgurehead or the color other paint"
Elsewhere in his writings Mr. George
says:
Miserable as is the condition Of the
Irish peasantry, sickening as are the
stories Of their suferings, | am inclined
to think that for the worst instances of
human degradation one must 90 to the
reports that describe the condition of
the labOring poor Of England, rather |
than 10 the literature Of Irish misery. |
For there arc three things for which, in |
spite of their poverty and wretchedness
and occasional famine, the very poorest |
of Irish peasants are by all accounts |
remarkable-the physical yigor Of their
men, the purity Of their women, and
the strength Of the family affections.
This, to put it mildly, can not be said
of large classes Of the laboring popula-
tions Of England and Scotland. In
those rich manufacturing districts are
classes stunted and deteriorated physi-
cally by want and unwholesOme en-
classes in which the idea Of
female virtue is all but lost, and the
family affections all but trodden out"
Mani6estly all Protestants would de-
cline to attribute this Irish virtue to
Catholicism, and this English debase-
ment to PrOtestantism; yet such a
mode of accounting for the difference
would be as fair, as when the compari-
son is made between Catholic and
Protestant counties in Ireland.