The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1911-10-14
ULSTER's OBJECTION
TO HOME RULE
Contention That Protestants Would
Not be Represented is Not
Logical, Says Devlin.
Ten Percent of Representatives of
Catholic Costituencies Now
are Protestants.
On the Other Hand Ulster Protes-
tant Constituencies Have no
Catholic Representative

In a speech to an audience of nearly
q thousand people in Exhibition Hall
in Belfast on September 10, Joseph
Devlin, after pleading the cause of
Home Rule at some length, took up
the matter Of listers objection and
turned the guns of the Orangemen on
themselves. Before he closed his
speech he showed that instead of the
Catholics being intolerant it was the
Orangemen of Ulster who were prac-
ticing that abuse.
"Another objection to Home Rule"
said Mr.. Devlin, "is that the Protest.
ants of Ireland cannot safely entrust
their interests to the hands of their
Catholic fellow-countrymen. That is
not an argument which can be Justi-
fed by the experience of any educated
observer. The Ulster Unionist Party
are constantly complaining about
Catholic intolerance. Let me say that
there is not a single Catholic in the
IA nks of that party, while the
Irish Party-those potential persecut-
ors of their Protestant countrymen-
includes ten Irish Protestants out Of
it's eighty members. The City of Dub
lin returns ten or fifteen or twenty
UJsestanrs to represent it's inhabi-
tants in the great municipality of Ire
lands Capital. F'ereighty years, al
though the Catholics Of this city of
lands Capital. For eighty years, all
lation, not a single Catholic was ever
elected to it's City Council.
"Take the positions in the gift of
that Council. Not one of them has
ever been given to a Catholic except
in very rare cases. Here in this city
you will find, as I have stated, that
though we are one-fourth of the pop
ulation, We are practically outcasts in
our own country. We do not make
our complaints, no doubt, ON English
platforms, and call them bigots. We
do not hold them up to scorn and rid
icule to the people of the Empire. We
do not go about exposing our woes
and making our complaints to try and
wiring sympathy from another race of
people. We are a minority, and we
are told OH high authority that min
critics must suffer, but when we are
attacked we have a right to examine
the credentials for our assailants. In
Belfast, where we number one hum
four hundred thousand. you will find
that we might as well be East Afri-
cans as British citizens, so far as any
right or title or authority in the guild
ance of the civic destinies of the mu-
nicipality is concerned, and in which
we should have a right to bear our
part ..
Protestants Elected BY Catholics.
"You will go to the South and West
of Ireland, and there you will see Pro-
testants elected to the local Councils,
Protestants occupying positions of
trust and emo1ument, and enjoying
universal confidence. Not only that
but you will find Protestants amongst
the most successful shopkeepers in
the towns, who enjoy the fullest trust
of their Catholic countrymen amongst
whom they live. In Belfast you will
hear about the persecution of Protes-
tants in other parts of the country
but you will not hear about it in Cork
Ir. Belfast, where they are in the over
Whelming majority this charge is
made. You will not hear it advanced
in any other part of Ireland where
the Protestants are in minority. You
will find, on the contrary, tributes paid
to the kindness and the hospitality
and the friendship of their Catholic
neighbors coming from all those hon.
ored Protestants in the South and
West. who owe all they have to the
manifestation of these qualities by the
Catholics amongst whom they live.
"You are we'll aware of the propa-
ganda Of Misrepresentation and abuse
which has been carried on. not only
against your great cause. but against
it's apostles, who have carried it along
with bleeding feet as it were, along a
thorny path to that Democratic Cal
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