The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1912-09-21
Industrial Conditions in Ireland
are Worse Than in Any Other
European Country.
Yet the People Prefer to be Peasant
Proprietors Rather Than
State Tenants.
Attachment of the Catholic Church
to Established Principles is
the Explanation.

The following brief excerpt from an
able paper by Hilaire Belloc on the
subject of Ireland's opposition TO
Socialism will give some idea Of thei
reasons why Socialism has failed to
gain a foothold there:
The Catholic Church is throughout
the world opposed to that modern
theory of society which is called So
cialist.
That is a plain fact which both
parties to the quarrel recognize and
which third parties, though they
commonly explain it ill, recognize also.
It Is further evident that the near
er the Socialist theory comes to its
moment Of experiment, the larger the
number of souls over which it OBJ
tains possession, the more definite
and the more uncompromising does
Catholic opposition to. it become. But
this native opposition between the
Faith and Socialism is not one out
of many phenomena connected with
Socialism. 1t is the chief.
The movement of Socialism as it
advances, discovers no other serious
opponent besides the Catholic Church;
and in p. general survey Of Europe l
cannot but believe. that the struggle
between these two forces is the mat
ter of our immediate future.
The arguments which Socialists are
accustomed to meet in their own nom
Catholic surroundings are either
puerile or vicious; the demolition Of
such arguments is too facile a task
to occupy an intelligent mind, and
the Socialist by the very exercise Of
such a controversy against ineptitude
grows to think there is no permanent
obstacle to the propagation OF his
system-it is merely question of
time. Give him time to illuminate
the darkened and to let it be exactly
known what he desires, and all-or
at least the vast unfortunate mass
which makes up the bulk and stuff of
our modern industrial society-must
agree with him.
The Socialist Meets a Barrier.
In such a mood of ultimate intel
lectual security the Socialist comes
across the Catholic Church, and for
the first time meets barrier. He
finds opposed to him an organism
whose principle of life is opposed to
his own, and an intelligence whose
reasoning does not-as do the vulgar
capitalist arguments to which he is
so dreadfully accustomed - take for
granted the very postulates of his own
creed.
He learns, the more he comes
across this Catholic opposition, that
he cannot lay to avarice, stupidity OF
hypocrisy the resistance which this
unusual organism offers to his propa
ganda, Even in this country, where
less is known of the Catholic Church
than in any other, he has an example
The Irish people deliberately CHOSE
to be peasant proprietor upon terms
most onerous and delayed, when they
could Immediately and on far more
advantageous terms have become per.
manent tenants Of the state. Such z
political attitude in a whole people
arrests a Socialist. He cannot lay Il
to the avarice of the rich; it is, or
the contrary, the act Of men who are
among the poorest in Christendom
He cannot lay to the moral Influence
of a wealthy class indoctrinating thu
rest of the community with the idef
of property, for of all Of the nations
of Europe, the Irish are the least sub
ject to oligarchy.
He cannot but observe that. peo
pie completely democratic and occu
pied in redressing the most glarinl
example of the evil which he, th'
Socialist combats, have determined
to redress 1t upon the lines of privat
ownership and not of collectiveism.
The concentration of the means o
production in few hands. the ex
ploitation of the whole community b.
few, had reached in Ireland, afte
three hundred years of anti Cathol
administration. the very limits
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