The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1917-06-28
THE JEFF ERS ONIAN
PAGE EIGHT

PAGE EIGHT 8 Z
World correspondent has just made three
week trip through the country-from Rebel
Cork to Orange Belfast in attempt to find
answers to some Of the questions which are being
asked constantly in America.
BY putting aside all Of the deep religious pre-
judices racial antipathies and historical animosi
ties with which the atmosphere is surcharged, it
is possible to reach general estimate OF the
present-day difficulties and to uncover the con-
crete reasons why Home Rule has not been ac-
cepted.
There are exactly two concrete reasons why the
people of Ulster went the limit and dehed the
Government to enforce the law
/. Commercial investments representing APP
proximately $400,000,000 have been established
in Belfast and vicinity through hard work and
thirst. The people who own these properties ana
those who work for them are obsessed with the
fear that Irish Parliament would oVertaX them
in the interest of the south and eventually destroy
their properties and their iveljhoOdS.
2. The kecnest kind Of hatred for the Cath
oliC church and q genuine fear that the Catholic
clergy will take charge of the schools and force
their religion upon the children OF ulster IN the
ensuing generations.
Belfast and Dublin.
If the ordinary American tourits, leaving
Dublin, should fall asleep on the train he would
be justified awakening in Belfast in assumtnS
that he in altogether different country
Belfast is different from Dublin and the other
cities as Paris is from London
Belfast teens with industry In Dublin there
are virtually factories and little business. The
people Of the two cities look, act think, work and
talk on different lines; Dublin is as leisurey as an
American city in the far South; Belfast moves as
rapidly as an American city on the Northern sea-
board
The people of Dublin care nothing about bust
ness, while those Of Belfast give virtually all of
their thought and time to money making. They
are active and prosperous They take extreme
pride in the development of the city. On all
sres new buildings have sprung up annually. In
Dublin building is q curiosity.
The people of Belfast rarely go to Dublin, be-
cause they have no business to attend to there,
while those Of the southern city rarely if ever go
North because they despise the very atmosphere
Racial Characteristics Differ.
In order to grasp the real reasons for the
present situation it is necessary to understand the
racial characteristics of the two peoples, The
southern Irishman considers himself a poetical
Celt and looks down upon the commercial Saxon
of the North. They rarely intermary or have
social intercourse Of any sort
There is a hard and fast line drawn against
Catholics in Belfast. Individually they are
friendly enough to all outward appearances; col
leCtyely they hate each other.
1t is extremely difficult for an American to
grasp the keen religious and racial antlpathies
that exist between the two peoples. The south
Catholic feels that the Scotchmen of the North
virtually without understanding because if is
impossible to interest them in anything except
business
In Belfast there is virtually poverty. The
poverty Of Dublin and Cork is appalling.
The big business men Of Belfast insist that all
OF this poverty is due to the cloth and incidence
of the IrShmen, and that their prosperity is
due to their inherent Scotch thrift. They point
with keen pride to their great shipbuilding plants,
their rope works. flax mills and various other
classes of industry, and defy any one to give
good reason why the Southern Irishmen could not
have built up similar properties if they had been
willing to do the necessary work and saving.
They insist that the large Nationalist pOpula-
ton Of Belfast has contributed virtually no bust
to the city except public houses. They have
ji1S Co11y
poetry.
They exnlain and prove that the Southern lands