Republican farmer., 1919-08-22
Claim County Sent 12I Sim Feiners To
 Parliament.
DECLARE BELFAST
 PROSPERITY A MYTH
Says England Must Choose Between Carson and
 America.
By ARTHUR GRIFFITH, NJ. P.
 (Irish Leader.)

and refers, as he always did, to the God-fearing and prosperous people of Ulster.
 He speaks of Ulster as If 1t were an entity, as if it were purely Union ist and he were its authorized spokes- man. Now, the constituencies in UI- ster have done me the honor of elect ing me as their representatives. and to use the name Ulster to describe what is dwindling minority is part. and has been a part of the English propaganda abroad for the last three years.
 The people of Ulster in five of the counties showed a majority for the Irish Republic. and in the other five counties we boiled considerable vote. And had it not been for certain intrigues, the ten Sim Feiners elect cd for Ulster would have been IS Sim Feiners. and I can show two of the seats at present occupied by Union- ists where, if there was 'an election tomorrow, Sim Feiners would be re- turned.
 The people of Ulster are as Celtic, taken in the bulk, as the people of Leinster. A small minority in Ulster of men who professed' fervent re- ligious faith, and who, as Dean Swift
  were men of no religion, utilized, and had utilized, the ignorance ana ere dulity of a large number of their CO., religionists to keep division amongst the people.
 Preparing the Ground.
 But there is no fiction in history more extravagant than the fiction that they are the descendants of pious planters who came here to civilize the country and set an example of piety and religion. Sir Edward Car sons propaganda in Ulster2is one that is to some extent welcome. It is teaching the people of the northeast corner of Ulster very effectively that the British Parliament has no right to impose any law upon them that they disliked. That is what we have been teaching in Sim Fein, and the more Sir Edward Carson teaches that to the Ulster men the more he is preparing the ground for us 10 even tually teach them to resist British law.
 Belfast Prosperity.
 The fiction of the prosperity of Ul- ster is one that could not too often be exposed. Ulster is a more rapidly decaying province than Leinster It has lost in the last 70 years in every one Ol us COunlleS IS no COun- ty in England or in Scotland that has not doubled it's population in the last 70 years. Tn the nine counties in CI- ster during the same period. Monag- han lost 65 D. C., of it's population, Fermanagh 60 D. C., Tyrone 54 D. C., Cavan 53 D. C., Armagh 4S D. C., Down 37 D. C.. Derry 37p. C., Donegal 32 D. C., and Go. Antrim 29 D. c. The lowest rate of decrease Is not in the Ulster counties; it is in the Go. Dublin. That decrease in population in the nine counties of Ulster means the disap- pearance from Ireland of more than one-third of the Protestant inhabi- tants.
 Belfast has grown rapidly in pop ulation in the period I have mention ed, but 1t has denuded Antrim and Down of people. And amongst these people in Belfast where is the pros perity? We see the great linen mer- chants, the great shipbuilders, and the well-paid men in the shipyards; but if we went to the houses of the linen workers we should find a worse state of affairs than occurred even in the city of Dublin.
 The history of the linen trade in Ireland Is an illustration of English government. Irish wool in the cen- turies from the 18th to the 18th sold throughout Europe. In the wills of the Popea we have records of Irish man. ties being left as precious gifts to great prelates, and when the Queen of Hungary in the 18th century was going to her coronation she was dressed in a robe of Irish silk. as l they called it. The English people learned the art of cloth making from ho fxxyn nrfnr n which the Irish had been trading with | the Flemings and throughout the Con- tinent.
 Built on German Gold!' The English destroyed tne Irish woollen trade so that they might have a monopoly, and promised in place of | it, in order to appease the Irish, that | they would encourage the growth of | the linen trade. Tbe suppression of | the woollen trade caused the immi- 1 grafton of O.000 Protestant families. | 12OOO going from Dublin alone to America, where many of their des- l cendants engaged in the war of Inde- pendence. The linen trade that Eng 1 land promised to support in substitu- ton for the wooIlen trade she equally tried to destroy. She placed duty | of 30 per cent. on all Irish linens exported into England, and she for | bade the Irish to export their linens anywhere else. The people of Nun | ster I,einster. Connaught and Ulster were taxed to keep it going against | the English attempts to subvert it. | Eventually for reasons of it's own England, while discouraging the linen trade in the res. of Ireland, encourag- ed it in Ulster.
 As to the shipbuilding industry of Belfast, it was built up by a German. | who hesitated about Dublin. and even tually went to Belfast. It owed noth- ing to the people of Belfast It was established and built on German gold. | I have read a secret letter from Chief westmoreland to William Pitt in 1872 which revs-ss Enkfand's policy to di- vide the people of Ireland by setting one class against the other.
 Glass has been used against the in- terests of the country, and in that process 1t has almost destroyed it. self. Since 1s41 Irish Protestantism has lost ss p. C.. of its numbers. and those men still believe that England l uAfaid and an,@+-