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2. _Home Rule would gravely imperil our civil and religious liberties._
Ireland is pre-eminently a clerically controlled country, the number of
Roman Catholic priests being per head greater than that of any country
in Europe. Her staff of members of religious orders, male and female, is
also enormous, their numbers having increased during the last fifty
years 150 per cent., while the population has decreased 30 per cent. It
is undeniable, therefore, that in a Dublin Parliament, the overwhelming
majority of whose members would be adherents of the Roman Catholic
faith, the Roman ecclesiastical authority, which claims the right to
decide as to what questions come within the region of faith and morals
would be supreme. Great stress has lately been laid in Nationalist
speeches from British platforms on the tolerant spirit towards
Protestants which animates Irish Roman Catholics. We gladly acknowledge
that in most parts of Ireland Protestants and Roman Catholics, as
regards the ordinary affairs of life, live side by side on friendly
neighbourly terms.


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