I shall never forget the
expression of that man's face or the pathos in his voice while he
pressed me to help him to obtain a transfer to a Protestant district, as
otherwise he feared his children would be lost to the faith of their
fathers. Given a Parliament in Dublin, the management of education would
be so conducted as gradually to extinguish Protestant minorities in the
border counties of Ulster and in the other provinces of Ireland. It is
here that a chief danger to Protestantism lies.
4. _Home Rule will seriously injure Ulster's material
prosperity--industrial, commercial, agricultural._ The root of the evil
will lie in the want of credit of an Irish Exchequer in the money
markets of the world. The best financial authorities agree that if
Ireland should be left to her own resources, there would be, on the
present basis of taxation, and after providing for a fair Irish
contribution towards Imperial defence, an annual deficit in the Irish
Exchequer of L3,000,000 to L4,000,000. An Irish Government in such
circumstances--consols themselves being now some L23 under par--could
not borrow money at any reasonable rate of interest.
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