The Northern Advocate. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1913. IRISH HOME RULE.

Northern Advocate, 4 November 1913, Page 4

The Northern Advocate. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1913. IRISH HOME RULE.

In connection with the uproar reported from day to day respecting Home Rule it seems to be often forgotten that there is a business and commercial side to this matter as well as those that are purely political and religious. Ulster includes in its population some of the hard-est-headed business men in the kingdom. Armed rebellion would mean swift and certain ruin to vast business interests, and certain and distressing unemployment to scores of thousands of Protestant workers. Ulster, so far as opposition to Home Rule is concerned, is Belfast. Belfast's great industries send out goods to all parts of the world, but in the main Belfast is dependent upon the rest of Ireland. It is the manufacturing and distributing and financial centre of the whole of the Irish people. And the great majority of the Irish people are Roman Catholics and Home Rulers. Roman Catholicism and Home Rule helps pay the dividends and wages in the great Protestant city. Violence against the Roman Catholics of Ulster would mean an immediate and complete boycott. Obviously, too, it must mean cessation of the huge Belfast machine, and unemployment and quick distress and even starvation to hundreds of thousands of Protestants. Not shot and shell, but the simple question of finance, would be the most potent factor in uelling rebellion in Ulster. Continued fighting presented no unsuperable difficulties to a rural people such as the Boers, but it is impossible for a great huddled industrial community, which at the best of times lives scarcely better than hand-to-mouth. Belfast in idleness means Belfast in starvation.

Nobody now believes that all the military preparation in Ulster is mere bluff. But some of it is. Sir Edward Carson, supported by the Unionist press, is, for instance, exaggerating and magnifying the strength and significance of Ulster's "army." We have been told that from 150,000 to 200,000 people are being drilled in the practices of warIfare. We are told, too, that "preparations are being made" to arm this great force with modern weapons. Against that, however, the only seizures of arms which have been made were of rifles more or less obsolete. And all the drilling and manoeuvring now taking place is anything but imposing. The signatures to the "National Covenant" did not exceed 250,000, and there is extreme doubt as to whether this total was actually correct. It included, of course, the names of all males of every age and description and it takes very little knowledge of warfare to know how small a proportion of the males of a community are actually capable of bearing arms effectively. There are no doubt thousands of sincere men who would cheerfully give up their lives to the cause, but there are more than trifling reasons to doubt if Protestant Ulster is solid behind them. Indeed, Ulster as a whole is probably no more outraged and determined upon armed resistance than was the great majority in the south of Ireland when the Irish Parliament was closed in the Protestant interest more than a hundred years ago.