ULSTER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 51, 18 April 1874, Page 11

ULSTER.

Thb Cork correspondent of the 'Boston Plot writes :— Ulster is is being swiftly and surely won back to Ireland and to Catholicity. Remember that thirty years ago the Protestants were as two to one in the province — that they were the manufacturers, the formers, tha landed prop) ietore, the artisans, an insolent and omnipotent caste; while the wretched Catholics, with the rust of centuries in their blood, huddled together in the dirty suburbs, bad hovels for churches, hewed wood and drew water for their Protest mt masters, were squalid, despised, and insulted, and thought themselves happy if once a year they could avenge their slavery by battering out Orange brains or smashing Protestant drums. Now all that is changed. True, the Scotch colonists still own most of the land ; their hard faces are to be seen everywhere, and their dry accents heard. A race of thorn hold most of the small farms in Down and Armagh, and, to their credit bo it said, make the land burst with fruitfulness. In Belfast and the busy manufacturing district all round, most of the capitalists are still Protestants and strangers. But their lessons of thrift and pluck have not been lost on the Catholics. More fruitful than the colonists, the Celts mulitiply yeir by year ; work brings them to the great towns ;. they learn how to thrive and make mo'.ey, to buy farms und st -rt industries like their neighbors. To-day there are Catholic Celts in the magistracy, in the Town Councils, at the head of industries. Innumbers they are every year distancing the Orangemen, aud will soon, in spite of emigration, leave them fur behind. Their constaat contact with the canny colonists, it may be admitted freely, has made them hard, practical men. They have, perhaps, more sturdy self-reliance than their brethren of the south or west, and they may thank for it their long fight for life. Donegal, which was never wholly '• settled," is to-day as Celtic and ruthohc as Galway. In Belfast there are ahundred thousand Catholics. The Tyrone small farmers aro most of them Catholic ; those of Monaghan aud Cavaii almost entirely sd.

THE OLD BITTEB P.VSTY SPIRIT Is there still. Tim >> can be no mis'iike about tint, f>r all tin talk of enlightenm ul and imprevemont. To strike a " Protestant dog," *c> sing a national song, to cry " Howe Rule," is enough to set i district in abl i.'}. Hut tins id wo^-th uotieing — that in coaiitrios like Doneg il. Mona^hm and Cavaii, whoie tho Cit holies vastly predominato v. c neier hco of par'y di&t irbances, bee mse the Orange fooli are left to hooray at w.ll lot* : Cim » William: all Die rows comn from places like Lurgm and Portadow n, where tho Orangemen inuitor etronge-.1, and thov th.ni. r.iey e-in n.iult impunity, or ii counties like J)o«m o- Derry, « iere bo^'i ->Uc3 being oqualy balanced, Oringo ragti bi.uuii up at tl'u- thought fhut (hey are beii'g out-numbered in th^ur own strongholds. Truth to say I have

no hops ron those oba.noemen, Unless th.-ii 1 extinct' • i, wluch <voni take jo long after all, for t'uej' uro a st.uid-ed'.l raoe v hile the Oitholic pjpulntion is flowing in over them year bj war, an lin wfc sootier or 1 '.tor swallow than. They are imtrk-wiMy bad — intolerant and d i> n*o as s>u t ii;jos, with plenty of will if the* hail only the ulia^e of boint; us wicked as ever. Converting them to niUionulitv '3 about as h j|)sll'3s as sk'Mg ihem to bless theanclvo.". Tiny \uh insist that " Home ILulc" means " Kome Rule," and wherever tln'y Lc.ii 1 the cry, stifle it remoroolessly if thoy aro abla. Tiie Catholics at least the wor^fc part of them, hive ili^u- i isensa'o prejiuiioos, too ; b it, on tho vhrnv, our people wou'd be o.ily too glad to blend " Orange and Green,'' 1. it <vere possible. It is not possible — not till the tag-rag-und-bob-tai' ot' King William's frionAj are b.-.allowe 1 up, or die out, ur oury thorns 'lve.i u.rk'r publio contempt, :m I till decent Protesttwi'a caii come to ijit) front, a 9 elsewhere in l;vlmd, and be Irishmen. Mean while Nationality iia* only to leave tiic-m severely aloue.