THE BELFAST CONVENTION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XX, Issue 44, 19 August 1892, Page 11

THE BELFAST CONVENTION.

(Dublin Freeman June 25.) KvKBrrHINO passed off successfully arid peaceably at Belfast Convention. The numbers attending the Berieß of meetings were np to the figure which was anticipated. As a demonstration against Home Bule the affair should satisfy its promoters, It was a triumph of organising skill. We have no desire to minimise the strength and character of the Convention. It would be farcical to suggest that Belfast is unlike any other large city in the Kingdom, incapable of bringing together its tens of thousands of men for this or that political purpose. What we do protest against is the effort now sought to be made of giving to the gathering some other and greater character than that of a skilfully manipulated political demonstration organised for a purely party purpose. There is much, no doubt, that is amusing and lndicroas in the reoent threats of civil war But it is a hard test of one's patieace to wade through the weary waste of the carefully prepared orarory, and to have to read this and that as to what Ulster thinks, and what Ulster wants, and what Ulster will do. With equal reason the orators might have claimed to speak for all Ireland. A majority of Ulster is in favour of Home Bule. The population is 1,617,000, and of this Dumber 46 per cent are Catholics. If to the Catholics we add that considerable minority of Northern Presbyterians and Protestants who are Home Rulers, the hollow mockery of the claim of the Convention speakers to express the voice of " Ulster "is seen. And then as to the object of the demonstration. What is it ? To save Protestants ? This cannot ba the object, for even the Bey B. B. Kane, a Grand Master of Orangemen, has said that Protestant and Catholic are anxious to live on kindly and most cordial terms with each other " despite some reprehensible incentives to party strife in the Press and Parliament. And the Orange Evening Telegraph of Belfast has fairly admitted that "of Roman Catholic laymen they have no fear." The Telegraph, indeed, reduces the objection of the Ulster Unionists to Home itu c to in ir unwillingness to " assist at the coronation of Archbißhop Walsh as King of Ireland," or to submit to •• Archbishop Walsh's Parliament in Dublin." This is too silly to be either seriously meant or seriously accepted. The purpose of Belfast's great display was not to save Ireland, or save Protestants, or save the Empire. It was to Sive the Government, to give the party of the Saunderaons, the Bussels, and the Johnstons another lease of life, and to secure that purpose by a grand political boom on the eve of the general election. To that end, and none other, the masterly tactics and the unlimited ingenuity of the organisers, were directed. As such the success of the Convention and the subsequent out-door meeting is undeniable, To claim for it anything else, anything greater, or higher or holier, i a unmitigated rant and humbug.