are told that Protestants in these provinces live in fear of their
lives, whereas anybody who has knowledge of the true conditions
knows that, so far from being riotous and unbusinesslike, the
farmers in these provinces have developed a net-work of rural
associations, dairies, bacon factories, agricultural and poultry
societies, etc., doing their business efficiently, applying the
teachings of science in their factories, competing in quality of
output with the very best of the same class of society in Ulster
and obtaining as good prices in the same market. As a matter of
fact this method of organization now largely adopted by Ulster
farmers was initiated in the South. With regard to the charge of
intolerance I do not believe it. Here, as in all other countries,
there are unfortunate souls obsessed by dark powers, whose human
malignity takes the form of religious hatreds, but I believe, and
the thousands of Irish Protestants in the Southern Counties will
affirm it as true that they have nothing to complain of in this
respect. I am sure that in this matter of religious tolerance
these provinces can stand favorable comparison with any country
in the world where there are varieties of religions, even with
Great Britain. I would plead with my Ulster compatriots not to
gaze too long or too credulously into that distorting mirror held up
to them, nor be tempted to take individual action as representative
of the mass. How would they like to have the depth or quality of
spiritual life in their great city represented by the scrawlings
and revilings about the head of the Catholic Church to be found
occasionally on the blank walls of Belfast. If the same method of
distortion by selection of facts was carried out there is not a
single city or nation which could not be made to appear baser than
Sodom or Gomorrah and as deserving of their fate.