" That
is, unhappily, still true, though not so true to-day as in 1886 or in
1893. No one who visits Ireland to-day can doubt that the religious
hatreds of the past are being softened; but, unhappily, this process,
as recent events have vividly shown us, is still fiercely resisted by a
small minority.
It may almost be said that in Ireland religious intolerance is a
political vested interest. It would indeed be impossible to justify the
immense preponderance of salaried power and place still given at the
centre to the Protestant minority[47] unless you could maintain the
idea that the Catholic is a dangerous man when in a place of power.
That consideration, doubtless largely unconscious, may yet partly
explain the immense amount of energy devoted in the north-east of
Ireland to the encouragement of religious prejudice--honest in many of
the rank-and-file, artificial, I fear, in many of the organisers.
BELFAST
Belfast, so like a great modern city in its magnificent outward aspect,
is still largely mediaeval at heart. Its chief social energies are
thrown into that vast and powerful organisation known as the "Orange
Society"--still wearing the badges of the seventeenth century, still
uttering its war-cries, and still feeding on its passions.
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