Precisely when the Irish race was withering in Ireland,
the same race, with the same religion and the same national
characteristics, was prospering exceedingly in America, and was even
contributing much of the power, skill and value for building up the
white British Colonies.
Unvarying progress on one side--on the other, unvarying decline, until
checked by the willingness of England to listen to the voice of
Ireland. What evidence could you have more convincing, what witnesses
more eloquent?
Perhaps, indeed, the most convincing statement of this very case was
given to the world, not by an Irishman or by any Liberal statesman, but
by the great Lord Salisbury. Speaking in 1865 as Lord Robert Cecil, he
uttered the following wise and statesmanlike summary of the policy of
the Union up to that date:--
"What is the reason that a people with so bountiful a soil,
with such enormous resources (as the Irish), lag so far behind
the English in the race? Some say that it is to be found in the
character of the Celtic race, but I look to France, and I see a
Celtic race there going forward in the path of prosperity with
most rapid strides--I believe at the present moment more
rapidly than England herself.
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