Page:An Ulsterman for Ireland.djvu/35

AN ULSTERMAN FOR IRELAND disarmed as you are, my friends, at any moment. I should like to see the face of the Ulsterman who would say plainly that he deems himself unfit to have a voice in the management of his own affairs, the outlay of his own taxes, or the government of his own country. If any of you will admit this I own he is a loyal man and attached to our venerable institutions, and I wish him joy of his loyalty and a good appetite for his yellow meal.

Now, Lord Clarendon and Lord Enniskillen want you to say all this. The Irish noble and the British statesman want the very same thing: they are both a tail. The grand master knows that if you stick by your loyalty and uphold the British connection you secure to him his coronet, his influence, and his rental—discharged of tenant-right and all plebeian claims. And Lord Clarendon knows on his side that if you uphold landlordism and abandon tenant-right and bend all your energies to resisting the "encroachments of Popery" you thereby perpetuate British dominion in Ireland and keep the "Empire" going yet a little while. Irish landlordism has made a covenant with British government in these terms—"Keep down for me my tenantry, my peasantry, my 'masses' in due submission with your troops and laws, and I will garrison the island for you and hold it as your liege-man and vassal for ever."

Do you not know in your very hearts that this is true 1 And still you are "loyal" and attached to the institutions of the country!

I tell you frankly that I for one am not "loyal." I am not wedded to the Queen of 25