witch-hunting devilries of Scotland and England we burned only one
witch, a namesake of my own. Deny or suppress all this. Imagine into
the eyes of every Catholic neighbour the slumbering but unquenched fires
of Smithfield. But be good enough to respect mathematics. Do not suggest
that the martial qualities induced by the two religions are so
dissimilar that two Catholics are capable of imposing Home Rule on
twenty-five Protestants.

The suggestion that we shall overtax "Ulster" is even more captivating.
But how are we to do it? Of course we might schedule the sites given up
to Protestant church buildings as undeveloped land. Or we might issue
income-tax forms with an assessment printed on one side, and the decrees
of the Council of Trent on the other. Or we might insist on every orator
desirous of uttering that ennobling sentiment, "To Hell with the Pope!"
taking out a licence, and charge him a small fee. Positive treason, such
as the proclamation of Provisional Governments, would of course pay a
higher rate. All these would be most interesting experiments, and would
add a picturesque touch to the conventionality of modern administration.
But if we were to overtax sugar or coffee, corn or butter, flax or wool,
beer or spirits, land or houses, I fear that we should be beating
ourselves rather severely with our own sticks. Our revenge on "Ulster"
would be rather like that of Savage, the poet, who revenged himself on
a friend by sleeping out the whole of a December night on a bridge. The
whole suggestion is, of course, futile and fantastic. It is a bubble
that has been pricked, and by no one so thoroughly as by Lord Pirrie,
the head of Harland and Wolff, that is to say the leader of the
industrial North.

The clamour of the exploiters of "Ulster" is motived on this point by
two considerations, the one an illusion, the other a reality. The