THE TRUE ULSTERMAN. T HERE is so real a danger of
North-East Ulster being regarded, thanks to the Press campaign, as the curmudgeon in all the transactions leading up to the Settlement that we desire to say something on this subject. People who read only the Radical or the Ultramontane papers in England and Scotland have been inculcated with the belief that the people of North-East Ulster are perhaps the most detestable bigots on the face of the earth. Phy- sically, Belfast is represented as a muddy mixture of slums for the working men in which squalor holds perpetual away, and smug, vulgar, tasteless villas for the rich where luxury is not sancti ed by the arts. The wealthy people of Belfast are represented as too sordid and too slow even to make a decent use of the money which they are supposed to wring from their heartless policy of divide et impera. Strange as it may seem, it is always suggested that the sanctimonious misers and bloodsuckers who are alleged to run North-East Ulster practise, quite successfully, a political system the diabolical ingenuity of which would make Macchiavelli himself turn green with envy. To begin with, they are represented as enslaving the Roman Catholic workmen, whom they pen in sties and kennels like their swine or their dogs. The Protestant working man is alleged to be kept in almost as complete a subjection. At the same time, he is taught that it is his privilege and his duty to trample on the Roman Catholics, who must put up with low wages and long hours in order to save themselves from tyranny and massacre. So runs this narrative of calumny and falsehood.
Happily, the ordinary Englishman is slow in the uptake. Therefore this preposterous picture does not make quite the impression it is intended to make upon him. Still, it is not without a certain effect. Orangeism has got itself established in the minds of many Englishmen as the equiva- lent of oppressive bigotry. When they hear the words " Belfast and Ulster " they immediately react with sapient nods and such expressions as : " It's a pity these Orange fellows are so hopelessly intolerant. They must always be cursing the Pope and blessing Dutch William. Why can't they leave the poor Roman Catholics alone ? " Superimposed on this unreal background of religious intolerance is the notion that somehow or other the British Government for the last hundred years and more has maintained what is called Protestant ascendancy in Belfast and Ulster generally. It is supposed to have given .all the loaves and fishes to the Protestants, and generally to have made the North prosperous at the expense of the Roman Catholics. Finally, the Ulster complex in most men's minds is affected by the absurd notion that the Ulstermen " love a row," " would not be happy without one," " could not get on unless they had a little shooting in the streets every day in the year." According to this view, the Ulster man is never at ease unless he is shooting or being shot at. He is depicted, in fact, as being utterly different from the ordinary human being in the matter of death and danger. To meet a volley as he turns round the street corner on his way to business is supposed to hearten him up, and the idea of the mourners at a funeral having a scrap on their way home from the cemetery is believed by Englishmen to be regarded in Belfast as delightfully piquant. Unfortunately, the leaders of Unionist public opinion, whether in the Press or on the platform or in the House of Commons, have done little to dispel this notion. North- East Ulster is not fashionable either with society or with our reigning intellectuals. It is the Southern Unionists who have the ear of the great newspaper proprietors, editors, and leader-writers, and who are listened to in smart clubs, at London dinner parties, and in country houses. They are not by nature or occupation in any particular sympathy with the North, and probably have never been there. Not unnaturally, therefore, they do not bother to talk about or to defend. North-East Ulster, but dwell rather on their own worries and wrongs, which are, indeed, big enough to justify self-absorption. The Ulster people themselves are either too proud, or too busy, or have too little of the gift of advocacy in their natures, to know how to put their own case. When the calumny becomes particularly gross they may attempt to set forth the true facts, but they forget how little mere contra- dictions interest people. They do not realize that if they want to be understood they must blow their own trumpets. Victims seldom call for any wide popular sympathy. But the Ulster man is quite incapable of this dexterous advocacy, and so he continues to be misrepresented and misunderstood. Here, however, comes in a curious trait in the character of the people of Ulster which if it had been better known would have made Englishmen take notice. Though the Ulster man has a perfect right to feel injured and to complain that he is misunderstood, he never exhibits a trace of the bitterness which attaches to that attitude. He never dreams of going about talking of how he has been falsely accused or cruelly misjudged. He never reproaches Englishmen and Scotsmen for believing all the evil tales that are set about. He utterly refuses to adopt the attitude of the aggrieved and injured innocent. With all his Puritanism and strong sense of independence there are a natural gaiety and simplicity which, when properly understood, are very attractive. The Belfast man, in particular, is a Puritan without the Puritan's gloom. To tell the truth, he troubles very little about what other people think of him—not because he despises them, but because he is a genuine man of affairs and does not want to contradict, or convert, or to score off people, but merely to get on with his job. A brutal, sordid, and mercantile spirit, we shall be told. At any rate, one which does exist, condemn it as we may.
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