power to make laws in respect of the general subject-matter of the acts relating to Land Purchase in Ireland (in this act referred to as reserved matter) provided that the limitation on the powers of the Irish Parliment under this section shall cease as respects any such reserved matter if the corresponding reserved service is transferred to the Irish Government under the provisions of this act. Any law made in contravention of the limitations imposed by this section shall, so far as it contravenes those limitations, be void.”

The Government of Ireland Bill does not contain any provision for the future transfer to the Irish Parliament of the general subject-matter of the acts relating to Land Purchase in Ireland; but it does contain the following provision: "Where any act of the Irish Parliament deals with any matter with respect to which the Irish Parliament have power to make laws which is dealt with by any act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the passing of this act and extending to Ireland, the act of the Irish Parliament shall be read subject to the act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and so far as it is repugnant to that act, but no further, shall be void."

This means that the proposed Irish Parliament has no power to damage anybody owning or holding land; that it has no authority to take it away from him, even on giving him compensation, and is not likely to get any in the future; and that even if it does get some extension of authority in regard to it, its acts are so far subject to those of the Parliament of Great Britain that the latter can nullify them whenever it likes.

Let us turn now and see what this so-called Home Rule can do toward injuring anyone engaged in manufacturing, trade or commerce in Ireland. This is what the Government of Ireland Bill says:

"The Irish Parliament shall not have power to make laws in respect of . . . trade with any place out of Ireland (except so far as trade may be affected by the exercise of the powers of taxation given to the Irish Parliament, or by the regulation of importation for the sole purpose of preventing contagious disease, or by steps taken, by means of inquiries or agencies out of Ireland, for the improvement of Irish trade or for the protec

tion of Irish traders from fraud); the granting of bounties on the export of goods; quarantine; or navigation, including merchant shipping (except as respects inland waters, the regulation of harbours, and local health regulations); or coinage; legal tender; or any change in the standard of weights and measures; or trade marks, designs, merchandise marks, copyright, or patent rights. Any law made in contravention of the limitations imposed by this section shall, so far as it contravenes those limitations, be void.

"The Irish Parliament shall not have power to impose or charge a Customs duty, whether an import or export duty, on any article unless that article is for the time being liable to a customs duty of a like character levied as an imperial tax, and shall not have power to vary, except by way of addition, any customs duty levied as an imperial tax, or any excise duty so levied where there is a corresponding customs duty."

Here again the Government of Ireland Bill gives no power to the proposed parliament to injure anyone engaged in trade, manufactures or commerce in Ulster or in any part of Ireland. Its powers of taxation amount to nothing in the way of capability of doing injury, even if they amount to just as little in the way of doing good.

Those who draughted the "Covenant" had those provisions before them when they prepared that instrument, and must have known that they were foisting on the world . . . upon their consciences" ... a document which was deliberately false. So that, so far as it deals with the material interests of Ulster, or of Ireland, this Covenant is as disgusting and detestable a humbug as the Government of Ireland Bill itself.

Now let us take the next allegation of it and see what it says:

BEING CONVINCED IN OUR CONSCIENCES THAT HOME RULE WOULD BE SUBVERSIVE OF OUR CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS FEELING

If this were a straight-forward assertion . . . that Home Rule would be subversive of our civil and religious liberty" it would be entitled to the gravest consideration; but the statement actually made is entitled to nothing but contempt, because it covers and embraces a subtle fraud. For the implication is

that their civil and religious liberties are threatened, but they did not dare to say so, for, in face of what the Home Rule Bill actually provides, nobody would have believed a word of it.

This is what the Government of Ireland Bill says about religion: "In the exercise of their power to make laws under this act the Irish Parliament shall not make a law so as either directly or indirectly to establish or endow any religion, or prohibit or restrict the free exercise thereof, or give a preference, privilege, or advantage, or impose any disability or disadvantage, on account of religious belief or religious or ecclesiastical status, or make any religious belief or religious ceremony a condition of the validity of any marriage, or affect prejudicially the right of any child to attend a school receiving public money without attending the religious instruction at that school, or alter the constitution of any religious body except where the alteration is approved on behalf of the religious body by the governing body thereof, or divert from any religious denomination the fabric of cathedral churches or, except for the purpose of roads, railways, lighting, water, drainage works, or other works of public utility upon payment of compensation, any other property."

For fear that this is not sufficient protection to the religious liberties and properties of the covenanters, and others, the bill further provides: "It is hereby declared that existing enactments relative to unlawful oaths or unlawful assemblies in Ireland do not apply to the meetings or proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Ireland, or of any lodge or society recognized by that Grand Lodge: ... The Irish Parliament shall not have power to abrogate or affect prejudicially any privilege or exemption of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons in Ireland, or any lodge or society recognized by that Grand Lodge which is enjoyed either by law or custom at the time of the passing of this act, and any law made in contravention of this provision shall, so far as it is in contravention of this provision, be void."

It so happens that the Freemasons in Ireland are Protestants, with a possible exception here and there. Those Protestants, as a body, are opposed to Home Rule. Some of them may be indifferent, but, in the main, they do not want it, whether they

live in Belfast or Dublin, in Ulster or elsewhere. The Masonic Society, as a body, is against it. Fundamentally, it is no more a National society than the Catholic Church is. It is an alien establishment. It is a secret society. And every sovereign commonwealth or kingdom in this world, every nation and every country that aspires to be a nation ought to have the power, and ought never to surrender it on paper, or in principle, to crush out all secret societies within its lines, and to suppress all religions, if it sees fit to exercise that power.

As it is, this provision of the Government of Ireland Bill in specially protecting one secret society, composed of Protestants, unfairly and unjustly discriminates against other societies composed of Catholics, and leaves them subject to special laws, and special prosecutions, on account of unlawful assemblies and unlawful oaths. This is to put at hazard not merely their civil and religious feeling but their civil and religious liberty as well. So that the cry about civil and religious feeling comes from the wrong side of the fence; and those feelings must be very weak anyhow if they are afraid that a dead-handed and a dead-headed parliament will destroy them.

So far as the civil liberties of the covenanters are concerned, as distinguished from their religious liberties, and both are entitled to the very gravest consideration, the proposed Irish Parliament would be entirely powerless to interfere with them, even if they turned traitors to it, or attempted to resist its authority by armed force.

This is what the Government of Ireland Bill says upon that point: "The Irish Parliament shall not have power to make laws in respect of . . . the navy, the army, the territorial force, or any other naval or military force, or the defence of the realm, or any naval or military matter; or . . . treason, treason felony, alienage, naturalization, or aliens as such, or domicile . . . Any law made in contravention of the limitations imposed by this section shall, so far as it contravenes those limitations, be void."

Ireland, under these provisions, can do nothing to protect itself either against domestic traitors or against foreign enemies. It is reduced to such a condition of imbecile decrepitude and impotence that it could not swat a fly, much less batter the cove

nanters into submission to its authority. So that it has no power whatever over their civil liberties. And this one fact alone, if there were no other, in face of the threat of civil war, and of a solemn pledge entered into to resist the authority of the Irish Parliament by force, is a sufficient reason why Ireland itself should reject the Government of Ireland Bill. It needs to clear decks for action, and to have full authority to protect itself. To defy an assembly deprived of every means of enforcing its authority is only a piece of cheap and base bravado, a humbug resistance to a humbug parliament.

This is what the Covenant says upon the question of resistance: AND IN THE EVENT OF SUCH A PARLIAMENT BEING THRUST UPON US, WE FURTHER SOLEMNLY AND MUTUALLY PLEDGE OURSELVES TO RESIST ITS AUTHORITY

"

This statement shows what a crafty and a tricky document the Covenant is; for the covenanters, with the provisions of the Government of Ireland Bill before them, knew that they were entirely safe in writing down a solemn pledge which was a solemn humbug. They didn't dare to pledge themselves to resist the authority of the Parliament of Great Britain, for if they did they might be all hanged; and some of them, no doubt, would be to let them see that there was a material difference between one parliament and the other.

Going back to the recital of the calamities impending over the covenanters, after asserting that Home Rule would be subversive of civil and religious feeling they go on to say: I BEING CON

VINCED IN OUR CONSCIENCES THAT HOME RULE... WOULD BE DESTRUCTIVE OF OUR CITIZENSHIP."

This is another absurdity, because they have not any citizenship to destroy. They are neither Englishmen, Irishmen, nor Scotsmen. They are citizens of nothing and of nowhere. The way they phrase it in the Covenant is this: "OUR CHERISHED POSITION OF EQUAL CITIZENSHIP IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.” If they claim equal citizenship in the United Kingdom, what objection have they to equal status under a Home Government of Ireland? As a matter of actual fact and of existing law, so far as Great Britain is concerned, they have not equal citizenship in the United Kingdom; they are the subjects of Great Britain