Ireland and the Ulster legend; or The Truth about Ulster; statistical tables comp. from parliamentary blue books and white papers, etc

Foreword

BY

SOPHIE BRYANT, D.Sc, Litt.D.

NEW YORK THE ENCYCLOPEDIA PRESS, Inc.

119 East 57th Street

\0^

Preface

THE information contained in this book should dispel the illusion that Unionist Ulster is superior in things moral and material to the rest of Ireland. For the claim of " Unionist Ulster over all," the only foundation is the vaunted boast of the leaders of the movement against Irish Rule, repeated from generation to generation, without any authority being given in its support, until by the mere power of reiteration it had come to be accepted as true in England generally. All the time the repudiation of the legend lay in official publications issued by the highest authorities — by the Command of His Majesty the King, and the orders of Parliament.

Speaking generally, I think it is deeply to be regretted that the information contained in Parliamentary Blue Books and White Papers — information of the greatest interest and importance in its bearing upon the social conditions of the Commonwealth — is not made more easily accessible to the public. It was only by accident, I might say, that I came upon the true facts in regard to Ulster in the course of my investigations as a student of affairs in Ireland. I had set out upon a general examination of the social state of Ireland, and as I proceeded with my inquiries the " Ulster Legend " disclosed itself. It was then I decided to bring the Northern Province well under the searchlights of Parliamentary Blue Books and White Papers.

Many books have been written on Ulster, but this, I think, is the first to treat the subject statistically.

I have kept my review of the facts as near in date as possible

6 PREFACE

to the five years prior to the war. I have taken that period for the following reasons : —

{a) I v/ished to ascertain the basis of the claims put forward during those five years by the Ulster Unionist Party — that the citizens of Belfast, and the inhabitants of North-East Ulster generally, were cast in far too superior a mould to allow them to condescend to send representatives to sit with their fellow-countrymen from the other Provinces in an Irish Parliament.

(b) I desired to learn something about those superior qualities

from impartial sources. Such qualities, I thought, must in some way or other be known to the English supporters of the pretensions of the minority, seeing that, during the years in question, they offered to subscribe some milhons sterling, and also to gain the support of the British Army, to prevent the calamity of their Ulster friends being obliged to associate with their fellow-countrymen in a United Irish Parliament.

(c) I thought it might be enlightening to probe the " Ulster

Legend " which has been skilfully and successfully used by the Unionist minority in endeavouring to persuade the world that the men of Belfast and North- East Ulster are the " Brahmans " and "Supermen" of Ireland ; I also wanted to find out if the Legend were really based on facts, or if it were one of the " Myths " so often accepted by the world as " Gospel," and which are so frequently employed as " camouflage " to hide from view and observation the real objects of the authors which lie underneath.

Mrs. Sophie Bryant, D.Sc, Litt.D., daughter of the late Rev. W. A. Willock, D.D., formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, has been good enough to respond to my invitation to write a " Foreword " to the results of my investigations. Dr. Bryant was brought up in Ulster, where her father played an important part in the movement for the establishment of the National System of Education. Among the books she has written are Celtic Ireland, The Genius of the Gael, and Educational Ends.

I feel that Dr. Bryant's " Foreword," having regard to her

PREFACE 7

knowledge of Ulster and of Irish history generally, and her scholastic honours in mathematical and moral science, will help readers rightly to appreciate the importance and value of these Statistical Tables.

In view of the somewhat complex nature of the statistical and v:»ther matter contained in this book, I decided, in order to ensure accuracy, to have all the information and calculations verified by a Chartered Accountant. The Certificate of verification will be found on page 35.

W. A. MCKNIGHT.

London, 1920.

FOREWORD

THE ULSTER LEGEND

PAGE

I What the Legend Is ii

II Is Ulster Superior in Material Prosperity ? . 12

III Is Ulster Superior in Education and Public Spirit ? 14

IV Is Ulster Superior in Physique and Hygiene ? . 16 V Is Ulster Superior in Morale ? . . . .18

VI Connaught and Anti-Irish Ulster : A Contrast . 20

VII Pro-Irish Ulster and Anti-Irish Ulster Compared 21

VIII What is Wrong with Belfast ? . . . .22

{a) What are the Conditions of Education in

{b) What are the Conditions of the Factory

Workers in Belfast? . . . . .26

IX The Truth about the Ulster Legend ... 28

THE ULSTER LEGEND

I. What the Legend 1$

THE idea of the " Ulster difficulty " has so bewitched the minds of British statesmen that their sense of truth, justice and political consistency seems for the time — a long time now — to be paralysed.. The difficulty arises out of the Ulster claim to exceptional treatment, either as a peculiar people of superior virtue, or as having some weird blood-bought claim to ascendancy in Ireland. And that, so far as the ordinary Englishman is concerned, rests on the popular legend, so industriously circulated in England, of Ulster's superiority in prosperity and civilization as compared with the rest of Ireland. This Ulster legend has indeed been asserted so loudly and continuously that unthinking people in England, and many who are not unthinking, take it for granted that it is true.

The argument based on the legend is somewhat strange and unconvincing in these times of democratic poUtical theory, but the first thing to be done is to ascertain whether the assertion of superior prosperity and civilization is true. That is the object of the statistical inquiry set out in the following pages. All the information given in the tables of statistics, and reviewed with so much lucidity in the compiler's notes, is derived from Parliamentary Blue Books and White Papers, and the tables have all been examined by professional experts and certified as correct. The compiler in his notes has asked many questions and found the answers to them. It is for the reader to study these and pursue the study further in any way that seems good to him, as an inquirer after truth. In this foreword it is enough to recapitulate briefly the general tenor of the inquiry, and the conclusions as to the truth of the Ulster legend to which the inquiry leads.

The claim made for Ulster, and especially for "Political Ulster," i.e. Antrim and Down (including Belfast), Armagh and Londonderry, is that the people in these parts are more prosperous, more intelligent, more civilized altogether than those in the other three Irish provinces. The theory is that this is so, partly because theyjare of a superior race, and partly because the majority of them — and the others do not count — are supposed to be opposed to the Catholic religion. And this assumption of superiority is put forward as justifying a demand for separate treatment, if and when Ireland has Home Rule, and utihzed also, but with more sincere zeal, as an argument against any Home Rule at all. The dea that Ulster is the most progressive province in Ireland is certainly used to great effect in England, as a reason for deferring still longer the long-deferred Irish settlement. It revives the old argument for oligarchic ascendancy — i.e. that those who are superior ought to rule, with or without the consent of the governed. And, as we have seen, it is as clear as day that the Ulster difficulty was brought to a head, under Sir Edward Carson's leadership, for nothing less than to maintain the established oligarchic ascendancy in Ireland as a whole. The majority in North-East Ulster, i.e. " Political Ulster," is loyal to the ascendancy in Ireland. It would be to some purpose as an argument, in the eyes of many, if she proved also to be the most progressive part of Ireland in every sense of the word.^

According to the Ulster Legend, that is so. How is it according to the statistical facts ? Is Ulster richer, is she more civilized as regards provision for health and education, is she of higher moral and intellectual standard, than the rest of Ireland ? Let the reader turn to the general tables (I to XXI), and he will find for himself whether it is so or not.

II. Is Ulster Superior in Material Prosperity ?

The reader will find that the average valuation of agricultural

holdings in Ulster is lower than in Leinster or Munster, and it is

^jz 8s. id. below that for all Ireland. Ulster, moreover, has a

larger number of small holdings not exceeding £15 rateable

valuation, than any other of the provinces,

^ The inquiry in these pages refers primarily to the comparison of Ulster as a whole with the rest of Ireland, but contrasts between anti- Irish Ulster and pro-Irish Ulster are also presented.

And these facts are the more significant seeing that a larger proportion of the population is rural — lives on and by the land — in Ulster than in Leinster. The percentage of the population living on the land is, moreover, for all Ireland only 4-34 more than it is for Ulster including Belfast.

He will find also that the Income Tax Assessment, per head and per family, of the rural population is less than that for either Leinster or Munster. It is also £4 6s. 5^/. per family below that for all Ireland. Both per head and per family, Ireland as a whole is more well-to-do than Ulster so far as the rural population is corcerned.

These facts are certainly not signs of exceptional prosperity in rural Ulster, though there is nothing discreditable in them. The emigration statistics for the five years 1909-13 may have a deeper significance, but if so, it is not as a sign of progressive prosperity. The number of emigrants in those years from Uhter exceeded the sum of those from Leinster and Munster together. And, if we look into the details as to Ulster counties, we find that Antrim heads the list with 17,308 emigrants, and Down is a good second with 11 435. Donegal comes next, but is over 10,000 behind Antrim. Fermanagh, one of the Plantation Counties, is at the bottom of +he list. Interesting comparisons on this, as on other points, will be found in the compiler's notes. Those between the two groups of Ulster counties which are against Irish Rule and for it respectively are very instructive. The figures are all disclosed ; any one can verify the conclusions for himself, or discover other conclusions. The general upshot of all the comparisons so far is unmistakable. Both for tho long period of over sixty j'cars from 185 1 and for the short period of the five years 1909-13, Anti-Irish Ulster's record of emigration, as compared with that of all Ireland, is not in the least what the upholders of the Carsonite policy imagine it — or desire to imagine it — to be. County Dublin had for the long period only 29 per cent., the lowest county percentage in Ireland, 25-5 per cent, lower than the lowest in Ulster, which was that for County Down. Antrim even in that period stands as high as 707.

It appears then that Ulster is not more prosperous in the worldly sense than the rest of Ireland, and clearly her people are not more attached to the soil. It may be that the Political Ulster of to-day is but a mushroom growth, and that the real old Ulster of the Bards and Heroes will in the end absorb her Anglo- Scottish foster-children with all their goodly racial qualities into the good old soil of " kindly Irish " human nature,

III. Is Ulster Superior in Education and Public Spirit ?

Is Ulster more civihzed in the humane sense than Ireland as a whole ? Is there less illiteracy among her people ? Is there better provision for the education of her children ? Is the standard of school attendance and of scholarly attainment higher ? Are the schools well ventilated, well Ughted and roomy ? Are they in particular above the average, as they ought to be, in wealthy Belfast ? Is the death-rate lower, especially the death-rate for infants and young children ? Is there less mortality from tuberculosis, and, if not, are more vigorous measures being taken to stamp it out ? What do the statistics dealing with tests of national vitality tell us in answer to these questions ? And are there fewer persons unable to read and write in Ulster than in the rest of Ireland ?

It will be seen from Table XIV, showing the census returns for igii.that for every i.ooo of the population nine years old and over in Ulster there were 870 able to read and write. In Leinster there were 35 and in Munster 18 more than that number, in Connaught 54 less, and in every 1,000 for all Ireland 6 more. Using another weU-known test, we find similar results from the yearly average percentages of men and women respectively who signed the marriage register. Of men there were 931-8 per 1,000 in Ulster. In Leinster there were 18 and in Munster 20-4 (practically 2o|) more, in Connaught 24-4 less, and in all Ireland 7 more. Of women there were 949-2 in Ulster, 16 more in Leinster, 20^ more in Munster, i less in Connaught, and 9 more in all Ireland. The women all round, it should be observed, are a little better than the men. According to the latest returns, i.e. for the last of the five years 1909-13, it appears that the Connaught women were making up arrears. They were better than the Ulster men on the average of the five years. In this last year they were better than the Ulster women. Their percentage of excess over the men during 1913 was 2-4 and over the women o-i.

The comparative backwardness of Ulster in this matter ceases to be altogether surprising when a study is made of school attendance throughout Ireland. In round numbers to the nearest 1,000 the average number of absences daily in the years 1909-13 were 73,000 in Ulster, 47,000 in Munster, 41,000 in Leinster and 38,000 in Connaught. The figures considered in proportion to the population show that the smallest ratio of absences occur in Leinster, the next lowest in Munster, and Ulster comes third on the Ust. We should, of course, have expected it to be on a par with Leinster.

For the causes which have placed the industrial province in this unsatisfactory position relative to education, the reader will learn all he desires from the reports of the school inspectors in Belfast. These reports reveal an appalling insufficiency of school accommodation and — as its results — serious overcrowding of children in school and a large number of others running loose in the streets, because there is no room for them until new schools are built. That was the state of affairs before the war. It is not likely that it has been remedied since the war broke out.

Nor is this all. Some of the reports of the inspectors make it clear that not only is there a large number of children — 17,000, the inspector says — excluded from the schools for lack of room, but that a comparatively small proportion of those in the schools enter the higher standards. Further inquiry revealed the fact that of 64,132 pupils attending 286 Belfast schools there were 64 in the 8th, 412 in the 7th, 1,651 in the 6th standards respectively. All the others, i.e. 62,005, were in standards below the 6th. It appears, therefore, that for every 1,000 scholars in these lower standards there were 26-6 in the 6th standard, 6-6 in the 7th and I -03 in the 8th. ^ Why is this ? With all her advantages for trade and industry, the standard of education in Belfast might well aspire to rival that of London, Manchester, or Birmingham,

* In Table XII the reader will find an instructive comparison between Belfast and Ireland as a whole in respect of the standards attained in the National Schools. Ireland as a whole has 2-| children in standards above the 5th to every i in Belfast. The ratio of disadvantage increases also as the standard rises.

Attention should be drawn also to a still more valuable comparison made on the same page between the standards found to be appropriate to 329 " half-timers " from a Belfast school and 1,267 from schools in the English industrial town of Oldham. In Belfast the 3rd standard claimed the largest share of the scholars and none were placed above the 5th ; in Oldham, the largest number of entries was in the 6th, and there was only i below the 3rd standard.

i6 IRELAND AND THE ULSTER LEGEND

But the things that ought to be done, and that the wealthy classes in Belfast have not set out to do, required a sufficient contribution of funds from either public or private sources. At present we are chiefly concerned with the fact that Belfast is behind the rest of Ireland in respect of the conditions and standards of her schools.

We might reasonably expect that the province of Ulster would have taken a lead in making provision out of the rates, or otherwise, for Agricultural and Technical Instruction. This, however, is not the case. The contribution per cent, of the population in each province comes out in order of magnitude, with Leinster first, contributing £8 13s. 2dJ., Ulster and Munster following with £6 15s. 11^. and ^6 10s. 4^, respectively, and Connaught fourth with £4 19s.

As regards grants of money for the provision of scholarships to the Universities, on similar principles to those awarded by the County Councils in England, Ulster's contribution per 1,000 of the population is £1 14s., whereas Connaught heads the list with £7 13s. 2d. ; Leinster contributes £6 is. 4d. ; Munster £5 6s. lod., and the average for all Ireland comes out at £4 los. iid.

This is a strange result. If Ulster is so prosperous and so enlightened, as we are told, how is it that the Cinderella of the provinces in the barren West should, in zeal for Higher Education, exceed her Northern sister's liberality in the ratio of 4I to i ?

IV. Is Ulster Superior in Physique and Hygiene ?

Turning now to the statistics of national vitahty, we find that Leinster has the highest death-rate of the four provinces. The number of deaths per thousand for the five years 1909-13 were for Leinster 91, for Ulster 86, for Munster 79, and for Connaught 71. In respect of the figures for infant mortality, i.e. of children under a year old, Leinster and Ulster keep their places as first and second with 112-8 and 94-9 respectively per 1,000 of the births. East Ulster, however, has 106-9 '> West Ulster only 67-5. Connaught is lowest with 58-3.

We might put the matter thus, in order to reaUze the facts more concretely. Imagine the infants in each province as arranged symbolically in groups of 10,000 each. Then, on an average : —

583 of the Connaught infants in a group 857 „ Munster 949 „ Ulster 1,128 ,, Leinster ,, ,,

would have died in a year.

In both cases the record for Connaught is best and the record for Leinster is worst. Leinster contains Dublin, and everybody who knows Dublin, knows that the housing conditions under which the poor live in that city are very far from what they ought to be.

And apart from special considerations affecting either or both of these Irish cities, we might normally expect that the infant death-rate would be lower in the more rural provinces, more especially under the improved conditions of rural hfe for the people that have existed in Ireland since the Land Act became law. As regards city problems for the housing of the poor, it must be remembered that Dublin inherits from past generations of Enghsh rulers a condition of affairs, as to house property in the heart of the city, that has made it impossible to deal with the housing problem properly without immense expenditure out of the city rates such as could not be provided without large extension of the city boundaries. Such an extension ,will no doubt be made when there is an Irish Government. Special powers and special grants of some kind will probably be needed to enable the city authorities to solve the problem effectually.

What have the statistics to tell us about the mortality from tuberculosis in the several provinces, and the contributions of money for its treatment that have been voted by the County Councils in each province ? We find that Ulster, with the largest number of deaths from tuberculosis, contributes for remedial measures less per 1,000 of the population than any of the other provinces. Munster with 1,152 less deaths pays £3 8s. 8d. per 1,000 more; Connaught with the smallest number of deaths pays at a rate second best to Munster. It may, however, be borne in mind, on Ulster's side, that, Ulster's population being more than half a million larger than the average of Leinster and Munster, her total contribution is not so much smaller in proportion to their average total as her rate is to their average rate. The test, of course, is the rate. As against Ulster's £1 Ss. Sd., we have Connaught 's £2 8s. od.

l8 IRELAND AND THE ULSTER LEGEND

V. Is Ulster Superior in Morale ?

How does Ulster stand, as compared with her sister provinces, in respect of her people's personal morale ? Two definite statistical tests are available. They are both fundamental tests profoundly affecting the national Hfe in respect both to personal character in individuals and social relationships in the community.

(i) What proportion of the children who are born into the several provinces of Ireland come into the world under the stigma of illegitimacy ? The record of Ireland, Catholic and Protestant — whether Pro-Irish or Anti-Irish politically — is good in this respect. It is, indeed, the third best in the world. 277 per 10,000 of the total of Irish births was for the five years 1909-13 the number of these little ones born into Ireland. 372 per 10,000 of the Ulster births, 288 and 232 respectively of the Leinster and Munster births, and 70 of the Connaught births per 10,000, in each case were illegitimate. The great contrast between Ulster and Connaught needs no comment beyond the observation that the proportion of illegitimate births in Ulster is five times that in Connaught.

(2) The other statistical test of morale is the number of habitual criminals at large in the particular district under observation. The term " habitual criminal " is used here in its technical sense as "a person enumerated by the police who engages habitually in crime as his means, or part of his means, of livelihood. ' ' Taking the yearly average for the years 1908-12, the numbers of these persons enumerated as being at large in the four provinces respectively were 12-2 in Connaught, 68-6 in Munster, 80 in Leinster, and 566-4 in Ulster. The numbers of these persons in each province per 100,000 of the population were, in the same order, 2-00, 6-62, 6-88, 35-81, and 16-56 for all Ireland. Thus there were, approximately, in every 100,000 of their respective populations, 18 habitual criminals in Ulster to i in Connaught, 3^ in Munster, and 3I in Leinster.

And for houses classified as "resorts of habitual, criminals at large " the yearly average for 1908-12 was 164-8 in Ulster, and 17-2 for the rest of Ireland, with none in Connaught,

This is a starthng result. Whatever may be said in praise or in extenuation of Ulster, there can, for the time, be no escape from the conclusion that it entirely disposes of her claim to superiority of morale in the present generation.

On reflection, however, it must be admitted that, in the nature of things, apart from any claim to special superiority, it might be expected that there should be more habitual criminals in a big money-making city like Belfast than in rural districts, small towns, and even Dublin, the mere capital of a non-selfgoverning island like Ireland. This idea appears to have occurred also to the compiler, and he followed it up by compihng another table giving the figures on the same subject for all the large towns in England, Ireland and Wales. Scotland is omitted because she publishes no statistics, London — is it strange to say ? — is lowest on this Hst with 15-11 habitual criminals in 100,000 persons, and Dublin with 16-34 — ^i more than London — comes next. Third from the bottom of the list, though with a record just over that of London and Dublin together, is the semi-Irish city of Liverpool.

The reader will find it worth while to follow this enquiry farther as it is set out in Table XVI. The statistics are there given separately : — (i) for all the Irish provinces, (2) for Ireland outside Ulster, (3) for England and Wales, and also (4) in analysis for Ulster, treating that portion which is against Irish selfdetermination apart from the counties which are for it. The result is remarkable. Anti-Irish Ulster is easily at the top, i.e. at the wrong end of the Irish list ; Ulster province comes next, and is followed by all Ireland a very long way behind. Down at the bottom we find Leinster outside Dublin and Connanghi, with I -61 and 2-oo respectively, taking the lowest places ; only 2 per 100,000 of her population is all Connaught has to show in the way of habitual criminals. For a criminals' guest-house, as we have already seen — and indeed it is obvious — she has no use at all. Next lowest, strangely enough at first sight, is Pro-Irish Ulster with 3-77. One cannot but be impressed by the fact that the record of morale, in this respect, should be relatively so exceptionally good in that portion of the country in which the Catholic and non-Catholic populations are so nearly equal and mix so freely with each other. Fourth from the bottom of the list is Ireland outside Ulster, with 5-73, Approximately, taking the figures as they stand, we might say that Pro-Irish Ulster's record is about i^ times as good as that of all Ireland outside

Ulster, that Connaught's record is a little less than twice as good, and Leinster's outside Dublin is 2\ times as good as Pro-Irish Ulster's.

This excellent record for Pro-Irish Ulster may be a symptom of social health, causes for which we should expect to find in Ireland wherever Catholics and non-Catholics are nearly equal in number and intermingle freely in the transaction of their industrial and social affairs. This they do in the towns and counties of Pro-Irish Ulster, and the development of the co-operative movement in such a mixed county as Cavan or Fermanagh tends to the same effect. It appears, moreover, that even in Ulster as a whole there are 2,949 Protestant children in schools under Catholic teachers, 3,099 Catholic children in schools under Protestant teachers, besides 2,080 Protestant and 1,437 Cathohc children under mixed staffs of Cathohcs and Protestants. This would not have been possible some fifty years ago.

VI. Connaught and Anti-Irish Ulster : A Contrast.

Then, there is Connaught — Catholic Connaught — the Connaught of Cromwell's curse, of the Great Famine and the wholesale evictions of the last century, of the Flight of the Irish to their new home beyond the Western Sea. It is the remnant of this Connaught race that has been making records in these statistical tables of such a satisfactory and, to many persons, surprising character. For the greater convenience of those who are interested more especially in the prospect of a Connaught, by and by, that may become in some ways a model to the world, the compiler has set forth in detail the contrast as it stands to-day between Anti-Irish Ulster — Sir Edward Carson's own particular Ulster — ■ and her most extreme opposite, the Irish province in the West, The reader will find material for much useful reflection in this supplementary table and the compiler's notes. (See Table XXI.)

In all the statistical tests of national vitality Connaught does better — and generally much better — than Anti-Irish Ulster, or even Ulster as a whole.

Of deaths at all ages, she has in every 10,000 of her population 165 less than Anti-Irish Ulster for the five years 1909-13.

Of deaths under one year of age, she has in every 10,000 of the births, 486 less for the five years than Anti-Irish Ulster and 366 less than Ulster. In other words, the infant mortaHty in Anti-Irish Ulster is nearly double that of Connaught.

Of illegitimate births she has 361 less in every 10,000 of the births. Anti-Irish Ulster has over six times and County Antrim nearly eight times as many.^

Anti-Irish Ulster has 286 more deaths from tuberculosis in every 10,000 of the deaths than Connaught has, and contributes out of the rates for remedial measures £604 less.