CHAPTER I

IRELAND IN 1901

Ireland has passed through a revolution in the Victorian age--Material progress--Dublin--Belfast--Improvement in Catholic places of worship and in the habitations of the people--State of the Irish community--Symptoms of retrogression--Decline of agriculture--The progress of Ireland Ireland much less than that of England and Scotland, and why--State of the Irish land system--Recent legislation has done some good, but it has been unjust, and has had pernicious effects--Ireland divided into three peoples--Notwithstanding great reforms Catholic Ireland is still, in the main, disaffected--Presbyterian Ireland--Cry for the confiscation of the Irish land--Protestant Ireland--Fall of its old ascendency--Discontent among the landed gentry--Nature of the government of Ireland by the Imperial Parliament--Its merits and defects--Attitude of the greater part of Ireland towards it--The administration of Irish affairs--The bureaucracy of the Castle--The Anglican, Presbyterian, and Catholic Irish Churches--The administration of justice in Ireland--Irish literature and public opinion--General survey of the present state of Ireland--Irish policy of Lord Salisbury's Ministry--'Present Irish Questions' to be discussed in this work 1-38