since the work in which it is variously set forth ("Principles of Biology," §§ 66-97) is one with which he is well acquainted: witness his "Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution;" and he has had recent reminders of it in Weismann's "Germ-plasm," where it is repeatedly referred to. Why, then, does he assume that I abandon my own hypothesis and adopt that of Darwin, thereby entangling myself in difficulties which my own hypothesis avoids? If, as I have argued, the germ-plasm consists of substantially similar units (having only those minute differences expressive of individual and ancestral differences of structure), none of the complicated requirements which Dr. Romanes emphasises exist, and the alleged inconceivability dis appears. Here I must end: not intending to say more, unless for some very urgent reason, and leaving others to carry on the discussion. I have, indeed, been led to suspend for a short time my proper work only by consciousness of the transcendent importance of the question at issue. As I have before contended, a right answer to the question whether acquired characters are or are not inherited, underlies right beliefs not only in Biology and Psychology, but also in Education, Ethics, and Politics. HERBERT SPENCER. NOTE.-In Mr. Elliston's article on the "Payment of Members" in the Aprið number of this REVIEW, p. 496, it is stated that Mr. Henry Fowler in 1892 opposed the payment. The name of Mr. "Henry Fowler" is a printer's error for Mr. "Hayes Fisher," who is the member referred to. Mr. Fowler did not speak in the debate. U LSTER is very much to the fore just now, and her wonderful prosperity, untold wealth and unequalled progress, not to mention her superiority over the rest of Ireland, are so persistently dinned into our ears by Unionist politicians and thrust before our eyes in the columns of Unionist newspapers, that it may perhaps not be unadvisable to take some such impartial record of facts and figures as the Census, the Blue Books, or the Parliamentary Returns, and see what is the truth about it all, especially after Lord Salisbury's performances in the North of Ireland during Whitsun week. Ulster has long had her legend, which is now being worked for all that it is worth and more, and which might be concisely expressed in the following words: "Ulster, tried by every test of progress, wealth, education, and the comfortable dwellings of the people, is far in advance of the southern and western provinces of Ireland.” To which is generally added as a corollary: "Ulster is almost exclusively Protestant," and "Ulster is almost exclusively Unionist." This is the Ulster legend, and it is really incredible that a legend so groundless should have survived so long the invention of the Census. I have before me the census of Ulster for the year 1891, with summaries of other censuses since 1841, and I beg leave to place before the readers of this REVIEW the facts and figures of the progress of Ulster under the Union. Ulster contains nine counties-viz., Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Done gal, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, Monaghan, and Tyrone-divided into 27 Parliamentary divisions and three Parliamentary boroughs ---Belfast, four divisions, Derry City, and Newry; and therefore sends 33 Members to Parliament. Its total area, land and water, is 3 E VOL. LXIII. 5,483,200 statute acres, or a percentage of 264 of the total area of Ireland. The population of Ulster is 1,619,814-a decrease of 123,261 in the last ten years, and of over three-quarters of a million in The following table shows the way Ulster the last fifty years. progresses: Decrease between 2,386,373 2,011,880 1,914,236 1,833,228 81,008 1,743,075 1,619,814 Total decrease since 1841 Since 1841 Ireland has lost 43.26 per cent. of her population, or 3,588,899 inhabitants. It will be seen by the figures just quoted that the decrease has been almost as strong and persistent in Ulster as in the Celtic and apathetic South. Ulster, with 26.4 per cent. of the area, has contributed 21.4 per cent. of the decrease of the population of Ireland. Taking the population in 1841 and the population in 1891, we see that Ulster in fifty years has actually lost 32.2 per cent. of her population. The contrast is still more striking if we confine ourselves to emigration, instead of taking the actual decrease in the population. From the 1st of May 1851, the date on which the enumeration of emigrants from Irish ports rather tardily commenced, to the 31st of March 1891, the last date included in the returns, 3,742,746 people left Ireland as emigrants. Of these Ulster contributed 999,135, or 268 per cent., actually more than one-fourth, distributed as Close upon one million in forty years from a single province. Unionists are never tired of appealing to the prosperity of Ulster in support of the present form of Government; and their great argument, whether they hail from the Orange lodges or the Dublin Stock Exchange, whether they be landed gentry or industrials, is that Home Government will check the progress of Ireland and will bring ruin to the country. It therefore logically follows that they admit the importance of the form of government to the progress or decline of a country; more than that, that they consider the form of government as the head and front, as practically the only cause, of that progress or decline. A strict economist might not go so far, but Irish Nationalists are prepared to follow the Unionists on their own grounds. If the progress of Ireland under the Union would be a valid reason for the upholding of the present system, the decline of Ireland would be an equally valid reason against it. Do not these figures tell eloquently enough our progress under the present régime? This system of depletion is peculiar to Ireland. All the other countries of Europe, be they ever so poor, be they ever so cursed with the worst systems of self-government, be they ever so worried with internal or external difficulties, exhibit an increase of population. Look from Spain and Portugal, through the German States and the Balkan Peninsula, to Russia ;- everywhere there is an increase ; look from Greece and Italy to Sweden and Norway;-everywhere there is an increase. Ireland alone has the mournful distinction amongst all the nations of the world of having lost almost half her population in fifty years, and decade after decade, year after year, of registering a steady, regular, heart-breaking decline. But the significance of the figures of decline quoted above for all Ulster can be rightly and fully appreciated only if we consider the relative proportion which each of the constituent parts of the province contributed to them. Because one city in Ulster-Belfasthas made rapid progress, some people take it for granted that the whole province has progressed accordingly. One single Ulster countyAntrim, the county which includes the greater part of Belfast-shows primâ facie an increase in population of 6185 in the last decade. But if we leave the city of Belfast out of consideration, we see plainly that County Antrim has followed the same downward grade as the other Ulster counties. Is Mr. T. W. Russell satisfied with the progress which "our glorious inheritance" has worked in the county which returns him to Parliament? A loss of 26,318 inhabitants in the last ten years, of 141,555 inhabitants in the last fifty years, for a single county in Ulster what a commentary upon the blessings of the Unionist policy! Has Mr. T. W. Russell ever thought of his Tyrone when he descanted upon the progress of Ulster? Did not those 26,000 Tyrone men who so greatly appreciated the blessings of the Union in the 3 course of the last ten years that they betook themselves to the other end of the world in order to enjoy them more fully, remind him that he was merely indulging in senseless bluster when, last April, he informed a Central News representative that, "while he was unable to speak of the armed drilling which it was alleged was going on in the north of Ireland, he could pledge himself to this, that every house in South Tyrone was armed in order to defend the Union." But Tyrone is not an isolated case. What of the staunch Presbyterian counties of Antrim and Down, the pillars of Unionism and Protestantism in Ireland, the counties which are ever brought forward as the most progressive and wealthy in Ireland? Is it satisfactory progress for Antrim to have lost 22,509 inhabitants in the last ten years and 75,199 in the last fifty years, and for Down to have lost 24,182 inhabitants in the last ten years and 137,438 in the last fifty years? This is unfair, it may be argued, since Belfast is not included. Belfast is situated partly in Antrim and partly in Down. The total population of Antrim and Down, Belfast included, was, in 1881, 694,050; in 1891 it was 695,187. So that the wonderful increase of Belfast, about which so much is made, has added only 1137 people to Antrim and Down in ten years. Fifty years ago, when Belfast was a town of a little over 70,000 inhabitants, Antrim and Down, Belfast included, had a joint population of 722,321. The development of Belfast has not prevented the joint population of those two counties, which it is a commonplace to describe as rising in prosperity and progress with the manufacturing counties of England, from falling off by 27,134 in fifty years. Would any of the manufacturing counties. of England reckon as progress a decrease of 27,134 in population in fifty years, and be so exultant over even an increase of 0·1 per cent. in population for the last ten years ? But I repeat, that if we include Belfast, we cannot discover the dry rot which is eating Antrim and Down faster than most Ulster counties. Where are the staunch race of farmers and the rural population of these counties going at the rate of 22,500 and 24,000 per decade respectively? If there is so much satisfaction with the present state of things in Ulster that we are threatened with a rising in arms in case anything should happen to disturb it, why, in the name of goodness, is the population vanishing so rapidly in that province; why, with the exception of the single city of Belfast, is everything on the downward grade; why, while there were ten years ago seven civic districts with a population over ten thousand, are there only five now; why is Presbyterian Carrickfergus decreasing at the rate of 11 per cent., and Protestant and primatial Armagh at the rate of 26·2 per cent.? Belfast has only increased its population by 22 per cent. during the last decade.* * Carrickfergus population, 1881, 10 009 population 1891, 8,923 Armagh. Belfast 10 070 208,122 .. 7,438 255,950 |