Page:Australia and the Empire.djvu/156

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124
AUSTRALIA AND THE EMPIRE

with the Home Rule views and methods of the Archbishop of Dublin. Despite the neo-Catholic fashions of the hour, Mr. Topp stoutly maintains that the essential inferiority of the Celt to the Teuton is historically shown by the fact that the English and the Germans " broke with " Rome three centuries ago, while the French and the Irish did not. For my part, I hold that racial distinctions are much deeper than religious differences. Mr. Gee and some of the Welsh Protestant anti-tithe agitators would soon assimilate their methods to those of Mr. Davitt and the Irish Land League. Blood is thicker than water, even when the water is from the font. Still I freely admit that credal differences always intensify, and may perpetuate, racial distinctions.

This question of race is, according to other authorities besides Mr. Topp, of vital importance. Mr. Michael Davitt, who has suffered and run personal risks in this melancholy cause, made some suggestive remarks recently on the "Mission of the Celts." According to him, the Irish Celt is "in the vanguard of the glorious struggle of labour against systems, and laws which condemn the cottier of Connemara and the crofter of Scotland to live in