ADDRESS. 7 



The Progress of Belfast. 



A great man has observed that the ' intelligent anticipation of 

 events before they occur ' is a factor of some importance in human affairs. 

 One may suppose that intelligent anticipation had something to do with 

 the choice of Belfast as the meeting-place of the British Association this 

 year. Or, if it had not, then it must be admitted that circumstances have 

 conspired, as they occasionally do, to render the actual selection peculiarly 

 felicitous. Belfast has perennial claims, of a kind that cannot easily be 

 surpassed, to be the scene of a great scientific gathering — claims founded 

 upon its scientific traditions and upon the conspicuous energy and success 

 •with -which its citizens have prosecuted in various directions the applica- 

 tion of science to the purposes of life. It is but the other day that the 

 whole nation deplored at the grave of Lord Dufferin the loss of one of 

 the most distinguished and most versatile public servants of the age. 

 That great statesman and near neighbour of Belfast was a typical 

 expression of the qualities and the spirit which have made Belfast what it 

 is, and have enabled Ireland, in spite of all drawbacks, to play a great part 

 in the Empire. I look round on your thriving and progressive city 

 giving evidence of an enormous aggregate of industrial efforts intelligently 

 organised and directed for the building up of a sound social fabric, I find 

 that your great industries are interlinked and interwoven with the whole 

 economic framework of the Empire, and that you are silently and irre- 

 sistibly compelled to harmonious co-operation by practical considerations 

 acting upon the whole community. It is here that I look for the real 

 Ireland, the Ireland of the future. We cannot trace with precision the 

 laws that govern the appearance of eminent men, but we may at least 

 learn from history that they do not spring from every soil. They do not 

 appear among decadent races or in ages of retrogression. They are the 

 fine flower of the practical intellect of the nation working studiously and 

 patiently in accordance with the great laws of conduct. In the manifold 

 activities of Belfast we have a splendid manifestation of individual energy 

 working necessarily, even if not altogether consciously, for the national 

 good. In great Irishmen like Lord Dufferin and Lord Roberts, giving 

 their best energies for the defence of the nation by diplomacy or by war, 

 we have complementary evidence enough to reassure the most timid con- 

 cerning the real direction of Irish energies and the vital nature of Irish 

 solidarity with the rest of the Empire. 



Belfast has played a prominent part in a transaction of a somewhat 

 special and significant kind, which has proved not a little confusing and 

 startling to the easy-going public. The significance of the shipping com- 

 bination lies in the light it throws on the conditions and tendencies which 

 make such things possible, if not even inevitable. It is an event forcibly 

 illustrating the declaration of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, 

 that the nation must ' wake up ' if it hopes to face its growing responsi- 

 bilities. Belfast may plead with some justice that it, at least, has never 



