AST. PATRICK'S DAY SPEECH.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1143, 27 March 1872, Page 2

AST. PATRICK'S DAY SPEECH.

The Use and Abuse of Nationality. . At the dinner held in Wellington in commemoration of St. Patrick's Day, Mr FitzGerald, the Comptroller-General, was in the chair. He made a speech the language and spirit of which will recommend themselves to many besides the loyal and the intelligent among his countrymen :— ■■.?:-.»■•■

Mr FitzGerald said that -.the toast he had to prdpose was one suggesting the object of their meeting— it wais, '?Our Native Land." He would not for a moment suppose that the Englishmen and Scotchmen present had been actuated by any spirit of vulgar curiosity to spy out the Eleusinian nr ysteries of St. Patrick's Day, but rather that their presence was intended as a sort of graceful protest against the "fate which had deprived them of the honor of "drinking to Ireland, as their native land. They might, therefore, vary the toast so as to make it express their wish that that island had been their native land. The toast brought with it such a variety of thoughts, that it was difficult to select any to dwell upon. It needed not a word to commend it to them, b\it, still .he knew that they would expect him to say something on the occasion, and-he would therefore indulge in a few observations on the use. and abuse of the great spirit of nationality which they were met to foster and keep up. The preceit was a most remarkable age . future generations would so regard ify and cine of its most remarkable features was what he might term a revival of the spirit of nationality. The time had passed when it was considered within the pale of morality for one nation to attempt the overthrow of another for the ; mere sake of acquiring territory. This was how beyond the pale' of morality} if not actually beyond the pale of fact, but the smaller states of the world were now pretty secure in the guarantee of their nationality, as it was to the interests of the larger ones to preserve it, in order to regulate the balance of power. The spirit of nationality ..was reviving _ all,; over Europe, and was displayed by the uprising of popular opinion against the artificial and arbitrary settlements of power which had ignored national sentiment. They, had instances in Hungary, in Poland, and in, above all, Italy, where the people, forgetting those provincial jealousies which .had been their bane and ruin, were now .endeavoring to unite all Italian-speaking people into one great nation. So the Germans were forming one great nation of German-speaking people; and crossing the Atlantic they found that the, most desperate war which history recorded had sprung from _the same feeling— a. determination not to permit the nationality of the new world to be torn in pieces,. , This , feeling of nationality was indeed one of the most powerful instincts, or passions of the human heart. It was by the softening influence of family ■ties that man was first elevated above the brutes. He felt a new life in his interest in the lives of those around and hear and dear to him, and the feeling of nationality was but an enlargement of this sentiment. From the family it spread tqihe sept oclan, and then , enlarged until it embraced all who lived in the same land, spoke the ;satne ; language, and shared the same hopes. Some-day it might unite the whole 1 human race into one great 'family. This feeling of nationality was one of the great. powers of the world, and it was a morbid, diseased phase of the same feeling which made men hate . those who differed from themselves. . It. would not. be unfair to say that' the great struggle which had recently taken placej without any apparent reason,betweenFrance and Germany, sprang from, this diseased and morbid feeling, of nationality, and if, which God forbid, a war should ever , take place, between England and the. United States, the same morbid feeling would be at the bottom of it. But when national feelings were being awakened all over the world, was it unnatural that whatever nationality that lay in the breasts of Irishmen should also ...JtajVe been awakened, and that a drean/of free independent Ireland should have been indulged in by many. Such a dream was calculated tomake the heart of the most loyal Irishman, and he knew he was speaking to an assemblage loyal to the core, warm with affection for his native land, even though, like himself, they did .not desire to revoke the edict of centuries, by which the fate of. Ireland; and England had been united irrevocably and for ever. To show that this was the case he would like to refer tb a few facts of Irish history. At the tithe of the conquest — although the term was a misnomer,; for Ireland never had been conquered— yet. Ireland in the 12th century had not even : solved the first problem of nationality ; there was no national feeling, no common rule or general power. The "country was split "up into independent powers and principalities all at feud with each other. In fact Ireland was in the same position as the AngloSaxons under Egbert, of Wessex. A lot of Norman young gentlemen, who had spent all their money in England, wdnt over, not as an army, but as adventurerSj to Ireland, and there founded colonies. This was the so-called conquest. As to the Papal Bull of which Gpldwin Smith made, much sneering use, as giving Irer land to England, it was a purely ecclesiastical arid hot a political document, and singularly enough it was issued by Adrian 4th, Nichblas Brakespear, the only Englishman who ever occupied the Papal throne. From the time of the first Norman adventurers, until the time of Henry 7th, there were but a few small Norman colonies in Ireland, and the invaders were gradually amalgamating with, being sucked as it were, into the bosom of the inferior race living around them. But in the time of HenryYth, the picture changed. Then a struggle began, which resulted in the final conquest of Ireland by England. Had it pleased Almighty God that Ireland should preserve her independence, then was the time when a man would have arisen capable of drawing together the scattered forces of Ireland, and uniting them against the common enemy. But no such man came, and Ireland remained divided, as Goldwin Smith said, into three classes — his Majesty's subjects, his Majesty's rebels, and his Majesty's enemies. In the reign of William 111. two new facts were introduced into the history of Ireland. The Reformation which had deluged Europe with blood for half a century added religious animosity to divergence, of race, and only one thing more was required to fill the cup.. of Ireland's affliction to the

brim— that was the confiscation of land. Land was confiscated on all sides, and every new confiscation laid the seeds of a fresh outbreak. In fact almost every war originated from confiscation of land, and the lesson of history in this instance was one which New Zealand statesmen might well apply. The ancient chiefs of Ireland disappeared, their' land,^ffieir language were lost, and in the 18th century they were succeeded by one of the strangest classes the world ever saw— the whisky-drinking and duel-fighting ; squires, under whom the laws of duelling, carefully drawn up from the various counties, became much more closely observed than the laws of the land. .Under such tuition it was no wonder if 'lrishmen became somewhat reckless of life. The time had now long gone by when : it was possible that Ireland could have a GoyernmeW of its own. Ireland had merged its individuality in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and speaking as an Irishman, he said that was no ignoble fate. For centuries Irishmen had fought side by side with Englishmen /on; the battle fields of the world, and had administered to the glory and the power of England from the days of the; Plantagenets to the dayß of Inkermann. Was it now to be said that those noble Irishmen who had freely shed their blood and laid down their lives'for the good of the British Empire were i mere mercenaries, forging chain* for their, native land, arid serving tyrants ? He could ,nbt accept history in that sense, and he had no hesitation in saying that on the whole the influence of Great Britain Had been beneficial to mankind, arid had done much to secure the liberties of the human race. He was not sorry that Irishmen had stood beside . Englishmen in every fight which, had enabled the United Kingdom to achieve its present, position. He' would now say a few words as to the duty .of Irishmen in the present day, and in the colonies. To Canada and the United States Irishmen had carried with them their party feuds as Orangemen and Papists, and had .disgraced themselves in the presence of strangers by the bitterness with which those feuds were fought out. He hoped no such disgraceful proceedings would ever take place and the fact that Irishmen of all creeds could meet in a friendly wayaround that board, showed how useful an institution a St. Patrick's Day dinner was; He hoped it would be kept up, and. that, they, would all set their faces against any revivalfof the old. idiotic fends between Irishmen of different religions, and that, meeting under the name of their patron saint, they would endeavor to carry /out "the doctrine he was sent to preach, and accept the truth of the words of Erin's latest bard ■ '"■ Erin, thy silent tear. ne'er shall cease ; Erin, thy languid smile ne'er shall increase Till, like the rainbow's light, :i ; * Thy various sons unite ! : ■ ; ' : " And form iri heaven's sight One arch of peace.