SIR GEORGE BOWYER AND HOME RULE.

Kumara Times, Issue 1142, 27 May 1880, Page 4

SIR GEORGE BOWYER AND HOME RULE.

Sir George Bo wyer writes to the Times; — “ I have most respectfully informed the electors of Wexford that I do not ask them to re-elect me. My reason is that I cannot honestly stand again as a Home Ruler. I say this, because Home Rule has been rendered and now is absolutely impossible, and I cannot consent to delude my constituents by encouraging hopes of expectations which never can be realised, A foolish, mischievous, and unbecoming course —I can’t call it a policy—has rendered it absurd in the eyes of thoughtful practical men, and intolerable in England and Scotland. To the Home Rule agitation especially in conjunction with doctrines which deny or endanger the laws of property and the obligation of contracts must win the future prosperity of the country. The value of land has already become diminished ; capital has been scared away; life has been in certain conditions made leas secure ; the extension and improvement of agriculture have been rendered impossible. All these evils must be perpetuated and increased by the continuance of political and social agitations. These things have undoubtedly aggravated the existing distress by preventing the application of capilal to the cultivation, reclamation, and improvement of land and the industrial employment of the people. The country requires peace, capital, and industry. Laws Parliaments, and Governments can do little for the happiness of a country in comparison with what the people themselves can do. Ireland is a fertile and beautiful country, and her people are conspicuous for amiable, noble, estimable, and useful qualities. But they are credulous and pliable in the hands of agitators, schemers, and adventurers; they (like to be told that they are miserable slaves, ground down by tyrannical and unjust government, and now fancy that Home Rule is the remedy for ail evils and the key to happiuess and National greatness. It is a phantom which will elude their grasp,;.and a delusion enticing them away from their real interests. Those interests are in their own hands, and to be worked out by themselves with common sense industry and practical self-reliance, utterly repudiating agitations, agitators, orators, adventurers, flatterers, and professing patriots.—Your obedient servant, “ George Bowter.”