HOME RULE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1100, 22 May 1913, Page 4

HOME RULE.

That Home Rule must come, but that Ireland is not yet ready for It, is the opinion of Richard Filz Walter, writing in the British Review. The root of the Irish trouble is the utter want of sympathy between the gentry and the peasantry :

“In Ireland the gentry is very new ; and certainly the peasantry is a very old one. Day by day the line of cleavage between the two classes is becoming more marked. As new and wider interests arise tor the people, the older ones lose their force. Those older interests were to a certain extent shared by gentry and peasantry alike, because they were very narrow.” Ireland is only just beginning to realise that she has strength, and she may make wrong use of it; — “The people are beginning to see directions in which they can strike out. But the evils of the past cannot be undone all at once. Care and sympathetic handling are necessary in feeding a starved man. There are not wanting signs that ugly license may grow up where liberty has been sown.” Sympathy is what is wanted, and the gentry must try and work with the people. The Catholic gentry are as bad as the Protestant in their lack of consideration, and are held to a certain extent in less esteem by the people. Much could be done by efforts to improve the conditions of the people. Drink and lunacy Uourish. “To a town of 10,000 inhabitants there are 120 public houses all doing well. Over every second miserable beraggled shcp there seems to be some legend about ‘beer and spirits.' Just outside the same town is the lunatic asylum, containing 700 or 800 out of a district population of 150,000.” The Irish upper classes give no assistance, however, to those who are endeavouring to improve these conditions.

Unless something is first done to increase ttie sympathy between the gentry and the people, the writer tears Home Rule may lead to disastrous results.