HOME RULE MEETING OF UNIONISTS. GREAT SUCCESS.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 420, 16 November 1889, Page 2

HOME RULE MEETING OF UNION ISTS . GREAT SUCCESS.

In our issue of Wednesday last we published a very full report (copied from the Auckland Evening Star) of the meeting of Iribh delegates in Auckland, on 6th inst. We now publish a somewhat condensed report of the meeting of Unionists held in Auckland Jtwo days afterwards, viz., on November Bth. Purtk-ul.us as to those present, and the resolutions passed, will be found op our fifth page to-day. The meeting was in every way a great success, Mr H, C, Barbton presided j The Chairman, on rising to speak, was received with applause, He remarked that Ue was pleased to see so many ladies auriangat those present, and that lie ac • oepted their presence a* an augury af that suooeas whiuh invariably followed any cause in which the fair sex took an interest. (Appluuse). He thanked all present on his own part, and on behalf of the Committee, fur the magnificent assembly which he saw present that evening. (Applausa.) (Je thought he had hardly any need to explain why they had come together, be-

cause they all know it was simp'y as a defensivo measure — defensive as against the aggression practised by delegates who came from the other side of the woild (applause), and defensive as against those parties some of whom had travelled in this pait of the world years ago, and some who recently (having gone back to the Homo country) had stated that the bulk of the population and r.enily all the iwealth and intelligence of the Colony were m favour of Home Rule. (Ciies of t'Never" and applause.) It was their duty 0 clear th elves of such an aspersion (applause), and he felt sure that ii those people who spread such a report were present and saw this assemblage they would be ashamed of having promulgated such slanders. (Applause) They were present as an Anti-Home Rule paity. Only last October, at a meeting held at Carnarvon. Sir Win, Harcourt stated that his party would not define their scheme of Home Rule until they were in office, and Mi Gladstone stated that the time foi Home Rule for Ireland was. not yet oppoitune. He fthe Chairman) thought that when the Irish delegates came te preach Home Rule amongst them the.y Mhould have told them what Home Rule was. The delegates had told them that one part of it (and that pnit they all knew before, as it was the first step on the ladder) was an Irish Parliament in Dublin and they also made some reforenco to »r executive, but what the powers of thai executive would be they cwrefully kept tr themselves, (Applause.) It was ea^y te see why the Irish delegates told them thai England might have a fleet, that England might Bend ambassadors to foreign countries, and that England might keep some garrisons mewed up in foitified towns in Ireland ; but who were to have control of the 14,000 biivonots of t ie police which might be in the hands of such an executive to be used for the purpose of evicted land lords who might be guilty of the grievous crime of receiving rents ; and who w ere to have the appointing of the judges and the magistrates — was it to be an executive, the members of which had been incaiceiated for violating the Queen's laws? Wb.it justice would there have been in such hands? They would have this, that ! " killing is no minder." They were afraid 1 to insult the intelligence of the people of this Colony by going to such lengths. They (tht* audience) should have had a D.ivitt 01 a Tannt-r to come out here to propose such a schemo. (Applause.) Why lie (the speakei) psked, was so much kept in re.s'.n-\v. V There were people, he added, who had put in black and white what the} meant to have, aiH what they were fighting ft>r, and they weie no veiy sn all party of those who oh Mod themselves Nationalists. (Applause.) Their piomammc was, "The 1 ule of England i.s the gi ie\ anct of giievaoceti To icmovo it i*< to remove all others. To suffer it to lem.iiu is but te provide for a new ciop of intnlci&hk wrongs. None of the giiuvancc* of Ireland can be radically cuivd unti' Englisl domination shall cease ; they maj be mitigated, but it is only a tempoiary icspite which would last only as long r.s tin present agitation. Every Engli*h ifaninon mast be withdrawn, Protestant, landlord, and British nsceiidam y i»"> list be wilhdiawn. S«-l ("'-government is the onl\ salvation for Ireland ; ait'onomv is the panacea for her giiovmces" That withe doctrine which won d have been told to them if th.' parties who came out hen* haddaied to toll it. (Appliusi 1 .) lleinust«av he felt ashamed of them and their want of courage*, which is not tin liish feature. Sir William Fox said : He was extremely disappointed when be read the speeches made by the delegates the other night. lie had thought That three such strong leaders in the political woild and membeis of the Imperial Parliamentthree men, the pick of rho Home Rule party— should have travelled 16,000 miles to toll the people of Austrihsia the little foolish tale they did. lie looked foi great oratoiy when three great political men dealt with the question. They instead a summary that would haidly be tolerated in a young men's debating society. He had thought that they wou'd have given something of what had been done in Ireland during the last 50 year*. That they did not do; neither did they say what nationalism meant or what boycotting means. That they should have told all the secret mysteiies of the plan they were trying to work out in the Old World. Up to the year 1814 the public mind had been occupied with the wars that were raging in Europe, wars which had arisen out of the French Revolution. That ended with the battle of Waterloo, and then tke public mind turned towards social and political refoims which needed carrying out. The Reform Bill whicl followed in 1830 gave the franchise erected municipalities, and gave bread te the people. Innumerab'e reforms followed during the nest 50 yeais, and Ireland partook in all these reforms,equally with other parts of Great Britain, He would tel them on the authority of Mr W. E Gladstone, the great Home Rule leader oi the piesent day— this was what he said in 1881 at Aberdeen— That Parliament had done everything for Ireland that had been done for other paits of the United Kingdom, except putting on some taxes that had been put on England and Scotland. He ridiculed the idea of breaking up the United Parliament, and asked if serious men supposed wo were going to break up the past and make ourselves redicnlous. That was the outcome of his views of the previous 40 years. But the gentlemen who ppoke the other night left this view of the question out altogether. Just at that time, lBBl,MrParnell had for the first time instituted the Plan of Campaign; MrGladstone the year after its establishment said, " It is idle to think of law and order if these men are to carry out their schemes. These men simply want r«i pine and want ta march through the disintegration of the empire to that rapine. " He would tell them what the Plan of Campaign meant — it was simply tins : To place every person who would not assist Home Rule under an absolute ban. For instance suppose a man refused for several years to pay his rent, and the landlord, after great patience and forbearance, evicted the man. Several persons might con\e forward and offer to take the land. Then the plan was, to let flvery man in that neighbourhood cease to have intercourse with theue persons, and treat them as lepers. (Hi ses.) They di I so, and this affeoted numbers of others. vGrooers and bakers who served them were ostracised, and if they went to church other persons left. This was the most fearful and crushing tyranny that the woild ever saw; worse than the Spanish Incjuisition. Now how was this plan, to be*

carried out? Mr Gladstone, in 1881, after visiting Ireland, told the nation that, "Boycotting is not, and never can be found unless it is kept up by murder." This was so. They not only boycotted, but they murdered. They committed terrible murders, and they systematically boycotted whole families They even went to such an extent that they actually boycotted dead bodies, for in a certain instance, a man's friends had been refused a coffin for a corpse ; the churchyard gates were closed against it, and the relatives had to take the body at midnight to a distant spot and bury it in the best way they could. Every sixpence paid in the City Hall the other night in the Home Rule cause was blood-stained money. (Hear, hear, and loud npp'ause.) The speaker then went on to refer to the feeling existing in America in reference to Home Rule for Ireland. Ho stated that he hud been there three years ago, and had never heard any expression of sympathy with reference to Home Rule amongst the intelligent poition of the Americans. (Applause.) Look to America and see how they had dealt with these matters in their own country. In one instance 2,500 people were shot do vn in the stieels for setting at defimce the law of the country, and wherever the law had been set at defiance in America the persons who so offended were suppressed by local forces. (Applause.) Whatever American sym pathy they had was the sympathy of murderers and dynamiter-, and the sympathies of those Irishmen in America who had no! been twelve months out of their own country, and whose hearts had been em- | bittered by Homcbitterness— thosympathy they had wa" the sympathy of djnamiters. He (the speaker) was in England three years ago, and while he was there, dynamiters came there and attempted to blow up the House of Parliament, the Tower of London, and London Bridge. These were the men whose sympathy the Irish agitators had, and these weie the men with whom they sympathised (appl/.uso). Although when they were in England they talked very mildly on this subject, when Mr Dillon and those gentlemen who wore with him came here they told a veryd fferent story Mr D. B. Mr-Donald said: Home Rule had bee i defined in a variety of manners and by a variety of persons. Ho described it as, "The particular Home Rule that suits the particular patriot who is addressing a particular audience/ (Applause.) In lieland Home Rule meant a separation of the last link that connected Ireland with the sanguinary Saxon, the annihilation of the landlords and other persons possessing property, and the distribution of that pioperty among the Home Rulers. In England and Australia Home Rule was defined as it was defined here the other e\cning. It was then defined a- a mild form of local sel [-government for Ireland, and the application to the people here for contributions towaids the evicted tenants of Ireland. The proverbi tl stereotyped evicted tenants whom they now read of it the news-pipers and " the dcciepid ol< woman of 97, with half«a dozen nake< children, and the old men thrown out ol th ii homes ami into the enow, b\ a lawless band of blood thirsty policeman backer up bv a whole brigade ul' in mi armed witl swords ami fixed ba^on* ts." The i> e were the facts brought before them with thi obje< t of enlisting their sympathies »iv! lightening their pocket*. Mr McDonald went on to rompaie the position of Ireland under tiie Union an.l her po-itioi prioi to th.it time, u ith a \ iew to contradicl the asset lion made by others that the industries <<f It chin 1 had been mined by union with GicMt l'lit.u'n. Fir.^t of all lit »aye the foil nving flames in connection with the t»me when he s.iM Ireland hid a P.n liciment in Dublin and possessed Home Rule. lairing th.it p j iiod the exports of Trel.md decie.i^ed by an annual sum of ii 1,082, 145, and the rational debt increas' d ftotn £2,44">,85)0 to the very respectable sum of £25,602,040 Dm ing the ten years after the union the exports of the country increased by no lesss-isum than £37,000,000 and in the fir&t twenty years after the union the exports and imports of Ireland were more thandoubled. In 1852 the money deposited in the Irish banks was £10,773,000, and at the present it was over £^0,000,000. The va'uo of their cattle in 1882 was £30,880,00 U, ■md in 1885 it was £00,000,000; and these were results which had been achieved since the union of Great Britain. (Applause.) Instead of stiff ei ing a loss of industry and commerce by the union with Gie.it Biitain, tho country had, as a matter of fact, benefitted enormously, The speaker quoted Dr Hannah, of Belfast, in regard to this matter in reference to Mr Win. E. Gladstone, whom he described as " the most consistently inconsistent statesmen whose name figures in the annals of BritMi history." The Unionists of Ireland number two millions, or onp-third of the population. Mr Gladstone when speaking in 1882, said, " The s-inction of boj-cotting. thut which stands in the rear of boycotting, and by which alone boycotting can in the long inn be made thoroughly effective, is the murder which is not to be denounced." Now he described it as " The system of exclusive dealing." That was not remarkable in Mr Gladstone because his political coat was the most reversible garment in Bi itain. His opinions were different when ir office and when out. Now he would call in Mr Dillon to give evidence. This was in 1886. They could only judge of the intentions of the organisation by scrutinizing' the public utterances of the leaders, and the actions of the subordinates. The speech waa in the United Ireland, October 23vd, 1886, therefore the truth could not be called into question as it was reported by Mr Dillons own friends. He siid : "If you mean to fight really you must put the money aside, for two roasons — first of all, because, you want the means to support the men who are first hit, and, secondly, because you want to prohibit traitors going behind your back. There |is no way to deal with a traitor ex- , cept to get his mon^y under lock and key, and if you- find that he pays his rent, what will you do with him ? I will tell you what to with him. Close ! upon his money and use it for the organisation. I have always been opposed to intrigue, but this is a legal plan, and it is ten tinris more effective." Mr McDonald «=aid he did not suppose that any of them would doubt the effectiveness of the sysrcm, but the moiality was questionable. Mr Dillon further said with regard to the disposition of Mie mone}', "This must be done privately, and you must not inform the pubic where the money is placed*" 1 New if that disinterested gentleman had intended tho money for lawful and benevolent purposes, why conceal it ? No one know where this money had gone, and it

never would be known until the day whenall secrets would be revealed. But they did know that money had been subpcribed, that men had been shot from behind! hedges by patriots, and cattle had been muti'atcd. Nnmerors patriots had don© the grand tjur in Britain, America and Austialasia. fie did not say that the money had been used for any of these purpose^ but they could, draw their own conclusions. He shonld think that if the Irish tenantry were left alone by interested parties they would return willingly toearn their bread honestly. The Parnellite party would not have had the sympathy of the people had they not had been given to understand that they would become possessed of the property of their Irish landlords wheu they got a Parliament in Dublin. Davitt knew the Bpring to touch, and where he was in prison Parnell almost destroyed it because he did not hold out to the people that hope. Mr Frank Lull referred to the threeclasses of people who kept up Home Rule. The first class, he siiid, was composed of good, honest rebels (laughter), who madeno secret of their opinions and what they were. (Applause) . He respected these,, and he could go to one of these and say r '• Shake hands, old boy, I'm loyal to the Queen, and your loyal tv the Pope." (Laughter and applause.) This class were genuinely in favour of separation straight, but the others were wavering, uncertain; and ignorant. In the old days, when mails took three months to reach the Antipodes, the Home Rulers here were advocating one line of policy, while their leaders were pounding away at another (laughter), and Mr Gladstone and his followers had certainly turned their coats and changed their collars and opinions with regard to Ireland. (Applause.) Mr Hull went on to refer to \vhat he termed " the real remedy for Ire'and's wrongs" as put forwaid by aonie of its advocates, and which he summed up in the*Eenteneo''that when the Protestants and loyal Outholics were driven out of Ireland they would not kill each other." (Laughter.) He also, created some amusement by referring to what he called " Mr Painell's prophecies" 'n respect to the progress of Home Rulefor Ireland. He mentioned the- Phoenix Park murder en passant, and remarked that Home Rule had one advantage over any other iule, because whatever sort of scoundrel any other pnrty had, the HomeRulers could always produce a bigger. The Home Rule po'icy was, " England's difficulty Ireland's opportunity." The true state of the feeling of Protestants in Ireland might be learned from the fact that while there were 1,173,600 Protestants in Belfast there were not 5,000 of thrt number Home Rulers, including women, children, and lunatics. The names of commercial men in Ireland were jihsent from the list of those who want Home Rule, although we were told it will so greatly benefit Ireland. Mr Hull then refeneil to the Coueion Act, an 1 said it re.ilU meant tli.it law and older was enfoiced. One clause of the Act read, *' It [shall he tinl.iw fill to shoot a landlord."" Well, tliKt was had enough, but when they added '' Kven though the Miid landlord a»ks fur hir> rent." Surely there they ha 1 another injtifc,ti, o to Ire'and (laughter). Mr Hull le.id the following extr.u t fromthe Unitd Irol.ird, d.iti-il M»iy 5, 1880 :— 4 We hri\e lepeatedly stated in this paper oni Ui.alteiabie. eons i< ti* »i» ih.\i the Kn»li-h are a n iti<ui or! scoundiek, the most unpiinciplcd, di honest r . ami rnp.icious of thehum in r.ice. No piiv»te a»sas.iiuition istoucuiel, no public m. ignore too wide— spiecuJ, for thib nati >ji of inconigible miscreants. This we'deem it our duty to iepo;it at every pos-ib!«* opportunity. Until it is thoroughly undor.-tood, until Irishmen take it thoroughly to heart, until it becomes the pi imal ai tide in tht. political cieeil ot the Iri-h nation, the independence of that country is wholly impossible. Th.r lieedom of Ireland is incompatible with a good opinion of Englishmen. If the liish people thoroughly understood the profound depiavity ami abominable wickedness ot the English character, they would never expect from Parliamentary agitation thn concessions which guilty oppression will yield only to panic terror. Nothing will teach honesty to a nation i f swindlers except abject fear of a violent, bloody, and immediate death." That showed how guaided that paper had to be in its language. That showed the cruel oppression that trampled on the libeity of the press. (Laughter.) The delegates told them that the only object was to cement England to Ireland. Mr Uu!l also referred to the evictions in Ireland, and said that some of the seven-and-sixpences and five shillings given to the delegates would most likelygo to defend some noble fellow who had shot his landlord. The priests said drink was bad (it made a man miss his landlord) still he noticed that they had consumed last year two millions more giog than they did tiie year before. They read that £94,000 was missing from tho Land League funds, and was the only part not accounted for. Mr Redmond had arrangedthat his own voucher should be sufficient, ani had thus accounied for £1,400 hotel and cab expenses. Mr G. Harper said that ff ter hearing the delegates he must say he had learnt nothing new. Their explanations were hash, simply hash. Sir Thomas Esmonde'w statistics spoke moie for the Governmei i of England than for the policy of tho Irish paiiy. As an Irishman he said it was cruel for these delegates to come here and put class against class. [For particulars as to the resolutions adopted at the above meeting, etc., we refer on* readers to our fifth page]