A COLONIAL VIEW OP HOME RULE

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2319, 12 June 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

A COLONIAL VIEW OP HOME RULE

' Tb following letter from Mr Robert ■ Pkrazyn, M.L.O, criticising Mr. Gladstone's.Honie Rule measure, appeared in tb.:Timesof tho 16th April;-~" Permit iniei :is an old colonist, tornado a few ro--marks^on.; Mr .Gladstone's■■■ proposal :: to ;::bestpw:a very : vickot.y colonial constitution :Upoir].relpd.;ln';:pfincip.lo''it bears a :siugulaft'es'einblancejii()fcti)>hu:relati(iii. :'.w.hich : uxist bt'twcoivtho colonics and the ■Mother bui-witli-Uhat which. : used/ to;exis't betw'eor-the:'. General:. Gov;' ; ernnieiit of NewZealaudand viy tlio: ■Bix:prov.iiicie3'iiitp:;wliich. it ;was.;origin:i!ly. d^ide;d.;^.Tlmiresiiit ; was' ypwpetuah'coh/i; ■dietbetween thosuproip autls'uburdiuatu; iindiijg in; the' .ii!ia}.'abolition\ of tho iattw'j'■■■;Tit''tlw the. they .did the proco.'.clb of thu Oustoip revenue, which was raised;, ■by %h- General Govern; liient alone, had every inducement. to be pxtrayiigant, and regarded, ■any demand made upon thorn for common purposes as an .extortion, which it Wrt3; more than once, proposed to resist by' force of wills, arid .which was frequently: resisted by force of political combination If bucli a state of things could, arise as rapidly as it did in a new Country, between the.different sections of whose inhabitants there was no natural antagonism of interest or feeling', how can wo expect an analogous system to work smoothly iii the case of England and Ireland? Eegarded as an atihirof business, 1 venture, tu-na.scrt that no colonial latiire would;; regard Mr Gladstone's scheme—elaborate and ingenious though it is-iis worthy of the serious consideration of practicable men, Regarded from the highest, point of view of a wide and farseeing statesmanship, I. believe that any such scheme, if assented to by the people (if England, would have a most disastrous effect upon tho integrity of tho Empire as a whole. Colonists—who, bo it remembered, are Englishmen, who have changed their skios but not their minds—would sec in this such a degradatimrof public opinion, such a sigimf a craven spirt preferring present ease to right and justice, that they would cease to he proud of being Englishmen at ail, They would fool, too, that a people • who had cist adrift loyal subjects in a country close to them simply because they found tho task of preserving, or rather restoring, social order within it a difficult one, and with a still lighter heart abandon their more distant but equally loyal kinstneu should a great ..war strain the resources of tho Empire to their utmost. A nation is not a structure but ai. organism. Depend upon it if disink'ivvntioii begins with Ireland it will not mid them.