HOME RULE. (Manchester Examiner) (Northern Whig—Belfast.)

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 368, 22 September 1874, Page 2

HOME RULE.

(Manchester Examiner )

(Northern Whig— Belfast.)

(Times.) The condition of Ireland is not very satisfactory. We do not hesitate to make the avowal, and we put aside altogether the complaint that Home Rulers are ungrateful in raising a troublesome agitation after the Irish Church establishment has been abolished. The people of Ireland have, as Mr Butt said, a right to be governed justly, and they owe no gaatitude for the payment of a debt. Yet the recent legislation of the United Parliament may be legitimately roftrred to as an argument against the proselytism of Home Rulers. If the existing Legislature showed itself absolutely indifferent and dead to complaints from Ireland, their might be an excuse for advocating an experiment which cannot be admitted if the Legislature is, on the contrary, alive to renion&taances and eager to remedy what is wrong. The Irish Church Act and the Irish Land Act are witnesses to this better temper ) and if it is said, in reply, that they were due to a Fenian outburst, we may appeal to the history of this very session to shew that the spirit of candour and of statesmanship is not wanting even when there is no pressure from without to compel the attention of Parliament. Mr Butt's own Bills have been seriously discussed, and there is reason to believe that one of them will become law before the se&sion is closed. When, again, he called attention to an apparent abuse of the exceptional powers of detention vested*in the Lord Lieutenant, there was an instant manifestation of opinion in the House of Commons that strict enquiry must be made into the transaction. These incidents are our answer to the chum for Home Rule. They shew that the existing machinery is not absolutely insufficient for the Goeminent of any part of the Kingdom, and the\ attest a temper of more importance than machinery, because it has the power of correcting and improving it whore it is faulty.

The real issue is not Homo Rule, but the complete independence of Ireland. We must remain as we are, or the Irish must become a separate nation. Any tertium quid is not worth discussion, except as temporary expedient for giving life to Irish politics and providing something for Irish members to talk about. Should it be said that the disaffection of the great majority of the Irish people to British l'ule is a formidable fact, our reply would be that it is not so formidable as it seems. The sentiment of disloyalty is spread over an extensive urea ; but it is neither strong nor deep, and it is becoming weaker and shallower every year. Ask the Irish people whether they will vote for or against Home Rule or national independence, and they have no difficulty in making up their minds. It costs nothing, and does not mean much. The main point is that they have no grievance worth fighting about ; and, this being the case, the growth and ultimate supremacy of loyal sentiments is only a question of time.

Mi* Butt and his friends have no intention of limiting themselves to politics. The case for Home Rule, or for the repeal of the Union, is much weaker now than when O'Connell began his ill-advised agitation. The more extreme or" the Irish Catholics, under the teaching of National journals, are more extreme now than they were then. Projects of separation and of complete indpendence are openly avowed ; and as the Spectator has very ably shown this week, even a limited and local independence would be utterly incompatible with any freedom or security to the Irish Protestants. This is the fact. It is thoroughly accepted by the Liberal Protestants of Ulster not less than by their conservative opponents. The Government and the ovei'whelming majority of the House of Commons could only, therefore, meet the motion of Mr Butt by a direct and emphatic negative. It is well that Mr Butt and his friends should understand that, though by their agitation that may check the progress of the country and drive it to the \ergo of civil war, the two great paities in the State — Liberal and Conservative — are resolved to give no encouragement to impracticabla and ruinous demands.