SIR THOMAS ESMONDS ON THE ENEMIES OF IRISH LIBERTY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2113, 23 January 1886, Page 4

SIR THOMAS ESMONDS ON THE ENEMIES OF IRISH LIBERTY.

Sir Thomas Grvttak Esmosde, speaking at a meeting in Loughlinstown on the 15th November, said:— •• There is no man with Irish blood in his veins, with the warmth of Irish patriotism in his breast, who does not feel his heart beat faster as the crisis of the war of ages approaches (cheers), and the gioat leader of our nation prepares to ask under the new conditions that will shortly be created whether the Irish Parliament shall be restored to the Irish people (renewed cheers.) It ia pitiful at such a moment, when the nation is bracing itself for this supreme effort, to wjSjcbs the puny endeavours of the miserable defendeis of a dying despotism to resist the progress of the Irish people. It has been the fate of this country for many centuries past that every crisis of her long struggle against oppression a wretched faction, established in her midst, has abetted the foreign tyranny which she strove to shake off. These men ha\e played persistently fche part of the domestic enemy (hear, hear.) They have lived in our midst, but have not grown into symathy with us; arrogant and cruel when in power, insidious and treacherous when stiipped of it; openly oppre^inj?, or pccietly undermining the nation they hnvo fastened upon, they hivo been alike our weakness and our dishonour (cheers). They have been tho frionr.s of our ftiomierf. They have formed a centre toward* -which the weak and *la\ish elements among u« have naturally converged. They have shrunk from no evil deed that could impair the prosperity of Ireland, and for the wrong they could not do themselves they have over been ready to pay the mercenary adventurer (cheers). The dignity, the nationhood of tho Iri-h people is nothing to them. They are foreigners in sympathy. The shrine towards which the'r homage is directed is the centre of power in another land. Their business here is to keep this nation in that state of helpless servitude in which its political rights can be violated wilh impunity, and its national honoui outraged without risk. At this moment, as at every critical moment of lreLind'n history, they are active for evil. In face of the spirit that has grown up within the Irish race during the last decade of yearn, in spite of the sense of its own strength that has come upon tho people by the successes it has achieved, they come now to plead the maintenance of that subjection which enthrals and disgraces us. They are loud in their declarations that the legislative union which for over eighty years has robbed us of our nationality ih a holy compact which it would be reckless profanity to disturb ; that on it iv some indispensable way depends that mystic blessing known as the integrity of the Empire (laughter) ; and that, finally, it is the one assured basis of our national prosperity. They ask why we should desire legislative independence. We reply, because it is our right and we choose to assert it. We are a people distinct from the English and Scotch ; we can be friends with them if they will, bat nature has not made us one with them. We claim for the people of Ireland that it constitutes an Irish uation, and so long as the sense of a common national life unites the inhabitants of this island, so long will they claim the privileges of a free people, and enforce their claims as opportunity permits. As for the sacred compact of the Union (laughter), we pity the men who were mean enough to respect it. It is to us a standing monument of national humiliation (cheers), a memorial of wrongs which it would be .elementary wisdom in British statesmen to put for ever out of sight. It reminds us without ceasing of the foul deeds that were done but a generation ago to rob us of our independence ; it keeps alive the memory of the ruin that overspread the land when one hundred and thirty thousand bloodhounds in British uniform were let loose on our people, to hold them by the throat while an Eng lish Minister filched away the treasure of our national liberty (groans). It reminds us but too well of the scenes which Lord Cornwallis, the English Viceioy of the day, has so graphically described — '"The burning of houses, and murder of the inhabitants by the yeoman or any othei person who delighted iv that amusement ; the flogging for the purpose of extorting confession ; the free quarters which comprehend univeisai rape and robbeiy throughout the whole country" (groans). It recalls the sordid treachery of the Lish peeis, who sold themselves — a worthless bargain — and with themselves the country — The Hamilton*, the Beresfords, the Enniskillens, and the rest. It keeps fresh in our recollection the feats of outrage achieved by Sirr, Swan, and Hepeustall, and their comrade miscre ants, in bringing to a conclusion that sacred compact which Mr lon Traut Hamilton proclaims to Dublin county and to Ireland he will uphold to the death. It prevents us from forgetting that £16,000,000 of this nation's money was spent between 1797 and 1802 in supporting British troops to stifle the voice of the Irish people ; that one million and a half was spent in bribing the owners of Irish boroughs ; that another million and a half was divided among the perjurers, traitors, and butchers who had been specially zealous in reducing the nation to helplessness, and fitting the yoke upon its neck. We might, perhaps, be disposed to let these things fade gradually into the gloom of a melancholy past, did our foes, foreign and domestic, not insist upon enshrining them in the memory of the people by claiming homage for the relics of dishonour they have left us. But they come before us with dangerous freshness, when Hamiltons, Beresfords, and EnDiskillens again appear upon the scene of Irish politics to justify the suppression of Ireland's Parliament. At such a sight the old spirit of '98 wakes in the breasts of a people, renewed in its strength {loud cheers, renewed again and again). This spirit will lead us, I trust, to meet the champions of foreign oppression as our fathers met them before us. We may win, or we may lose, in the fresh struggle we enter on, but now fondly believe while the blood of Fitzgerald hallows the pavement of Dublin Castle (cheers), or the grass grows green on Vinegar Hill (cheers), will an Irishman, who is not a renegade for pay, or a slave by nature, acquiesce in the transaction known as the Legislative Union (loud cheers). And now for the integrity of the Empire. Let us discu6S the matter in terms of common sense. TV hat concern of ours ia it that the Empire should be glorious if we are not an acknowledged part of the Empire? (Hear, hear). What did it matter to the Helot that Sparta should be powerful while he was the slave of Sparta ! What did it matter to the Roman bondsman that his masters should win victories in Asia or Africa if his subjection was not made easier thereby ? And what does it matter to us whether the Empire flourishes if the might of the Empire is to be em ployed to keep usintharldom? (Hear hear). Frankly, we have had enough of this insipid cant about the integrity of the Empire (cheers). When we are recognised by the other members of the Imperial organisation as on a level with them, we will then take thought for the common glory. But while we are excluded from our rightful place in the Impeiial councils ; « liile we are chained to the Impel ial car— not admitted to sit in dignity within it, we shall watch the viciscitudes of its progress rather with an eye to our own freedom than with a concern for its safety (hear, hear) If the men who weary us with petty platitudes about the intfgrity of the Empire sincerely wish that w c should sympathise with their anxiety they have the means withiu easy reach. Let them allow us to be of the Empire as well as in the Empire. Let them make it worth our while to defend it and we will do so. But so long as they keep us in a condition in which the downfall of the Imperial power i 9 the collapse of a tyranny which is grinding our faces, we must regard their invitation to zeal for the Empire ai a mockery of common seusc

(applause). I will not delay you much 'longer to discuss the further plea by which our Unionist politicians nupport their programme — namely, that the Union is the basis of Ireland's prosperity. Look around you and say whether if the Union be the foundation of our prosperity this foundation has got much to sustain. Ireland was a thriving co'intiy eighty five jears ago. What is she now? (Hear, henr.) What are her manufactures '! Wheie is her commeice ? Clone with the National independence rhat nursed them into life and maintained them in activity. Our harboms are empty — the wharves that were constructed a centuiy ago are rotting into ruin (hear, heai.) What were once busy centres of trade ha\ c become silent as the galleries of the old structure in which the legislature of Ireland once assembled, and the hum of traffic has ciink into silence deep as that which reigns over the graves of Charlemont aiid Henry Grattan (loud cheers.) In presence of facts like these we owe a tiibute of homage to the courage of the man who comes before the electois of Ireland and boldly asks them to vote for the maintenance of the Union. Whether such courage 18 born of hypociisy or folly I will not presume to say. But this I will assert, that if at this crisis in the history of the Irish people a man can be found who will such an appeal by his vote, that man is unfit to be the free citizen of a free couutry — he has come into the woild a century too late ; he should have lived in the days when English Ministers could afford to pay a high price for treachery to Ireland (loud and prolonged cheers.)