THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 1906 THE BURNING QUESTION

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2, 11 January 1906, Page 17

THURSDAY, JANUARY 11, 1906 THE BURNING QUESTION

"^rf^ft ACTS are chiels that winna ding. And Home Hjiwr^ Rule is the question that will not down. It j r'fmti has l(tn ifl he Irish mind ever since th 3 J%Y Act of Union was passed 'by force and l^jy^ fraud.' It has been growing in organisa«KSK lion, unity, and volume ever since the dawn tf&iffi of the Repeal movement. And to-day it is voluminously alive and, active— the great burning question of politics on both sides of the Irish Sea. .* The broad grounds of the demand for Home Rule remain as, urgent and unanswerable as when O'Connell started his crusade for Repeal tin the days of ' Scorpion Stanley.' The hapless country— froriT which the people are fleeing in shiploads as from a 'pest-stricken land — is to this hour ruled, riot by its people (who have no right of control whatever over her affairs), but by a Parliament sitting in Westminster. The .Executive Authority consists of a knot of imported oligarchs sitting in Dublin Castle, and foreign in race, religion, and political aspirations to the people whom they govern. They are wholly independent of popular responsibility or control. And, in unbroken Succession, they have ever acted in the interests of a sectional and sectarian Ascendancy tftati is as real, if not as omnipotent, a factor in Irish public life to-day as it was before the Catholic Emancipation Act was placed upon the British Statute Book. Vacillation, incompetence, and ignorance of the conditions of the country were (as Mr. Redmond lately remarked) the, hall-marks of the late Administration, as they have be y en"of every British Government that ever . attempted to rule the ' Sister ' Isle. And caprice and callous disregard of the rights and feelings of the' people havie been the .outstanding characteristics o£ the institution that is known in Ireland by the hated name of Dublin Castle. In a recent speech in Glasgow Mr. Redmond said :—: — "The Irish people have no voice in the management of their own affairs. I do not 'mean by that that they, have no- voice in' the House of Commons. The curious thing about their position in the House of Commons is this : that while we are powerless in the settlement of Irish affairs, we sometimes play a very important part in Etoglish affairs. The Government" of Ireland has been; and 'tis to-day, the,, .most inefficient and .costly, Government of all Europe. In . proportion to population, Ireland is the'' most, expensively .governed country in the whole world. The cos£ .of government is double that* yofl Belgium, and -pet we" have the admission of English "statesman '/^hat, as : ~far ' as education is concerned,, Ireland is* far' behind,, ihe. least progressive country) in Europe^ And yet Irish* industries are falling - back. — thousands of acres of land are Lying derelict, her waterway's are left neglected and. the ..railway .rates in -Ireland are fifty per cent, higher than those in ,any" o.ther country in Europe. i: 'Nothing is I>eing done for 4;tie Ibetter housing 'of ■' "the' poor, ' and all this vast costly machinery; of Government :.»is -carried ■ on> for the- benefit of a small section of the people whose loyalty has always been conditional upon their own profits and emoluments. The* cost of government in; Ireland', is. increasing. Ten years ago the -total, taxation Was seven millions ; to-day it is over ten' million's. ' ""This v is monstrous, -in view of the

rapid decrease (in the population of the country. Only those who have place, or expect to get place, are content with the present condition of things in Ireland.' It has been Ireland's crowning misfortune that for centuries past racial and religious prejudice have been the guiding principles on which she has been ruled. It is an evil tradition, ' But 'tis a bitter woe That lo\e or reason cannot change.' Time, says Byron, strips -illusions of their hue, ' And one by one, in turn, some grand mistake Casts off its bright skin yearly, like the snake.' Ihe time is more than ripe for the casting 08 the evil and bitter prejudice which refuses to Ireland what is accorded as a matter of course to every British colony, the right to manage her own internal aflairs in her own way. * In his better days Lord Rosebery was an outspoken Home Ruler, lie declared that the Irish question was the first and most urgent to dispose of, and that it should be settled by the consent of the Irish people, because (said he) ' when you wish to give a benefit to a nation, it is better to give it something that it likes, than something that it neither likes nor understands.' Even the Tory Administration, when they sent Lord Dudley to Dublin in 1902, gave him (says Mr. Morley) the message that Ireland was to be governed in accordance with Irish ideas. Sir Antony MacDonnell— lndian statesman and Irish Catholic Nationalist— was selected to-earry out the new regime. He conferred with patriotic Irishmen. Then (says Mr* Morley) ' the rat-tat was heard on the Orange drum, and the whole thing was " broke " by this Government of courage. Lord Dudley was ignored. Sir Antony MacDonnell was censured. Mr. Wyndham was cast, to the wolves. And Mr. Balfour, who was privy to everything from the first, sat snugly in the Treasury, studying his clay's lessons.'

' Neither heat nor frost nor thunder Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been.' The overwhelming majority of the Irish people demand Home Rule, Scotland and Wales stand for Home Rule. A Home Rule Bill was carried in the British House of Commons by the substantial majority of thirty-four votes. It was, of course, killed in ' the other place '—the non-elective chamber. Even the lame, the halt, the blind, and the imbecile of high-titled capitalism were brought from anear and afar to thwart the will ol the people's representatives. The Parliaments of the Australian Commonwealth and the Dominion of Canada have pronounced for Home Rule. 'It will,' says the ' New Zealand Times,' 'be extremely difficult to convince the people of the Britain beyond the seas that a policy which has made them prosperous and loyal would not produce similar results in Ireland. Mr. Balfour and his friends know very well that a denial of self-governing powers to the colonies would have led to separation, as it did in the case of the American colonies, and it is surely idle for them to pretend, in the face of experience, that a policy of coercion and subjugation is fitted to make Ireland contented and loyal.' 'In answer,' says Mr. Redmond, ' to the statesman who asks us to think Imperially, I recommend that gentleman to think Imperially regarding Ireland, whose demand for Home Rule has the support of all the Legislatures of all the Colonies of the British Empire". The cause of Ireland is movfing on, not, thank Cod, by riot, as in Russia, but by| reason. The whole civilised world to-day sympathises with our movement. If they took a poll of the Empire they could carry Home Rule any moment by an overwhelming majority. My profound conviction is this : that the day is near when the whole people of

Great Britain will wonder how it was that British statesmen hesitated for a moment in restoring the powers of self-government to Ireland— those powers which, when that day comes, will be proved to have been the means of changing our country from what she is to-day— the one danger in the Empire, the one disgrace, the great disgrace of British statesmanship— into a peaceful, contented, and friendly nation.'