NATIONAL BANQUET IN LONDON

New Zealand Tablet, 11 May 1911, Page 849

NATIONAL BANQUET IN LONDON

THE IRISH LEADER AND THE WORLD’S PEACE 4 MR. A. CARNEGIE AND HOME RULE Mr. John Redmond, M.P., presided on March 16 at the Irish National St. Patrick’s Day banquet, which was held at the Hotel Cecil, London. There was a record attendance, and amongst those present were ; —Mr. R. Hazleton, M.P.; Captain the Hon. Fitzroy Hemphill, MajorGeneral Sir A. E. Turner, Mr. J. P. Boland, M.P. ; -Count O’Clerv, Mr. F. J. Smyth, M.P.; Mr. J. J. O’Shee, M.P.;.Mr. W. A. Redmond, M.P. (son of the Irish leader); Mr. John T. Donovan, Mr. Wm. O’Malley, M.P.; Mr. M. Keating, M.P.; Mr. Clement Shorter, etc. Mr. John Redmond, M.P., who was enthusiastically received on rising to propose ‘lreland a Nation,’ said; For the twelfth time in succession I have the honor to-night of proposing at the St. Patrick’s Day banqiiet the toast of ‘ Ireland a Nation.’ The twelve years which have elapsed shade I first had the honor of presiding at this gathering of Irishmen in London on St. Patrick’s Day have been years of labor and anxiety and responsibility for everyone concerned in the management and conduct of the Irish National movement. They have been years marked by many great achievements for Ireland—great measures of land reform, rooting the people of Ireland as owners of the soil they till, great measures of educational emancipation, such as the creation of a National University upon Irish so l, Great Measures of Social Reform such as the creation of decent homes for the agricultural laboring population, and the provision of facilities, at any rate, for the better housing of the artisans in the towns — great measures for the protection of town tenants as well as agricultural _ tenants; measures whereby thousands of evicted tenants have been restored to their old homes; and measures whereby old age pensions have been given to the poor old men and women of our country over seventy years of age, providing them thereby with the opportunity of some little ease and comfort in their declining years. Yes, these twelve years have been marked by great achievements for Ireland; and yet we as Irish Nationalists must admit to-night thAt the cause, the cause of causes, the great cause that overshadows all others, the cause which we celebrate to-night in the toast of ‘ Ireland a Nation,’ still, after these years of labor and anxiety, remains for us an unfulfilled aspiration. During those years that have passed we have had our moments of natural bitterness and resentment against England, when we saw our country, under the iron heel of coercion, governed by men who affected to despise our race and deride our aspirations. We have had our moments of gloom, of heart-sinkingalmost, I might say, of despair—when we saw no immediate prospect before us of the realisation of our aspirations during the lifetime of this generation; and yet all those years, no matter how gloomy or how hopeless seemed the prospect for us, we assemble here on St. Patrick’s Eve to renew our pledge of fidelity to our ideal and to declare that, no matter how long the time which had yet to elapse, and no matter what tribulation had still to be endured by our race, we believe, as we believe in God Himself, that our cause was an immortal and invincible one. To-night, at long Tast, thanks be to God, we meet with, I may say, the very light of victory shining on our country. Ladies and gentlemen, we are no longer engaged in , A Struggle Between England and Ireland England and Ireland have joined hands against the common foe of both in defence of the rights and liberties of the people, and under this placid influence all the old racial hatreds have disappeared from our hearts, all bitterness has gone from our souls, and to-day our aspiration—we Irishmen—our aspiration is this, we want peace with England, we want friendship with the English people. We ■want our proper place in the British Empire, and we want buried fathoms deep in the ocean of oblivion all memory of the wrongs and miseries and oppressions of the past. In 1795 Grattan said, that Fitzwilliam was offering to the Empire ‘ the affection of millions of hearts.’ We to-day are making the same offer to the Empire, and we have the happiness of knowing that that offer will not be spurned as it w-as in 1795, but that a new and great Treaty of Peace between the British and the Irish people—a treaty based upon a combination of liberty and loyalty—will speedily make the unity of the Empire for the first time in its history a reality and not in name. Ladies and gentlemen, let me put before you this thought. Perchance the treaty of peace with Ireland may prove to be the forerunner and, in a certain sense, one of the contributory causes of another great treaty whereby not merely the peace of the English and Irish peoples will be achieved, but whereby the peace of the civilised world may be safeguarded. When we toast ‘ Ireland a Nation,’ we toast no ignoble or narrow or sordid ideal. . We want no triumph over ancient enemies, we want No Triumph Over Any Class or Creed whatever their history in the past may have been. We take Ireland as it is to-day, made up of intermingling of many

races and of many creeds, and w-e want liberty for all, and we will not tolerate ascendancy over any, Thomas Davis, in one of his inspired writings, thus described the Irish Nationality which was his ideal. He said: ‘Such nationality as merits a good man’s help, and wakens a true man’s ambition; such nationality as could stand against international faction and foreign intrigue such nationality as would make the Irish hearth happy, and the Irish name illustrious; it must contain and represent the races of Ireland. It must not be Celtic, it must not be Saxon must be Irish. The Brehon Laws, the maxims of Westminster, the cloudy and lightning genius bf the Gael, the placid strength of, the Sassenach, the marshalling insight of the Norman—a literature which shall exhibit in combination the passions and idioms of all, and which shall equally express our minds in its romantic, religious, forensic, and practical tendencies a native Government, which shall know and rule by the might and right of all, yet yield to the arrogance of none. Such are the component parts of the nationality we seek.’ Ladies and gentlemen, 1 say that is an accurate description of our ideal. Our Irish nation must exclude no man, whatever his race or his creed or his class. It must be a nation made up of all the people of Ireland; and I say that that is our ideal, and it is in that spirit that I give to you the toast which I ask you to drink with me of ‘ Ireland a Nation.’ MR. CARNEGIE AND HOME RULE. Mr. Redmond received the following message of congratulation on March 17 on his speech of the previous night; ‘Thousand thanks for your noble . speech. The day has dawned when not only will Ireland get Home Rule, but war will be abolished within the wall boundaries of the English-speaking race, adding a new charm to life.—Andrew Carnegie.’