Hopeful and Full of Courage

New Zealand Tablet, 18 January 1912, Page 15

Hopeful and Full of Courage

' - . ■ The . Right H 0,,. Mr. Birrell, Chief Secretary for Ireland, was recently the guest at dinner of the NinetyNme Club, Leeds. Speaking on Home Rule, Mr Birrell said an extraordinary change had taken place m the minds of men on this great subject since it was ' first introduced. Against it there were then mountains of prejudice and ignorance, and on . the whole good, or at all events, not much harm, had followed ‘ from the defeats. of a measure which had not been fully', considered. But many, many things had happened " ; since then. . People in England had no conception what V an extraordinarily bold step the giving of Local SelfGovernment to Ireland was. It handed over from the v Irish gentry to peasants and small farmers the whole work of administering the counties, and so far from reakmg down, that measure had proved an admitted success. They had shown themselves skilful and for the most part economical. Then there was Land Pur- - C p aSe ‘ alf , of . the a g ricultural land in Ireland had 1 changed hands since those days, and it was now vested in small peasant proprietors, who had left off pay in < rent. They paid , interest in . lieu of rent. There wer! • i no arrears, and when they were , freed from that debt

hey would be the unencumbered freeholders of then ancient lands These vast' changes had wrought * revolution in, the minds and feelings of the Irish people Again, there was old age pensions, which had promoted thrift and temperance. There was not much talk no. about, separation. With: local self-government land purchase, and the lavish gift of pensions for the aged poor, it was a very different country’ in fact arid S in eelmg from what it was in 1886 or 1893. • He an anTfulfo/ 16 gr6at ° f securin S Home Rule hopeful cv d full of courage, because he was persuaded that the that the task altered M d - th i circum stances so changed “t^: t elmi^ difficuit « « was, difficuit as it still would be—was yet possible. -