HOME RULE

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 January 1914, Page 6

HOME RULE

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PREPARATIONS IN ULSTER

tKESS ASdOOiATIUN —GQPIKIGHT, i

Received this day at 8.50 a.m. LONDON, January 29. Dozens of great country houses m Ulster arc being quietly prepared for use as hospitals with full equipment. Drilling continues nightly, in hundreds of centres.

Mr William O’Brien, speaking at Cork, said: “Home Rule cannot pass in its present form, which is fundamentally bad. Ministers must secure the sanction of a general election to the new Bill, otherwise it will bo impossible to call out the King’s troops to enforce it.’’

MR. REDMOND AT LIMERICK. REITERATES “FULL STEAM AHEAD.” ULSTER MUST NOT BE EXCLUDED. “WILLING TO BUILD A GOLDEN BRIDGE FOR THE RETREATING ENEMY ” Mr Redmond gave his reply to Mr ChurelulTs “there must be a General Election” speech on a recent Sunday at Limerick. He reiterated his famous dictum “Full steam ahead,” and referred to Mr Churchill's alternative of excluding Ulster from the provisions of Home Rulo as “impracticable and unworkable.” Ho also asserted that “without the smallest particle of doubt, barring some grave political earthquake, which no man can foresee, that Homo Rule will not only be the law of the land next year, buit that the new Parliament will be elected, and will be in existence before a General Election can take sjhfcic.” MR REDMOND. Mr John Redmond said I hope that the real significance of this gathering will not be missed, either in Ireland od outside of it. (Cheers.) This is not a Limerick meeting; it is a meeting of the men of Munster. (Cheers.) Every county in Munster is here. The men of the moat distant parts of Kerry, the whole practically of the bounties of Clare and Limerick, Waterford and Tipperary, they arc assembled in their thousands around the j platform. (Cheers.) Tire County ICoun. | cits of the province are here, the Corporj ations of all the cities and towns in the province are here, Cork leading the van (Cheers.) Limerick, Waterford; Clonmel, | all attending here through their chief j rates in state, and it is not an exj aggeration to say that every elected publi body in the province has sent its representatives here to take part in thi- ' gathering. (Cheers.) Now let me ad , what is the moaning of this unpara!le!e< demonstration—(a voice : “Horne Rule”) — j Ike like of which has not been witnessed ;in Limerick or in Munster, in this genera- : Hon. (Cheers.) The first object of this i gathering is to give the lie to those men i w ho have been declaring that Ireland has : grown apathetic in the struggle for Home Rule. (Cries of “No, no.”) If there ! were, and, thank God, trero is hot, any serious danger in the immediate triumph of our rase, the men who talk in this way would soon find out their mistake. (Cheers.) Well, the second object of the gathering, I take it to ho, is to strengthen the hands of those who have thrown upon them the weighty responsibility of condueling the Irish National movement in its last, hut triumphant phase. (Cheers.) I appreciate far more than words can explain the extraordinary warmth and enthusiasm by which my colleagues arid I have ben received by the people of Limerick and all Munster today—(dicra)-- 1

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and 1 take the liberty of saying to them, leaving, it 1 can, for the moment 'myself out altogether, 1 say that this confidence is not misplaced. (Cheers.) iNow,fellow-coun-trymen, the struggle for Home Rule, the old struggle in which your fathers and your grandfathers and your great grandfathers, aye, and further back still, took a part, is now practically ended. (Cheers.) That Ireland shall have Home Rule in tne immediate future is now recognised as inevitable not only in Ireland, but all through Great Britain and throughout the British Empire. "(Cheers.) The argumentative opposition to Home Rule is absolutely dead, and all the violent language, all the extravagant action, all the bombastic threats, are but indications that the battle is over. (Cheers.) They are tactics of despair. ' (Cheers.) They are not really methods of warfare at all ; they are simply the manoeuvres of defeated men, seeking to cover their retreat. (Cheers.) Our opponents, even the most extreme of them, no longer hope to win, and their one object in life at this moment is to find some means of saving their faces. (Cheers.) Well, now, lam a man who is always willing to build a golden bridge for a retreating enemy—(cheers) —and I say here to-day I am quite willing to assist in saving the faces of Sir Edward Carson and his friends. They must realise to-day, if they did not realise before, from the speeches that have recently been made in England, that their policy, well described by Mr Churchill as the bullies’ veto, is not going to he submitted to by the Government or the people >f these isles. (Cheers.) The British ■leople have made up their minds to give Home Rule—(cheers) —and they will not mbmit to the insolent threats and intimidation of Sir Edward Carson and Ida friends—(cheers) —and these men know now, if they did not know before, from the official declaration the other day of Mr Churchill—what, of course, wc all knew from the start —the policy of the Government is unchanged, and that it is. So far as Homo Rule is concerned, “full steam ahead.” (Loud cheers.) Early next year that Home Rule wil be passed for the third time in the House of Commons. (Cheers.) Whether it be rejected by the House of Lords or not, it will become the law of the land next year. (Cheers.) It will become operative in th»' normal course, and after tin) normal and neeewiry and short interval an Irish Parliament will be elected and will be sitting in College Green. (Cheers.) I notice that Mr Churchill thinks it likely that a General Election may taka place in Great Britain before an Irish Parliament has had time to pass serious legislation. Well, of that no man can speak with cert'dntv, but one thingl can declare without the smallest: particle of doubt, barring s-nv grave political earthquake which m man can forosee. Tint Home Pul- wip n 0(, only be t!ie Jaw of the land next, year, but that the new Parliament will be elected, and will bo in existence before a General Election can take 1 place in Great Britain. (Cheers.)

F sec (ho Tory Party seem to thank that if (hey wore returned to power at the next General Election they could repeal Rome Rule. (Laughter.) Well, ,vhat 1 have to say is—that if they think they can with case or impunity violate another treaty, they know very jittlo of the Tro land they would have to deal with to-day. (Cheers.) I make then a present of the prospect. (Laughter and cheers.) Now it looks as if the Ulster rebels —(laughter) wore now looking for terms. Personally I always thought they would, and 1 always regarded the warlike preparations of the rovisinnal Government simply ns a means of raising the price. (Cheers.) kU'!<’, E. Smith prophesied m one of his

speeches recently in Ulster that the time would come when Sir Edward Carson would negotiate with 100,00 Omen behind him. (Laughter.) Well, ho lias not got 100,000 men behind him but apparently he thinks the time for negotiation has arrived. Mr Churchill spoke the other day Words of conciliation to Oitr Ulster opponents. Amongst other things he said this: —“I day to Ulster that there is no demand they can which, will net he lilct and matched, and more 1 than matched, by their Irish fellow-countrymen,j and by the Liberal Party in Great Britain.’ Now, within certain r’ear and wel defined lines and limits, I wr’. to endorse that | declaration. (Cheers.) I have repeatedly stated that there are practically no limits, short of betrayal of Home Huh;, to which personally I would be unwilling to. go to bring about an absolutely united Ireland. (Cheers.) If our opponents in Ulster desire stil further provisions in the Home Rule If'll to safeguard them against the possibility of oppression, persecution or injustice; if they have any claim to urge even for a further repre sentation in the Irish Parliament; if they have any claim t-o urge for the greater control of local administration, and they say it is admlnish, don and not legislation they fear, if the. nave any claims 01 that sort to put forward I can conceive no reasonable demand that would not be considered U ; rly and sympathetically by rny colleague,' mid myself. (Cheers.) Cut Mr Churchill, in his speech in Scotland, alluded to 7, nossible exclusion of a part of Ireland, condition that both parties in England agreed to pass the bill and make it a real settlement. Now, 1 have to say here to-day that that suggestion is a totally impracticable and unworkable one. (Cheers.) Let me point out that it has no irionds in Ireland. No section of rational opinion has ever sug gested or tolerated the idea. No responsible leader of +he Unionist party in Ire land has ever- pu-w forward that idea as a means of settL-Tier.i of the Irish question, and when it was proposed in the of Commons, the men who proposed it declared in so many words that they put it forward simply as a means of wrecking and killing the Horne Rule Bill. And if you turn to the Unionist press, you will find the Belfast “News-Letter” and the Belfast “Evening Telegraph,” representing the extreme Orange section, stating that no settlement of the National question can be based upon this idea, and you find the “Irish Times,” representing Unionist opinion in the rest of Ireland, declaring that any such suggestion would be a betrayal of the Unionists in the South and in the West. It seems to me that Mr Churchill himself docs not regard this suggestion as likely to lead to a settlement, because he spoke in his speech of the necessity of preserving and maintaining the national integrity of Ireland. 'Cheers.) But when a suggestion, no mat. ter how casually put forward, or how badly supported, of that kind is made, and to repeat the statement that I have made many times in Parliament and out of it. that Irish Nationalists can never be assenting parties to the mutilation of the T >-ish nation. ’ (Cheers.) Ireland is a unit from north to south and from cast to west It is true that within the bosom of a nation there is room for many local diversities of the treatment of government and of administration, but a unit Ireland is, and Ireland must remain, and we can never submit to any proposal which would create a sharp eternal dividing line between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants. (Cheers.) Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants alike are the children of Ireland. Their blood has flown in the same stream on many a stricken field in defence of Irish liberty in the past. Catholic and Protestant alike in the Senate, upon the field, and the .'scaffold, and in the prison have stood together as brothers, almost as children of the same mother, and we would he degenerate Irishmen if wo became assenting parties to anything which would say that la the future there should be two nations amongst Irishmen and a dividing line be tween Catholics and Protestants. Our ideal is the exact reverse.

Wc want all Irishmen to join together in defence of ’their common motherland, and we take our stand on the immortal and historic words of Parnell, who declared in the House of Commons in 1886 that Ireland could not spare a single son, and that no matter Ik "7 good u_n Irish Protestant might be, ne was ~ot too good to take his share with his Catholic brothers in making an Irish Parliament the in strument of religions and civil liberty in Ireland.

The truth is that those who imagine we could be assenting parties to the parturi. tion of Ireland profoundly misunderstood the sou] and essence of the national movement. The two-nation theory is to us an abomination and a blasphemy. Ulster is as much a part of Ireland as Munster. We know in our idea of the Irish nation no district, no county, no province. We know no race, or creed, or class. Ireland, and all Ireland for the Irish, Ireland emancipated, Ireland united, Ireland indivisible. (Cheers.) These are our unchanged and unchangeable ideals, and let me say it with reverence and seriousness to you, we ought reverently to thank God that we have lived to see the day when those ideals are accepted by the democracy of Great Britain. The Home Rule forces in England, in Ireland, in Scotland are led by a great man whom wc have all learned to honour and trust, jlui Prime Minister, Mr Asquith. (Cheers.) Undeterred by abuse and slander, midis, raayod by violence and threats, be lias calmly pursued bis course, and his reward will be not merely the gratitude of a generous people, but the eternal glory of having ended the unholy war between the peoples of these two islands, and of having added Ireland at long la.st to that great sisterhood of nations, of contented and loyal nations, that go to make up the Bditish Empire to-day. (Cheers.l Isaac Butt, the great man whom Limerick sent to Parliament, once said in the House of Commons: “I have been scut from the citv of the Violated Treaty, (o propose a new treaty that shall ontlast the river (hat flows by her walls.” Isaac Butt passed away, and his name is added lo the long roll of men who fought for Ireland and who died before (he sun had burst through her clouds. He laid the foundation of the Home. Rule movement. It lias been reserved for ns of this generation to bring it to a completion. (Cheers.) The light for Home Rule is practically over; the now treaty is about to be signed. It will not be a treaty between kings, but between peoples, and it will never be violated, and. in the words of Butt, i(. will outlast the river that flows by (lie walls of Limerick. (Cheers.)