HOME RULE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9356, 27 April 1893, Page 2

HOME RULE.

The Post of Monday has a stupid fan« faronade on the passing of the second reading of the Home Rule Bill. The whole of it is founded on this sentence : — " The century was ushered In by a great nation.il wrong. The Act which deprived a nation of Parliamentary independence was pnssed m the year ISOO. That Act erased Ireland from the roll of nations, abolished its Legislature, and placed the vast majority of the Irish people under the domination of a minority alien in race and creed." Now, in the first place, ' the Irish Parliament, the restoration of wbioh is going to do such great things, according to the Home Rulers, agreed to the terms of the Union. And it is noteworthy that the majority for merging in the Union was 43. exactly that for now fioing bijek to an I.ish Parliament. Evidently, therefore, the Post has no logical right to shriek about a great national wrong in 1800, without allowing that the Unionists have as good a right) to claim that the passing of Mr Gladstone's measure is a great national wrong now, And if ib is said, as the Post does say, that the Parliament of Ireland which voted for the Union was debauched by English gold, that la a reason for distrusting another Irish Parliament. What conld ba bought once can be bought again. The "roll of nations " nonsense is penny -a - lining heroic 1 ), and means less than nothing— it is balderdash. But for England and her policy Ireland would this day have been a Spanish or French colony. And as for the assertion that the Union placed " the vast majority of the Irish people under the domination of a minority alien in race and creed," if the statement is true it is one that now justifies the Ulster peopleIf they are to the Home Rulers alien in race and creed, the Home Rulers are to the Ulster people ditto. Yen when the Ulster people object to Home Rule be. cause It will hand Ihemover to tho3e alien in race and creed, and by long training enemies of the Unionists, the Ptst does not see the force of the Ulster references. Like all the journals supporting Home Rule, it depends upon flatulent excitemeat rather than argument. Once more, there is no more reason why Ireland should have a Parliament, because separated from Great Britain by a acora of miles of watar, than there is why there should be two Parliaments for New Zealand— one for each island,