HOME RULE IN THIS PARLIAMENT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 26, 15 September 1911, Page 7

HOME RULE IN THIS PARLIAMENT.

Mr. John Redmond has addressed a letter to the newly-elected member for East Cork, Mr. Muldoon, in the course of which.he says:— Tliq Home Rule cause stands in a position of power which it never occupied before. So far as the people of Great Britain, are concerned, I fear no rock ahead. 1 have been, as you know, chiefly in touch with British public, opinion recently, and I am quite convinced that Home Rule for Ireland has at its back the goodwill of the overwhelming majority of the British people. And by Homo Rule I do not moan any cowardly or grudging measure, but a bold measure of self-government, which will give; to the Irish people control of their own purely local affairs, through the- agency of a freely-elected Parliament in Dublin, with, an Executive responsible to it—subject, of course, to Imperial supremacy. Such a measure will*be introduced into Parliament at the commencement of next 1 yeah, and will be carried by an overwhelming majority in the House; of; Commons. The only trouble that seems ' to 1 threaten us comes, not from the British people, but from a certain section in Ireland. The public have been told that Homo Rule isj for Ireland merely “a matter of £s. d. : ” More compl- tc from a Nationalist point of view, it is impossible to imagine. The finance of the Home Rule, Bill is no doubt of supreme importance. No Government in its senses would propose to set up a system of selfgovernment which would be bankrupt, and there.is not the smallest danger of this happening. Another statement that has been recently, made is that Home Rule was not before the electors at the last general election, and that another general election will therefore be necessary before Home Rule can fairly bo expected to be carried ; and we arc further told that, the real obstacle to Homo Rule is not the House of Lords, but the House of Commons, which contains to-day, and has for some years contained, an overwhelming majority in fe, mir of Homo Rule Those declarations coupled with plenteous predictions of the failure of tbo present Home, Rule m moment, constitute the stock-in-r.rade uf the oratory of the Irish section, which, calling itself Nationalist, constitutes tho N on.ly danger to Ireland. Ft is to bo noted that every one of the foregoing statements is to be heard upon, every Tory anti-Homo Rule platform in England, and in the mouth of every enemy of Ireland in Parliament. I say, with a full sense of i osrtansibiiity. that wo can and will carry Homo Rule during the lifetime or this Parliament, _ if we are left alone, and if the Irish people insist on protecting us from being stabbed in tbo back by our own countrymen.