HOME RULE.

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 15090, 5 June 1919, Page 2

HOME RULE.

(By Colonial.)

The question of Home Rule for Ireland has been a burning one for many years past, and the Irish people have been asking for it for centuries. We in New Zealand, or at least many of us, do not realise what the granting of Home Rule would really mean or its far reaching effect on the peace and welfare of the Irish people. The writer, who claims to have only a very limited knowledge of the question, cannot see why the Irish people are denied the right to govern themselves. A good deal is now heard of the right of "self determination," making the world safe for democracy, and the allowing struggling peoples the chance of "autonomous development." The Irish have ben foiled in their efforts to secure self government many times, and are now appealing to President Wilson for. aid. * Tlifey say that if the Poles, and Czecho-Slavs and' JugoSlavs, and Armenians and Arabs and others in distant lands are to be liberated from the yoke of overlord nations, why does not the same1 rule apply %o the Irish ? As far as I can gather,' the Jrish as a class have in the U.S.A. been strong followers of President Wilson ; they have upheld vigorously his "self determination" ideas, etc., for they no doubt saw in' them a new hope for Irish independence. Evidently they have not received the encouragement they expected from Wilson, for a recent number of the "Irish Independent," published, in- Dublin, tells "how Ireland has been fooled and disappointed" so often by the powers that be, and has the following reference to President Wilson: "Let us hope that this much lauded man may not turn out as big a humbug as the rest of them have." It also states that two of the delegates whom the Sinn Fein leaders sent to the Peafe Conference to argue the IrisTi cause could not get an audience with the President or any response from him. This has beon very disappointing and caused increased ill-feeling. A convention has beeu held, in Philadelphia which adopted a resolution, urging the conference' to apply to Ireland the doctrine of natimio] "self determination." I'note that among the speaker^ were a Presbyterian minister, an Episcopalian minister, and a Jewish rabbi, and a fund of a million and ,a--quarter dollars'"was pledged to the movement.. Cardinal Gibbons, who had just celebrated his 50th year in the priesthood, and to whom a purse of fifty thousand dollars had been presented, made an appeal in which he said: "Ireland wants freedom to breathe the air of heaven. She wants freedom to stretch her brawny aud sinewy arms, she wants freedom to develop her resources, she wants freedom to carve out her own destiny." The resolution declared that "Ireland (had carried' on an unparalleled struggle for national oyistenre and liberty for seven and a. half centuries." It was also stated that -England bnd tried to cajole; persuade, and coerce, and now a- state of war "practically existed between England and Ireland" owinrr to tne refusal to give Ireland her liberty and that as long, as England tries to h?J d ,Il" elfmd by military force there will lie "a ceaseless resistence." It

i was stated that the people of Ireland I; were separated into two distinct sections, the North and the South, and 3 the antipathy between the two is . greater than was ever known before. 3 Among other - things there is the relij gious and race issue, the North main-, - ly embracing the old province'"of - Ulster, which represents about a third i of the whole, largely of Scotch origin. Anotner paper states that the Sinn 1 Fein organisation is mainly Catholic, i though it includes a number of Pro- \ testants. "Sinn Fein" is broadly > Irish and means "Ireland for the 5 Irish." The Catholic Extension Maga- |> zinc states that the only people who L. are against Home Rule "are not really •j Irish," but the descendants of imported Scotch and English, and adds: "I "The Ulsterites are not Irish, never Ljwere Irish, and never can bo'lrish." |. "America," another prominent periodi- ; cal, says that the English have de- ' liberately misrepresented the Irish k question by raising the cry that Home ; Rule means Rome Rule, and a revival , of the old cry of "No Popery," and | asserts that Ireland would "quickly ( assimilate the alien colony in the north- .! east corner of Ulster if the powerful tj alien sustenance and stimulus were , withdrawn. Though the writer favours . j Home Rule as a principle, and thinks t iit ought to "be given a trial, there may . be almost insurmountable difficulties in the way of carrying it into Q#ect, but whilst it is denied it will 'he a source . or grave menace to the British Empi-e