A PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER ON HOME RULE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1526, 1 July 1886, Page 3

A PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER ON HOME RULE.

(Evening News, Napier.) The Rev. Mr McKinney, Presbyterian Minister of Mahurangi, who was invited to preside over the meeting held in Auckland with the obiect of sending a cable message of thanks and congratulation to Mr Gladstone for his efforts towards giving Home R-ule to Ireland, sent the following letter, which was read to the meeting:— Columbia Manse, Mahurangi, Mt.y 19, 1886. My Djbas Sib, —I write to say that I received the telegram you kindly sent me inviting me " to take part in a meeting to be held in Auckland on Friday, for the purpose of sending a cablegram to Mr Gladstone, sympathising with him In his desire to give Home Rule to Ireland." Being unable to get away from my own parish just at present, I have to thank you for your invitation, and to express my sympathy with the object of your meeting. I entirely agree with the proposals of Mr Gladstone, both with regard to Home Rule and the Land Question. I hope you will not omit in your cablegram mention of the l-ind question. As a rnle, the landlords of Ireknd have ever baen the most merciless of men, and no aoheme for the good of the country will be complete that does not secure the termination of their tyraany. The proposals of Mr Gladstone open up a way of getting rid of thii tyranny which will be fair to all parties—fairer, iadeed, for the landlords than their oppression of centuries have any right to be followed by.* John Bright, Bpeaking in 1886, said :—"The English people are in complete ignorance of ?rish wrongs, and kno*r little or nothing, of the real condition of the country." This is true to the English to a great extent still. If they knew anything of the reel condition of Ireland, we should not hear them talking, as we so often do, of Home Rule as being likely to bring about the dismemberment of the Empire. It is just about as likely to bring it about as the Parliament of New Zealand that is now sitting at Wellington is likely to do so. When we Inenmen are asked why we are not content with one United Parliament as Scotchmen are, there.ire, of course, several answers we can give to the question. We can give, for one thing, this answer : that the cases of Ireland and Scotland are not parallel. We have in Ireland already what they have not in Scot'and, a Yice-Regal Court, and in a great measure a Government separate from Great Britain. In asking for Home Rule we only a»k to have this Government completed, as it was before our Irish Parliament was taken frem ne, as everybody knows, by the worst of means.

It is very sad to see the Protestants of Ulster—Bo many of them at least- -taking the part tha£ they now appear to be taking in relation to thia great question, and expressing the fears that they do as to what would result were Mr Gladstone's proposals carried out. In regard to the groundlessness of some of these fears, the statements rhtfde in a letter which lately appeared in the Belfaat Witness—the principal organ of fie Presbyterian Church in Ireland—are very good. The writer is a Presbyterian, who has long lived in the South of Ireland. He says : " There is no such thing as an antiProtettaDt feeliDg in the South of Ireland, and any one who asserts that there is belies the people of the South. If th« people of Ulster be not visited with tho horrors of civil war, which eome speakers seem so coolly to contemplate, till the Catholics of the South invade the province, they may, [ can assure them, rest in peace and security." Many of the Protestents of Ulster appear to be in great dread of what };hey qall Catholic aependancy. |faw, if we i look at other lands, we may see how I groundless this dread is. There are ia

Fr-nc, for example, about tl.irty-six mil it n« of Catholics and about half a million of Do thePresbyteriatiH suffer from Pnpi! in that country ? Everybody knows that they do not. The ProteMants of France have an equal share wi»h th« other inhabitants of tho lund in tho government, and their clergy are equally with the Catholic clergy supported by the State. The Protestants of Ireland, though only a small minority, have had in the government of the country an ascendancy for three hundred years. This ascendancy was such that when Ireland had it 3 Parliament no Catholic was allowed to sit in it, and no Catholic was permitted to vote for those who should ait in it. The only ascendancy, however, that is now recognised throughout the British Empire is the ascendancy of majorities, and, if Ireland is to be governed on tho same conditions as other parts of the Empire, it is time that this principle was recogthere to its legitimate extent. In the. late election for the British Parliament the voice of the great majority of the people of Ireland declared in favor of Home Rule, and it will be ill, I believe, for the Empire, if this almost unanimous voice of the nation is not listened to.

Expressing again my entire sympasthy with you in the objects of your meeting, and praying that our dear old conntry may soon possess the peace and prosperity which I believe Mr Gladstone's measures would secure.—l am, very truly yours, H. McKinnkt.

* Isaac Butt said : " The Crown might by legal process resume possession of many Irish estates." And I say bo, too. These were granted in old confiscation times on certain conditions, and these conditions were never fulfilled.