MR JOHN MORLEY ON IRELAND.

Thames Advertiser, Volume XVII, Issue 5409, 19 February 1886, Page 3

MR JOHN MORLEY ON IRELAND.

The views which are held by Mr John Morley, the new Chief Secretly for Ireland, as to the concessions which should be made to the Irish party were set forth in a speech which he delivered prior to the recent election. After criticising the that had been made previously by prominent men, he said that Lord Salisbury, who was not a man of very elastic mind, admitted that he had been considering whether he could not make such a connection between England and Ireland, as subsisted between Austria and Hungary. True, he said at present he did not see his way to do this, but the fact that he was considering the question ought to prepare them for the time when he would see his way. As English citizens they must give up the stiff, pipe-clay attitude that they had hitherto taken towards Irish affairs. They must opon their minds to new ideas, qod he prepared for solutions of the difficulty which perhaps ten ar f(ve. years ago they should not have listened to. Because, observe how the circumstances had changed. They had now in the. United States, and in our Colonies an immense body of Irishmen who stood shoulder to shoulder with the people in Ireland. Secondly, they had got the Catholic Church in Ireland identifying itself with .the national cause; and, thirdly, they have now got something like a true Irish repre?entation. They would hear for the first time true views of the Irish people. Some of his friends, he was sorry to see were proposing to have our procedure re-' formed in order to muzzle and, gag the 80-raem bers which Mr Parnell would have with him. Well, he was againot that. Reform procedure, but he was not going to reform procedure to stop ears against men whom last session they did the utmost they could to give utterance to, It was the utmost folly to give Irishmen representation and then refuse to hear them. He, for one, would go as far as he could to give them all that they asked. He was not goiog to do anything reckless or rash, and he would vote for such a reform of procedure as would make the House of Commons master of its own business—such a reform as would allow the judgment that is taken upon the Irish question to be taken fairly, firmly, and solidly. They were not going to be bullied by 80 or 90 [members into doing something which they thought wrong and inexpedient for the realm as a whole, but lie <it least was not going back to the House of Commons with a frame of mind to resist any proposal that came from Ireland; because all the mischiefs and miseries in Ireland had come from this; that they had listened to anybody rather than to the Irish people themselves. They had ahvays been too late, and the result had been a long and dismal record of abortive attempts, of failures, and of wretchedness. He was going to use the word forlorn, and indeed the word forlorn always came into his mind whenever he talked about Ireland, There in that faroff Ireland—far-off morally and socially— it was farther, indeed, in that respect than the United States of America-all their ideas were as remote from us as if they lived in the Pacific. After expressing his regret that English statesmen did not visit Ireland more and show practical sympathy with the people. Mr Morley stated that when on a yiait last spring he found the Lord-Lieutenant sogwded that 1)0 goHsidejod he liyocl in a state of siege.

He went on to say that he begged them not to think that the grievances of the Irish people were already reduced, Some of the most vital of them were not even touched. For instance, they had no system of local government. The work was done by a body called the Grand Jury— not elected, merely nominated. It was not for him to draw them a bill for self-government in Ireland. That would be done by Mr Gladstone, no doubt, if he was in power. All that he hoped was that Mr Gladstone would not be afraid of running some risks—that they would not sit down tamely and helplessly before the difficulties with Ireland, but that they would confront them and grasp them ; and, if they did, he did not believe that the sagacity and the fortitude which had made Great Britain what she was in the world would fail them in this case.—(Cheers) He believed that they should solve this difficulty as they had done many before; and when they had solved it England would not be weaker, but be far stronger both at home and abroad, and for meeting her enemies at the gate.