THE IRISH QUESTION.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1215, 20 January 1886, Page 3

THE IRISH QUESTION.

{"Pall Mall Budget.")

For the first time in the history of the two nations an enfranchised I reland will place before the Imperial Parliament a practically unanimous demand for Home Rnls. Compared with that demand, so presented and so supported, all proposals of the authorised liberal programme sink into insignificance. The enfranchised democracy of Great Britain will be put to a rude test in the first session of its first Parliament by the prayer of the enfranchised democracy of Ireland to be allowed to manage its own affairs. If the new democracy is true to democratic principles it will grant that prayer, reserving only sufficient guarantees for the maintenance of the unity of the Empire and the preservation of interests which have hitherto been practically guaranteed by the Union. If, on the other hand, the new democracy resents the summons to surrender any part of its authority, then it will assume an attitude towards Ireland which can only be justified on the principle on which Russia holds Poland — the difference being that the Czar mercifully abstains from mocking the Poles with a semblance of parliamentary institutions when he has previously made up his mind to veto the demands which Polish representatives would at once formulate. And we may add that the Czar wisely abstains from giving Polish delegat.es the right of sitting on the Governing Council of his Empire, so that the Poles, unlike the Irish, are not able to avenge the refusal to let them govern themselves by rendering it impossible to govern the Empire to which they are attached. Iv either case the new democracy will have taken a decision of world-wide moment, which once tauen cannot be rendered null and void. It will shape the whole of our future history, and later generations will either mark the first session of this Parliament as the point of departure of a new era, or they will recall it with bitter and unavailing regret as the moment when all the evils of the past were perpetuated, and the Irish problem was rendered more insoluble than ever.

When we approach such au historic moment, who should be in power ? M either of the two great English parties seems as yet to have more than a faint glimmering perception of the magnitude of the crisis which they are approaching. Mr Gladstone and Lnrd Hartington have made it the chief object of their electoral campaign to secure a majority which will enable them to be superior to the declared wishes of the Irish people. Lord Hartington, indeed, in so many words has declared that because Mr Parnell most dreads an independent Liberal majority, therefore the English people would do well to secure that independent Liberal majority without delay. The Conservative party until the other day had been worse in every respect than the Liberal. From the point of view of the imperative paramount importance of settling the Irish question ia harmony with the declared will of the Irish people, neither Mr Gladstone nor Lord Salisbury can be safely trusted with power. The only party that can safely be in power when the Irish question comes up for settlement is the Irish party. The one supreme danger that threatens any and every attempt to settle the Irish question is that sufficient attention may not be paid to the wishes of the Irish people. There is no danger that the Imperial Parliament, with a permanent majority of five to one against the Irish, will ever consent to a scheme of Home Rule that will in any practical way endanger Imperial interests or injure Great Britain. Therefore, the best that we can hope for in the new Parliament is that the Irish party may be in a position enabling it to hold the balance of power. It is no doubt awkward and dangerous to make Mr Parnell pro tern, dictator of the Empire, in order to secure a permanent and satisfactory solution of the Irish problem, but as that solution can be assured by no other means, we had better face the temporary risk in order to secure the lasting good. Otherwise we shall not gain even a temporary advantage, and we shall establish permanently, and for evil only, Irish ascendancy in the Imperial Parliament.