CARLYLE ON ULSTER.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 11882, 19 January 1914, Page 4

CARLYLE ON ULSTER.

■In view of the discussions' .which are taking place concerning the merits of the Home Rule Bill, it is interesting to recall what notable men have said in the past concerning the position of Ulster, and the proposal to repeal the Union.' Some time ago we quoted the opinion of Lord Macaulay, and to-day no doubt some of our readers will be interested to see what Thomas Carlyle had to say on the subject as long ago as 1848. In an article which he published in that year, he wrote as follows:—"Several indolent members of Parliament, and many indolent members of society, on this side of the water, are beginning to testify their willingness, for their part, to gratify the Irish population by conceding the demand for the Repeal (of the Union). Since Ireland wants but this to be happy, say they, why not allow her to bo happy? . . . Let Irish patriots seek some other remedy than repealing the Union; let all men cease to talk or speculate on that, since once for all it cannot be done. In no conceivable circumstances could or durst a British Minister propose to concede such a thing: the British Minister that proposed it would desorve to be impeached as a traitor to his high post, and to lose his worthless head. Nay, if, in the prosent cowardly humour of most Ministers and governing persons, and loud insane babble of anarchic men, a traitorous Minister did consent to help himself over the evil hour by yielding to it and conceding its mad demand, —even ho, whether he saved his traitorous head or lost it, would have done nothing towards the Repeal of the Union. A law higher than that of Parliament, as we have said, an Eternal Law, proclaims tho Union unrepealable in these centuries. . . . Were Repeal conceded, Repeal would at all moments, by night and by day, cry irrepressibly to be revoked; and one day would get itself revoked —perhaps in a final way that tune!"