The Western Star. (PUBLISHED BI-WEEKLY). SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1880.

Western Star, Issue 351, 22 May 1880, Page 2

The Western Star. (PUBLISHED 81-WEEKLY). SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1880.

The large majority of sober-minded British people are jubilant just now because the news has come to hand that there is a split among the Home Eulers in Ireland, and that one distinguished memher of the party is about to prosecute another distinguished member for libel. We also are glad that there is a rupture in the camp, but for another, and in some respects opposite reason to that generally u;ged. We regard the recent movement as a probable precursor of a division of the party in two sections, one holding more violent, and the other more moderate views, and we trust that the latter may be successful in their efforts. Any attempt to repeal the union between England ought to be combated and suppressed iu the most decisive manner, for that would only mean weakening of the stronger power and ruin to the lesser, which at present is not able to stand

alone, and would make worse terms of amity with any other power than with Great Britain. But Home Buie in itself is by no means chargeable with being an absurd policy. On Ibe contrary it is the exact policy which bias been followed in all tbe larger British colonies for a generation past, and with the happiest results. We have it in full play in the Australasian colonies and New Zealand, and neither the home country, nor any one ot the colonies would for a moment care to see it abolished. We have here complete freedom to act according as we may think best for our own interest in all our purely domestic affairs, and in all those in which the Empire is concerned we have tbeadvice,assistance, and protection of Great Britain. That is all that is asked by the moderate Home Bulers of Ireland. They complain, as we did many years ago, that there are many of their provincial wants which tho Parliament of Great Britain neither cares about, understands, or hns time to consider. Thus for instance they allege that the constantly recurring question of the management of the higher education in their country could be settled at once if left to themselves, but that whenever it is considered at all in the House of Commons, the views of the overwhelming majority of Irishmen are set aside in preference for those which are purely English or purely Scutch. This objection is one of overwhelming force, more especially too as the local and private bills brought into the House of Commons by private members repre - senting English and Scotch or Welsh constituencies is every year increasing, so that there is no time to consider any large Irish question. They also urge that not merely in the colonies, but even in Scotland, the principle of Home Buie has been long ago conceded, the Established Church of that country being a local institution of a different kind altogether from that adopted in England and the larger part of tbe kingdom. It is not easy to evade the force of these arguments. They are usually met by jocular references to the reccived opinion respecting the Irish character. The notion still prevails that an Irish Parliament would be a sort of Donnybrook Fair, where all the members would assemble with stout shillelaghs, and would immediately commence the proceedings by dragging the tails of their coats on the floor in order that their opponents might tread on them, and where the Speaker’s mace would not he a mere tinsel bauble to be laid on the table, but would be used once more as it was originally by tho stout barons and bishops of the Norman conquest era to crash refractory skulls. It is almost needless to tell any one decently informed about Ireland that the conventional notion is about ashbsurd as the idea prevalent on the French stage about Englishmen and on the English stage about French-

men. All Irishmen are not mere fighting men as regards either physical or moral weapons. They never in modern times were quite mad, and in tiie present century have sobered down wonderfully, though not to quite the same extent, as their Gallic frien Is on the other side of the Strait of Dover. Tooi o who has read any of the debates at tho time of the French Revolution, and com pares Iho French Republic of 1793 with the French Republic of 1880, tho increase of sobriety of thought might well appear so startling that the conversion of an Irish Parliament into a convention nearly as soberminded as the House of Comm/ ns itself, might well be regarded as nol unlikely. Anyhow ihe adoption of the scheme proposed by a country for its own internal government has generally been found to be the best method of accomplishing a lasting pacification, Canada now is one of the most intensely loyal portions of the British dominions, yet there are men among us, not very old men either, who recollect when the rebellion of Mr Papineau, in order to secure Home Rule in that colony, shook the dominion of England in that part of the world to its centre.