MR. DISRAELI AND HOME RULE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 57, 30 May 1874, Page 8

MR. DISRAELI AND HOME RULE.

The Pall Mall Gazette' in a recent number congratulated Mr Disraeli upon the removal of Irish difficulties, and the ease with which he can deal with Home Rulers. It says — Ireland has not the shadow of a shade of a grievance • all that can be said upon the subject is that the Irish Catholics form a minority in a community of which the vast majority is Protestant, and they must submit to that inconvenience unless the nation is to be cut in two, a hostile country bein* interposed between England and America, and England being placed between two fires in case of a Continental war Mr Uiseaeli is thus in a position to say to the disaffected part of Ireland We have given you all you are going to get, and very probably more than you have any sort of right to Lave and you have now simply got to obey the laws and live quietly like the rest of the nation, of which you will most assuredly continue to form an integral part, whether you like it or like it not.' In holding this language to the Irish Catholics, we believe that the Conservatives would be enthusiastically supported by the whole of Great Britain and by the Irish Protestants. The most bitter Radical would like to see an independent Ultramontane nation under the lee of orreat Britain as little as the stoutest Conservative As if this was not enough good fortune in regard of Ireland, the nature of the majority is such as to deprive tbe Home Rulers ol all importance whatever. Mr. Disraeli is completely independent of them, and is able to treat them and their claims according to their true demerits. This in itself is a piece of good fortune which can hardly be over-valued." Strange to say, Mr Diskaeli does not seem to think the Irish the pampered people tho 'Pall Mall Gazette' would have us believe; for we find the new Premier, in speaking at Buckingham on February 10, as regards the Coercion L.w-s saymg :_« Now I call it severe and stringent legislation became I find in uo coercive legislative acts ever passed lor Ireland, provisions of as severe a character as I find in * h ° e * iatil ' g H £isl;itioil > and which will go on to the year lb/ 5. In the fiice i.f this admission the very liberal journal above quoted asserts that " Ireland has not a shadow of a shade ol a grievance,"' and that she had better "live quietly like the rest of the nation, of which she will continue to form an integral part, whether the likes it or likes it not " Fe question very much whether the ' Pall Mall Gazette ' will find many to erdorte the "very broad views" held by that Journal on the Irish question, or that Mr Disijaeli is so completely independent of ihe three score members pledged to redress the wrongs of which the ' Pall Mall Gazette' i,s°so oblivious. The time has passed by when the claims of

Ireland can be pooh-poohed or set aside in the high-handed manner above shown, as possibly Mr Disraeli may discover to his cost, if he attempt the policy advocated by the • Pall Mall Gazette." With regard to the " rare good fortune" attending the Irish majority over which it is so jubilant we are entirely innocent; but as to the Home Rulers being deprived of all importance or otherwise, we have formed an opinion, and one which time will no doubt prove to have been a correct one.