THE FIRST STEP TOWARD HOME RULE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 26, 17 October 1884, Page 27

THE FIRST STEP TOWARD HOME RULE.

(By Justin M'Carthy, M.P., in the New York Tribune.-) Two yeais ago you were kind enough to allow me an opportunity of addressing your readers and the American public generally on the subject of the political condition and prospects of the Irish people Many things have happened in that short time ; our Irish National movement has made much advance ; its prospects hare grown clearer Like every movement made toward some particular and attainable end, it has had sometimes to change its momentary direction • to pass a little to this side or to that in order to avoid sonn obstacle or escape Irom some danger. Enough has happened in the interval between the writmg of my letter to the Tribune two years a»o and the pres-eit time to make it, as it seems to me, advisable that I should ask you to permit me to make a new statement of oar Insh National case and claims, looking at tbem from a somewhat different point of view. Ishalladdressmyself chieflyto American readers. Ishalluothave much to tell which would hi very new to my own countrymen in the United btates ; and I do not want to convert them to my Nationalist opmious, for the good reason that I believe.they are already or the vast majority ot them at least, of just the same opinions on that In the letter which I have now begun I shall occupy myself altogether with the political objects and the present condition of the home rule movement. Perhaps I need hardly tell American readers tDat the object of the home rule movement is to obtain for Ireland such a system of National Government, self-government, as is enjoyed by every State m the American Union, by the Australian colonies aud by the Dominion of Canada. We see that this principle of domestic self-government has thriven and prospered wherever it has been tried : that it has b ought with it contentment and peace, that it has developed National energy and fostered the growth of a genuine manhood. We demand a trial of the expeiiment in Ireland We had a few short years of a self-ruling Par.iament there It 'was a Parliament elected on a scandalously narrow basis ; a Parliament which excluded from its composition all men who professed the faith of five-sixths of the Irish people. Yet because with all its faults it was a self-ruling Irish Parliament, it did by the confession of its enemies more io increase the National prosperity than had f been done by the government of English statesmen for centuries But why do I speak of this to America* readers 1 You do not need to be told anything about the virtues of self-government. It is not necessary here to discuss the precise form of arrangement by which Ireland and England are to come to terms for the establishment of a National Parliament in Dublin. We have been asked over aud over again : " Wnat is your plan ?— why do you not produce some plan wbich the House of Comm m* may study 1 ' Now we did in the earlier cays of the movement produce plans in the House of Commons', and some of us have since that time given to such as would choose to read them our ideas on the subject of a bom- rule arrangement betweeu Englaud and Ireland. I have mys-lf written many essays on tlie subject in the Nineteenth Centuni an I ia other influential periodicals. But the Irish National party has not lat-lv troub'ed itself to offer any plan of tbe kind to the notice of Parliament. Wh. n Parliament is willing to affirm the principle that Irelaud is entitled to self-government as well as Canada and New South Wa es and Victoria and Queensland, then we shall be ready to heln Parliament to come to a practical and i-atisfactory anangement It will not be difficult. We must first, howe\ er get the principle affirmed Some English Ministnes must fall and rise on the question of home rule for Ireland before we shall have come to the proper moment for discussing the details of plans. At present there is hardly an English newspaper which does not proclaim in tones more or less hysterical day alter day that no English Minister or party most even Iwten to ourarguments on thesubject of home rule. Of conrae no states-

man talks this kind of nonsense. No responsible man hai ever siid anything of the kind ia the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone, for example, is not only willing to listen to what we have t ) say on the subject, but even anxious to hear a gre*t deal more said than we have lately been saying. lam sure Ido not misrepresent the condition of Mr. Gladstone's mind on the subject when I say that he is willing to ba convinced that home rule is a necessity foe Ireland and that it would conduce to the peace and the prosperity of the two islands. In Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet are two Ministers who are to mv certain knowledge in favour of the principle of home rule. If Mr. Gladstone were inclined even now at his advanced age to attempt the undertaking, he could have the principle of home rule affirmed by one other Midlothian campaign. But until the principle is affirmed it would be a mere waste of time for us to go on submitting plans to the English Parliament. °

Meantime we have not been discussing home rule much in tb.3 way of set debate. We have not brought forward a regular motion on the subject in the House of Commons for the last thr je years. We had only one such motion since the present Parliament c*me toother in the earlier part of 1880. Nor have we abstained from debating and dividing on the subject merely because we had other and more immediately pressing work to do ; because we had coercion bills to fight and land measures to pa9s. We could easily have obtained a night or two nights, according to the old fashion, for what ia called " a full-dress debate " on home rule. But it has seemed to us that the one great work for us to do, the one great argument for us to put forward, waa the organization of the Irish people into a nation rea ly for self-government. Thi3 we are doing ; this I may say we have done. Five-sixths of the Irish people now look forward to home rule with as confident an assurance of its coming as thsy have of the coming of Christmas. Every institution in Ireland which has any representative character whatever is permeated and pervaded with the principle of home rule. Town councils and all other municipal bodies are elected on the principle. The Lord Mayor of Dublin the Mayors of the great provincial cities, are all Nationalists and home rulers. The elected members of Boards of Guardians — we have members of Boards of Guardians who are not elected, who are appointed or what we call ex-offioio guardians— are of the same political principles. The National spirit has purified some of tne Irish constituencies toan extent which ten years ago, five years a»o, no one would have believel possible. The influence of bribery and corruption is gone. The elections cost our Nationalist candidates nothing, or next to nothing. We do not need to go to any considerable expense even for advertising our addresses and our meetings. Ereryonewho can do any work for the Natonaliat candidate is ready and willing to give his time and trouble for nothing. We have taken possession of certain small boroughs in Ireland which a few years ago were regarded as hopelessly given over to corruption of on-a kind or another. Who would have thought a few years ag > of seeing places like Ennis and Mallow and Atblone represented by Nationalist candidate--, who not. only did not pay any money to any of their constituents, but in some instances prod timed the principlft that the constituencies ought to pay the members ; who not merely did not promise to get Govern* ment situations for constituents, but came forward with the declaration that they would never ask for any one a place or a favour from the English Government ? Who would have thought a few years ago of seeing a Nationalist like Mr. Healy carry the election in Ulster Monaghan by more votes than the Whig and Tory put together produce I The making of the Nation is very conspicuous in Dublin. Dublin use Ito be called the capital of flunkeyism. Its municipality used to grovel to the Viceroy and crawl up the back stairs of the Castle. Now it i* Nationalist and independent ; it has had three Lord Mayors in succession who are members of the Parnell party in the House of Gommons. The very Btreets proclaim the change of feeling. That which used to be called Carlisle Bridge is now called O'Counell Bridge. In the finest public places, m the principal thoroughfares, the statues of Grattan |and Burke and O'Connell and Smith O'Brien, and Dr. Gray (father of Mr. E. D. Gray, alember for Cailow County), tell to.the world the sentiments of the Irish metrop >lis. No man of Nationalist opinions ever goes near Dublin Castle. Tue mere form and ceremony of acquaintanceship between the City and the Ca9tle dropped off five years ago while Mr. E. D. Gray, of whom I have just spoken, was Lord "Mayor. It happened in this way : Mr. Gray, who is a man of firm character and clear Nationalist sentiment, but who is moderate in all his words and wise in his conduct, atteaded or presided over, lam not sure which, a Nationalist meeting. He was to entertain the Lord Lieutenant, then the Duke of Marlborough, at dinner at the Mansion House a day or two after. The Lord Lieutenant took umbrage at some expression of National sentiment at the meeting ; something not said by Mr. Gray but by somebody else ; anri he would not attend the dinner at the Mansion Houß2. Mr. Gray gave no dinner on that occasion ; he presented the sum of money.it would have coat to some public charity ; and from that tim'i-to this the Castle and the City have lived apart. Some of your readers may have been in Veu : ce or Verona in tbe old days when the Austrians occupied these cities. They may have seen how the Austrian Governor or commandant lived in utter and absolute isolation from all friendly intercourse with the people whom he svaa commissioned to keep down. In just such isola-ion from the Irish people does the Viceroy live in Dublin. He sees the officials of all kinds and some of the laudlords and their party, and a daily dwindling numberof the shopkeepers and tradesmen who believe it for their interest to seek the patronage of the Castle and wh ie wiveß and daughters are pleased to be invited to the Castle balls. But, to the people the Viceroy is the commandant of the garrison wbich England has established in the Irish metropolis ; theyavoidhimhe avoids them . We used to thiuk tbe City o£ Cork a somewhat Whiggish place at one time ; now it lenames its principal bridge and caUs it '• Parnell Bridge " ; one of its two Parliamentary representatives is Mr. Deasy, a devoted young Parnellite and Nationalist, who owes his splendid victory at bis election solely to his character and bis political principles ; and the other. I need hardly say, is Mr. Parnell him-

The Naii n, lheu, is already iv fact govern' ng itse'.f. Tha Ka> li.sh Uovetuauui can ouly at me wor.st obstruct the work a lmlu. When the time comes tor the formal change to be made au>i the governing of the Irish people, to be put into the kinds of the Iri-h people, it flill be made with the most perfect ease an I quiet. We shall piobably bofore that time have the whole Parliamentary representation of Ireland i 1 our tund*. Tne Ins'i Wnis party, as it is cilled — the party which alway prefers aa English Liojr.il Governmenr to any interest of the Irish people — that party is extinct. Of the Irish Whigs who desetted us after t'ae List g iner il election very iew ever come to the House of Commons now. It is not worth their while to trouble themselves about attending the sittings of a chamber iv which they have really nothing to do. The next general election will pass formal sentence on them, and relegate them to oblivion. The elections when they come, will returc a few Tory landlords, the two Tory representatives of the University of Dublin, and the Nationalists whom Mr. Parncll leads. The Irish public, I should say, avi now accustomed to see their practical business in Parliament done for them by the Paruellite party. There is, as American readers know, a vast amount of purely local business, or what might be called parochial businesss, done by the English Parliament. If a town wants a new scheme of gas lighting or railway or tramway, if it wants new waterworks or drainage, it has to send to Westminster and obtain an Act of Parliament to enable it to accomplish its purpose. The measure must be taken in band and piloted by some friendly members uf botti houses. Every Irishman of business, whether Whig, Tory, or Nationalist,knows vow that if he wants business of t>uch a kind dove in the House of Commons the men to apply to are the Parnellite*. They are constant in attendance ; they never neglect anything Irish ; many of them are experienced and practical men of business themselves. This fact is noticed by all sections and parties in the House of Commons. " The Iris a members, 1 ' as they are commonly called— and they are very proud of the name—" can get anything done," is a saying one often hears. They stick to the work, whatever it be, that they have in hand ; they are not to be put off, or pushed out of the way, or talked out of their purpose, or cajoled, That term, [by the way, of " Irish members " is one which Mr. Gladstone used to resent very warmly during the early days of the Parnellite party. " Why," he U9ed to ask, " call these half dozen the Irish members? Why call them Irish par excellence? They are only a handful." Mr. Gladstone has long sine* found out why these men, even when they were only half-a-dozen, were properly called par excellence " the Irish members." There was someihiug instructive, something prophetic, in the manner in which the House of Commons recognized their position and proclaimed it by that name. They were •' the Irish members " ; they were the men who represented the sentiments, the claims, and the interests of the Irish people ; they were the men who had Ireland behind them. Since the day when Mr. Gladstone used thus to protest every election in Ireland has confirmed their title to be called the Irish members. After the next general election there will be few Irish members of any party, sat, colour or clique to dispme the title with them. tiucb, then, is the condition, and such are the prospects of the movement for Irish Home Bnle. We have not been talking much about Home Kule latterly ; we have been making it. Years and years ago Mr. John Stuart Mill declared, with that marvellous foresight which was an instinct in him, that the time would come when the only demand the Irish people would nuke to their English rulers in Ireland would be simply to take themselves off. The time has now very nearly come. Practically it has come. We are ready lor the change ; we only ask the viceroy and the Chief Secretary and all the Castle authorities to take themselves off. The change will be a blessed one for Ireland and for England. The Irish people have stutwn that they can do all their municipal and parochial work for themselves. They have shown, too, that they can endure any strain and pressure of repressive law and still hold to their Natioual purpose without one moment's thought of abandoning it. I should like to ask any American what possible case can be made out for the refusal of such a national deinaud to such a people.

In my next letter I bhould like to say sometning about Mr. Parntll's general poticy at the present inoineut ; his policy not merely as applying to ihe question of Home liule. I shall then have something to bay concerning the prospects of the approaching general election ; on the lecent legislation with regard to land ; on Dublin Oastle administration ; aud on the long prostration of the industrial energies of Ireland. For the present lam content if I have explained to the American people the reason why the cry for Home Kule has not been heaid of late in the English Parliament.