HOME RULE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 16, 7 August 1885, Page 21

HOME RULE.

(The Nation, July 19.) Thb question no longer is whether we shall have Home Bule ; it is what shape and form the Home Bule arrangement is to take, and where the line is to ba drawn between local and Imperial affairs. During the past five years, through all the hard struggles of the Irish nation and the Irish party, in the midst of coercion and repression, and expulsions and suspension?, and under a fire of abuse, calumny, and contumely directed against Ireland's representatives, the Home Kule cause was being won. English statesmen were being educated up to i it, even though there were few visible indications of the fact. Well might the brave soldiers of the Irish cause in those dark days say to their over-confident enemies and to the fainthearted among their friends, in the words of an English poet :— Say not the struggle naught a^aileth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as they have been, things remain. For while the tired waves vainly breaking Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far off, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

To-day we can all see the in-rush of the tide. Home Rule has admittedly entered into the region of practical politics ; its advocacy is no longer confined to Irish members : the leading statesmen of England, the young and vigorous politicians whose hands will soon have the ruling of the destinies of that country, now make it a portion of every speech they address to the public opinion of England. Irish self-government is, if we may adopt a current political phrase, a leading plank in the platform which is being constructed for the new Parliament ; and we in Ireland may well congratulate ourselves upon a fact so full of glorious promise for our country. It is really refreshing to read some of the observations on this subject made by ex.Cabinet Ministers since their hands have been freed and their tongues unloosed by the defeat of the Government. For years past these must have felt convinced of the truth and justice of the Irish demands, and in opposing them they must have been sinning against the light. To-day we find them denouncing the system of rule existing in this country in language apparently adopted from Mr. Parnell, Mr. Sexton, and Mr. Healy. Mr. Chamberlain, speaking at a meeting held at West Islington on the 17th inst., thus referred to Dublin Castle :— '• The time has come to reform altogether the absurd and irritating anachronism which is known as Dublin Castle, to sweep away altogether those alien boards and foreign officials, and tb substitute for them a genuine administration of purely Irish business. That is the work to which the new Parliament will be called." In the same remarkable speech the right hon. gentleman said :— " The pacification of Ireland at this moment, as I believe, depends upon the cession to Ireland of the right to govern itself in the matter of its purely domestic business. I do not believe that the great majority of Englishmen have the slightest conception of the system under which this free nation attempts to rule a sister country. It is a system whica is founded on the bayonets of thirty thousand soldiexß encamped permanently as in a hostile country. It is a system as completely centralised and bureaucratic as that with which Russia governs Poland, or that which was common in Venice under Austrian rule. An Irishman at this moment cannot move a step, he caanot lift a finger in any parochial, municipal, or educational work without being confronted, interfered with, controlled, by an English omcial appointed by a foreign Government, and without a shadow or a shade of representative authority." c- Jf n laQ g a s.g e somewhat less forcible, but yet to the same effect, Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Herbert Gladstone have spoken. From prominent members of the Conservative party we have as yet had no similar declarations, but we have but little doubt that there are men amongst them whose opinions do not fall far short of the mark above indicated. If that be so, the sooner they speak out the better, for assuredly Ireland will give her preference to the Darty that will give ncr the fullest concession of her political lights. * To both parties we would say that as this Home Rule question, is at last to be taken up with a view to the pacification and contentment of Ireland, the wisest course will be to deal with it in a large and liberal spirit. Petty reforms, though they may not be spurned by the Irish people, will neither end nor ease the strain between the two countries. It is oetter to strike the public mind, touch the public heart, and gratify the national sentiment by a frank concession ot the demand for a native Parliament than to have recourse to miserable makeshifts which would satisfy no one and settle nothing. Ireland wants not a board to administer English law, but a Parliament to legislate for the Irish nation. On that basis a treaty of peace can easily be made between the two nations, and feelings of mutual respect and goodwill may follow in the course of time ; but short of such an arrangement no stop or stay can be put upon Irish political effort. Unrest, agitation, and contention will continue to embitter the relations of the two countries. We hope the bolder and better line will be taken by tbe statesmen who have made up their nnads to handle this great political question. We warn them that parochial or provincial arrangements will not suit in this case ; we take leave to remind them that what they have to deal with is a nation— a natiou that has been overborne and cast down, but never subjugated ; a nation whose sufferings may be prolonged, but whose rights will never be surrendered. If they have a full appreciation of these facts we may hope that the scheme which they will present to the new Parliament will be one Which Ireland can honourably accept, and which will deserve to be hailed with satisfaction and pleasure by the Irish race ail over the world.