HOME RULE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 9, 25 June 1886, Page 16

HOME RULE.

In his endeavoars to carry Home Rule for Ireland, Mr. Gladstone is confronted with bitter, unrelenting enemies determined to keep their heel upon tbat unfortunate country! Their opposition is grounded on no rational consideration, but only on blind prejudices and hate. They say that the British Parliament is prepared to grant any reasonable concession to Ireland, and that Ireland, if emancipated from British control, would perpetrate all sorts of abomination. All their speeches and all their arguments are reducible to these two. But why should an Irish Parliament be more wicked than an English one ? Our opinion is it would be the other way. History tells us that the British Parliament has never given a concession of justice to Ireland voluntarily, never even thought of doing so till compelled by fierce agitation, going almost the length of insurrection in every case! Whereas Ireland on the few occasions when she found herself free, hastened to do justice. The weight of the argument, therefore, is in favour of the contention that an Irish Parliament would act justly. Again, Ireland is emphatically a Catholic nation, and has never refused to elect Protestant representatives. But reverse the picture. How many Catholics can be found amongst Scotch and English Representatives. Not one from Scotland, and only two from all

England and Wales ; and Englishmen and Scotchmen are found arguing that Ireland, if she had Home Rule would persecute Protestants, forgetting their own sense ot justice and fair-play as evidenced by the polling in their own countries. Tben as to the readiness of the Lntisa Parliament to redress the grievance of Ireland. Let history be consulted, and it will be discovered that it was this Parliament that in 1816 passed a aw taking from unfortunate Irish tenarfcs the protection they had hitherto enjoyed, and reducing them to the condition ot serfs . True, this has been reversea by recent legislation* but observe, the first was tbe spontaneous act of the Legislature, the latter a concession wrung with difficulty from an unwilling Parliament and a hostile House of Lords by the fear of rebellion. Why, the most paltry concession cannot be obtained from the British Parliament through a sense of justice. This Parliament never spontaneously does an act of justice to Ireland. Such is the teaching of history Even at the present moment no Irish Catholic can be at the head of the government of his own country, and as a matter of iact, no Irishman of any denomination is even permitted to be at the head of the Irish Government. The principle enunciated by Sir Robert Peel, when compelled to grant a measure of partial emancipation— viz., that administration should be made to neutralise remedial legislation, has been always acted on in Ireland as a rale. What grounds, then does history afford for believing that the opponents of Home Kule, it successful in their resistance to it, would rule Ireland J o .7J. 7 J T?°,? c whatever - Irishmen, then, knowing that the British Parliament in the past, dominated by a class, has never willingly done an act of justice to Ireland, and convinced that it is even now incapable of governing Ireland wisely earnestly pray that success may attend the efforts of Mr Gladstone and his party to give Home Rule to their distracted country, and thus end the feud of centuries.