HOME AFFAIRS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 46, 9 March 1888, Page 17

HOME AF FAIRS.

C -'*"

«. HE English House of Commqns has amended i:>rules cf procedure. Two or three sessions have to a large extent been employed in considering the amendments that have been made ; and it is considered that a satisfactory result has been attained. At first, and for a considerable time, the Irish National Members opposed these amendments because their primary object was to facilitate the passing of coercive measures for their country

and to stifle the discussion of the question of Home Rule for Ireland. This session, however, they have offered only a very mild opposition to the proposals of the Government to strengthen the hands of the Speaker and to limit the privi-r leges of Members. Home Rule has now obtained a hearing not only in Ireland but throughout Great Britain, and aU, that remains to be done is to count heads. And as to coer-, cion : why, so far as the law can make it perpetual, it is so. Nothing, therefore, can be gained by prolonged discussion jb the House of Commons on these questions. But, on the contrary, a great deal can be lost by factious opposition. The present Government will not last for ever. Mr. Gladstone's innings cannot be long postponed, and when he next attains to power he will find it very convenient to be able to use t^e rules of procedure, enacted by his political opponents, against them, and thus prevent the factious opposition they know so -, well how to employ, as experience proves. At the present moment, therefore, it is very fortunate that the new rules have been adopted ; and this is probably the reason why the Irish party has allowed them to pass almost sub silentio. It is very likely that after the next general election Mr. Gladstone > will return to power with a very large majority in favour of Home Rule for Ireland, and nothing can be more important for the peace and prosperity of the United Kingdom than > the speedy adoption by the House of Commons of the Irish Home Rule Bill, which will be introduced by the Liberal Government. Judging from the past and present, and bearing in mind the rabid and cruel proceedings of the Tory party and Unionists, no one will deny that these will certainly offer a furious opposition to the concession of such a measure. It will be found, then, that the rules made by the enemies of justice to Ireland, in order the more quickly to gag Ireland, will recoil upon themselves and become a most useful instrument in the hands of Mr. Gladstone's party for the quelling of Tory faction and insubordination. So far Mr. Parnell and his party have been very quiet and silent in the House of Commons. They are waiting to see what the Salisbury Cabinet has to propose for the amelioration of English grievances with the intention, if such proposals are worth having, of helping to their adoption by the Legislature. It is very doubtful, however, whether the Salisbury Government will venture, in the teeth of the majority of their followers, to propose really liberal and useful measures. The old Tory party is too bigoted, too stupid, and too proud to yield in time to popular demands, and thus it is very likely that their measures for local government, for example, will be very unsatisfactory. If so, this will be the beginning of the end, and it will be impossible for the Liberal Unionists to save the Government from the consequences of the indignation of the people. But how are things going on in Ireland ? Very well, indeed, for the popular cause, and very ill for the interests of the Unionists. Coercion has no terrors for the Irish people. They seem to glory in imprisonment in the cause of Home Rule and just rents. The Plan of Campaign is triumphant, and effecting the good which legislation has hitherto failed to produce. Those who suffer for the National cause are the idols of their fellow-countrymen and, at the sa time, the terror of their oppressors . On one side there is a nation arrayed in peaceful and determined passive resistance to the coercion inflicted upon it in defiance of its repre--sentatives by an alien party, backed up by traitors to their own party and their professions ; and on the other there is the Irish Secretary, supported by an armed force .and a ferocity that could not be expected from a savage. Which is likely to succeed ? The Irish Secretary is willing, by the aid of an alien power, to coerce an unwilling nation, amidst the scorn and execration of ail good men, English and Irish — he being detested and loathed by all except his own party, if, indeed, he is not also abhorred by them, on whom he is bringing the greatest discredit. The issue of the contest cannot be doubtful. Mr. Balfour will descend from his lofty seat, as did so many of his predecessors, a defeated and discredited politician, to be remembered only as the man who declared his shocking intention io do to death Irish patriots through the instrumentality of the rigours of imprisonment.