HOME RULE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 49, 29 March 1889, Page 31

HOME RULE.

(Dumfrtrt and Gallonay Standard, January 16.) The question of Home Ru'c for Ireland was expounded and pled by aneloquet Irish Home Ruler at Creetown on Wednesday night, and on the following evening at Newton-Stewart. Last night, at a public meetirjg in Dumfries, a Scotch Home Ruler, equally eloquent, expounded and pled the cause of Home Rule for Scotland. Our readers will find in the speeches cf Mr. T. D. Sullivan, M.P., and in those of Mr. A. L. Brown, M.P., and Mr. Alexander Young, who accompanied him, matter that will repay perusal. Mr. Sullivan is a typical Irish patriot, He loves his country fervently, he is fervently beloved by his countrymen, and the p p tty persecution, insult, and imprisonment which "the brave Mr. Balfuur "' is dealing out to Irish Nationalists haß been dealt out to him, for conduct which is no offence, but the first duty of a citizen and of a journalist. His very presence was a refutation of the calumnies that are heiped upon the Irish members. '' Who," asked Mr. Hickey, "can look on his honest, kindly face and cay that the laws do not stand Felf-condemaed that sentenced him to a prison cell ? ' His speech will carry refutation to fair-minded men who have never teen his 1 enevolent presence. The tapping of Dumfries opinion on the pubject of Scotch Home Rule was dexterously and brilliantly performed by the Rev. David Macrae, of Dundee, whom Mr. 3lich°el Davitt describes as the father of the movement. We can summon a multitude of arguments in support of the demand ; we cannot imagine a single argument against it that will bear discussion in Scotland. English statesmen only tell the truth, though they mean to flatter, when they place the character the Scottish people on a higher plane than their own. Where h ■p wisdom, then, of handing over the management of our National to a Parliament that io dominated by the representatives of an i rellectually and men illy lufuior nation I 'J hey would be infinitely

better attended to by a Parliament in which our own canny but progressive countrymen should be undiluted by Southern stupidity and be absolutely supreme. The unity of the Empire would continue to be reflected in the Imperial Parliament ; the interests that ate common to the whole of the nations would be infinitely strengthened by the affairs that are peculiar to each being separated from th«m, and entrusted to National chambers. But this is no sufficient reason for thrusting Scotch Home Bole to the front as a test question. If Scotch Voluntaries had adopted a similar policy wheu the country was appealed to on Disestablishment in Ireland, the one question would have been thwarted without the other being advanced. If Scotch land-law reformers had taken the same course at the time of the Irish Land Act, the Irish agrarian grievance in all its enormity would still have existed. But wiser counsels prevailed. The Church Establishment and the land laws were more flagrantly unjust in Ireland than here ; and the Parliamentary treatment of them was not only therefore more urgently demanded, but more than anything else it haa ripened the public mind on Disestablishment in Scotland, in England, and in Wales, and the tenure of land in the three countries. So is it with the subject of Home Rule. It is a crying necessity for Ireland, which ought to be advocated with a single regard to it, and not ia any way hindered by the distracting introduction of another test question on a subject which is not at all likely to be treated simultaneously with it, but which a speedy settlement of the other would fairly force to the front. Home Rule for Ireland is the first step to Home Rule for Scotland. Why raise the second as an obstruction to the first ? Why pile the one atop of the other, if there are short-legged politicians who can take the first step, and may rise off that to the second, but cannot achieve two at a time ? Mr, Macrae's fear is groundless that the Irish members would not be permitted to have a voice on the question of Home Bule for Scotland if Irish Home Rule were previously conceded. The question would in the first instance be an Imperial one, just as the Irish question is at present ; and the Imperial Parliament would settle it.