AS FIRM AS EVER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 27, 3 April 1891, Page 11

AS FIRM AS EVER.

Elsewulue we (Irish H'orld), piint extracts from a great speech delivered in Newcastle-on-Ty; c, England, on January 13, by Mr John Motley, one of the foremost lea lern under Mr. Gladstone of the Liberal party of GreU Britain. What Mr. Morley says is highly interesting and highly important in view of recent statements that British Liberals were " weakening " on the Irish question, and that Mr. Gladstone and the " other old women " of his party were manifesting a disposition to cheat Ireland out of an honest measure of Home liule. There hno sign uf weakening in John Morley. He is as firm as ever, '-.ni his party stand as firm as ever they did on the Home Rule q icstior. and he tells us to in thesa very words. Here ia his emphatic a c surinc: on that poiit : —

" Do they (the Tories) suppose when thuy talk of dropping Home Rule, do they suppose that all that we have sai 1 during the last five yeard h's b.en myrj smoke iv the air and foam upon the wave ? No, gentlemen, we meant wnat we said, and I. for one, believe, and you, as the first an 'Lncu that I hivj al ire'sssej since these distractions (the Pirneil trouble*) came upon us, will toll me whether I am wron» or not, I b 1 eve, that, the: Liberal p irty at wid as tirm as they ever did to the coavictions, to the principles, and to the professions which bavo been growing and strengthening tor live years in their hearts, their minds and ti.eir conscunces."

Tht.se words were cheeied enthusiastically by the vast audience of Enghhhmunto whom Mr. Murley addresS3(t them With regard to the quality of the Homo liula wuich the Liberal leaders stand resolved th it Ireland shall have we rind satisfactory assurance in what Mr. Morley said on the one matter ol the coutrolof the p)lic v . We quota again from his speech.

" • What woul II 00 about the police /' In 1886, what we proposed amd what we provide 1 for was th'j creation of a civil force under the contro 1 of local authorities — a civil police under the control of local authorities— and Mr. Gladstone expressly said in his speech in which re introduced the Home Kule Bill that we had no desire to e^ mpt the police of lieland fiom the control of the Irish legislative body. Gentlemen, if a community is not fit to have control cf its own polico it is ccrla.nly not tit to huve Home; Rule at all But until the Irish Pailiament had organised a civil police, the Lord-Lieutenant was to re'ain couttol of the present armed and semi-military force aa a temporary and transitory measure, to biidge over the interregnum before ihe lu-h Goverurajiit had settled the question of its own police in 'uwi.s Miid covnties "

Mi. Moiley ob=cived that uion fuch a plan as thia "rational Irishmen and rational Englishmen might both agree." We agree wi'h him. We think the scheme entirely rational, and we cannot imagine why anj sensible Irnhooa'i should find fault with it. Before the ( xis'ing police force ought tn be or could be disbanded another should be organised to take its place. It would hardly do tn leave the country without any police foice at all , and the work of crgai>i u i:u_; a new one ur der the Irish Parliament would take Foiue little time. This seems so plain and so reasonable that one would think argument in support of it to be entirely superfluous Yet the: chaigc l-as been iterated and reiterated against Mr. Gladstone that ho did nor mean to give the Irish the control of the police.

On many < thi r joints Mr. Morley'a speech is gratifying and \,- assuring, supj o inj reinsurance to have been m cessary. We commend the extracts to the attention of cur readers.