An Indictment of the House of Lords

New Zealand Tablet, 19 May 1910, Page 788

An Indictment of the House of Lords

Mr. John Redmond, M.P., in the course of his speech' in the House of Commons on - the motion of the Prime Minister to go into committee to consider the relations between the two Houses of Parliament, said:— has been the experience of Ireland at the hands of the House of Lords during the last century? In 1792 or 1793 the Irish House of Lords passed almost unanimously great measures which were the commencement of Catholic Emancipation. Again and again, however, the English House of Lords rejected measures of Emancipation sent up from this House. Three times Emancipation passed through' the House of Commons, but was rejected by the House of Lords and when finally carried Lord Macaulay said in 1829 that the concession which had been refused to justice was reluctantly granted through fear of civil war. The history of the tithe war in Ireland is in itself, from the Irish point of view, a further indictment of the House of Lords. It meant practically civil war in Ireland and wholesale suffering and misery. Five Tithe Bills were rejected by the House of Lords. In the matter of the franchise, too, the case was worse in Ireland than in Great Britain. The it i"ii 0 Emancipation Bill was passed only on condition that the whole class of forty-shilling freeholders should be swept away. As a result of the Reform Bill of 1832, in 1839 only 5 per cent, of the adult males in Ireland were allowed to have the vote whereas 19 per cent, of the adult males i? ??{?*?? had the vote The House of Lords insisted that the Commons should not make the same extension of rights to Ireland as to England. Municipal reform was dealt with in like manner by the House of Lords so far as Ireland was concerned. And what about the Irish land question? If the Prime Minister wants an indictment against the House of Lords, that is a question for which the Lords are primarily responsible, because it was a question which affected them, their social position, and their pockets. The Lords maintained up to recently a system which I heard the Leader of the Opposition describe in this Mouse as a land system which had every fault of everv land system which had ever existed hi the world. Is that not an indictment against the House of Lords? Then the Leader of the Opposition talked of deadlocks. The Bills sent up to the Lords by this House could be counted bv scores They never passed one of them without mutilating it and taking everything of value out of it. In a great many cases they rejected it altogether. By reason of their rejection of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, the Lords were directly responsible for all the misery, crime, bloodshed, and disorder which followed in the wake of the revolutionary land movement which then, and then onlv sprang into real life in Ireland. y ' St. Patrick's Day in America Mr. Benedict Fitzpatrick, writing from Hotel Astor New York, on St. Patrick's Day, says:-From all over America comes the news that the celebrations in honor of Bt. Patrick surpass any ever held before. Chicago buried itself in green to. greet President Taft, who joined in the Irish parade on his way to the Irish Fellowship Club, where he is the guest to-day This afternoon 50,000 Irishmen marched along the wonderful Fifth Avenue through New York, mounted and on foot, in military formation, everv man m black slouched hat, white gloves, and badge: spruce neat and speckless, with thousands of green flags flying a hundred bands playing, and a quarter of a million sightseers cheering. This St. Patrick's Day parade has been improving in number and quality every year. I saw a great number of priests mounted and on foot, and wearing sashes. It was a great spectacle-almost thrilling to an S i?Z i f he da y's>«nial S came out rf green and the Herald hailed our people as ' America's ruling race ; from Buenos Aires, where there is a wealthy and enormously influential Irish colony, come reports of wonderful goings on in honor of the day. How is'it that these scattered colonies of Irishmen, who rule wherever they are as much as a fourth of the population, are not linked in common action, when the need arises, for Faith and fatherland? There is an opportunity here for an organising genius as 111 X J" an capable of celebrating the wonderful work the race in its renaissance, is doing throughout the world. I have had occasion lately to see the work our Irish priests in America are doing to keep alive a devotion to the cradle of our race. They understand, as I fear many I priests in England d not understand, how Ireland and the P Catholic religion are entwined in the hearts of our people, mutually supporting and mutually dependent. For weeks before our priests here simply spend themselves in preparing for St Patrick's Day. Never was there a closer, more loving union between pastors and people. And I really begin to believe that the unquenchable sp rit of our race is to be the instrument that will win America to the Faith instru-