WHAT IRELAND WANTS

New Zealand Tablet, 15 December 1910, Page 2053

WHAT IRELAND WANTS

When Mr. John Redmond, M.P., visited the United States in the early part of October he wrote an article on the Home Rule question for McClure's Magazine, which has been summarised as follows by the Irish: News: The Irish demand is, in plain and popuar language, that the government of every purely Irish affair shall be controlled by the public opinion of Ireland, and by that alone. We do not seek any alteration of the constitution or supremacy of the. Imperial Parliament. We. ask merely to be permitted to take our place in the ranks of those other portions of the British Empire—some twenty-eight in number—which in their, own purely local affairs are governed by free representative institutions of their own. The moderate, even modest, demand has its root alike in historic title and in the utter and disastrous failure of the attempt since 1800 to govern Irish affairs by a British majority at Westminster. Historic title may count for little nowadays against superior force, but it is a potent influence in the hearts of Irishmen, and accounts for the passionate enthusiasm which has enabled them, in spite of suffering and disasters perhaps unparalleled in history, to preserve unimpaired the sentiment of their distinct and separate nationality. ' History proves Ireland's right to self-government,' Mr. Redmond declares; but, aside from that, her demand for Home Rule also has its root in the failure of England to govern her.' ' What greater test of good government is to be found than the test of population?' Mr Redmond asks. 'ln Ireland since 1841 the population has diminished by 50 per cent. In 1845 Ireland had three times as many people as Scotland, and half as many as England. In fact, Ireland had one-third of the whole population of the United Kingdom. In sixty years her population has gone down by four millions. Ninety per cent, of those who left her "shores were between the ages of ten and forty-five. - ' Take the test of civil liberty. ' There has been a Coercion Act for every year since the Union, and even at this moment there is in existence on the Statute-book a special law applicable to Ireland alone, which enables the Lord Lieutenant, .without any check whatever upon his arbitrary will, to suspend trial by jury, personal liberty freedom of discussion, and the right of' public meeting all over the country. 'There have been since the Union three armed insurrections, and to-day admittedly the overwhelming mass of the people, are thoroughly disaffected to the system of government under which they are compelled to live.' The census figures show how Ireland's industrial prosperity was checked by the Act of Union. The following is quoted by Mr. Redmond from the report of the last Census Commission for Ireland :— ( The number of persons engaged in Ireland in the production and distribution of textile fabrics has fallen away very considerably during the past thirty years. The totals recorded were for 1871 193 864, and for 1881 129.787. In'lß9l there was pracl tically no change at 129 884, but in 1901 the numbers employed had fallen 109,588. Referring to the returns for the latter year the Com missioners observe:—'ln this marked decline of over 154 per cent., the males diminished by 8864, and the female's to the extent of 11,432. Looking at the principal textile manufactures, we find that by far the most important industry in the country— the flax and linen industry—has lost oyer 17,000, nearly one-fifth of its workers while those employed in the manufacture of woollen goods have suffered a corresponding redaction.' Education in Ireland, Mr. Redmond says, is admittedly 50 per cent, below the standard of every other European nation. J axation per head has doubled in 50 years ' and thp civil government is the most costlv in Europe ' Per head of the population, 'the cost of'the present government of Ireland is twice that of England and is for higher than that of Norway Holland, France Denmark Portugal Sweden Italy, Spain, Ron mania,' Bulgaria Greece, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, (Germany', or Russia. to J ' r cim »ny,

In other words, Ireland, probably the poorest country in Europe, pays more for her government than any other nation. The secret of the inefficiency and the extravagance is identical, namely, the fact that it is a government not based upon the consent, but maintained in actual opposition to the will of the governed. The extension of the English Poor Law, which was devised to meet cases where there was plenty of employment, but where the people would not work, to Ireland, is cited by Mr. Redmond as an example of outrageous English misgovernment. Ireland opposed the measure with every means in her power, and now, seventy years after the law was put in force, a Commission appointed to investigate its workings declares that the Poor Law is unsuited to Ireland, and that it has been a failure during "all these years. There are, in the thirty-two counties of Ireland, 159 workhouses, and there are inmates in these workhouses numbering 43,195. Within these all kinds of inmates are crowded —the sick, aged, and infirm, children, helpless mothers of young children, insane, casuals, and tramps, and other able-bodied paupers. So far as the larger number of those inmates are concerned, that is a horrible outrage. By far the larger number are sick, aged, and infirm, and the children, on all of whom it is an outrage and a disgrace to our civilisation that any taint of the workhouse should be put. ' We want an Irish Parliament,' declares Mr. Redmond in conclusion, ' with an Executive responsible to it, created by Act of the Imperial Parliament, and charged with the management of purely Irish affairs (land, education, local government, transit, labor, industries, taxation for local purposes, law and justice, police, etc.), leaving to the Imperial Parliament, in which Ireland would probably continue to be represented, but in smaller numbers, the management, just as at present, of all Imperial affairs—army, navy, foreign relations, customs, Imperial taxation, matters pertaining to the Crown, the colonies, and all those other questions which are Imperial and not local in their nature, the Imperial Parliament also retaining an overriding supreme "authority over the new Irish Legislature, such as it possesses to-day over the various Legislatures in Canada, Australia, South Africa, and other portions of the Empire.'