THE HOME RULE DELEGATES

New Zealand Tablet, 13 April 1911, Page 675

THE HOME RULE DELEGATES

In reference to the visit of the Irish delegates. Air. Martin Kennedy, Wellington, sent a cable to Capetown a few clays ago, to intercept the delegates there, recommending them to hold thirty-five meetings instead of twelve in New Zealand. Mr. Kennedy received the following reply:—‘The more meetings the better.’ Speaking to a Times reporter, Air. Kennedy intimated that the reply meant that every district that wanted a meeting might have it—or that instead of twelve meetings there would be three times that number. When Messrs! Devlin and Donovan were out here a few years ago they held thirty-five meetings, and Mr. Kennedy thought that the coming delegation should have the same number. In the course of a. letter to the HauTce’s Bay Herald Air. John Higgins, of Napier, writes:— 4 Wo are about to have a visit from Irish delegates whose mission is to collect funds for the Home Rule Party, and it appears to me that this is an opportunity for all sympathisers with the cause to strike a decided blow for the solidarity and impregnability of our Empire. . Let ns respond to tlm invitation cordially and liberally; let us place Ireland in

the position she has so long striven for, anJ to which every right-thinking man must recognise she is entitled. Then disloyalty and disaffection will disappear, and the British Empire will present a front to the whole world which no nation dare attack. We, in the colonies, have Homo Rule, and we' are loyally devoted to the Crown and Empire. Give Ireland the same privileges, her heart and fidelity will bo won, and God help the country—Germany or any other—that attacks the Motherland. With that object in view it is surely not too ranch to ask support for the Horae Rule delegates, to invite sympathy for a movement which, when successful, will unite in the closest bonds every branch and section of our great Empire.’