THE HOME RULE STORY

New Zealand Tablet, 9 January 1913, Page 43

THE HOME RULE STORY

HOW THE PRESENT MOVEMENT GREW YEAR BY YEAR

Daniel O’Connell was physically and intellectually ‘ a giant amongst men.’ Until the last sad years of his glorious career, the Liberator could ‘ cram ’ into every twenty-four hours an amount of hard work which few sons of Adam might compass within a week (says a writer in the Irish Weekly). But even O’Connell himself in the palmiest days of his abounding vitality could not have wrought more strenuously and unweariedly for the cause of his country than the present Leader of the Irish people. Mr. John Redmond’s article on the Home Rule question in the current issue of The Review of Reviews has attracted , wide-spread attention. He travelled to York on November 16 and delivered a brilliant speech which made a profound impression on the minds of the British nation. Hour after hour and day after day he is in the House of Commons, watching every ‘ move ’ of the great struggle with the alert mind and skilled eye of an experienced statesman, intervening in the debates with marked effect when such intervention becomes necessary, guiding and encouraging his own faithful party, and inspiring by his presence and his counsel the men of all parties and nations who are engaged in this fight of Irish Legislative freedom. Now 1 find in the Daily News and Leader Year Book for 1913 another exhaustive and really unanswerable plea for Home Rule from the Irish Leader’s pen. If zeal and tireless industry, ripe statesmanship and unselfish devotion to .a noble cause can win for Ireland, our country’s future is assured under the guidance of the member for Waterford. In his notable contribution to the Year Book, Mr. Redmond briefly glances at The History of •the Home Rule Struggle. Ever since the present National policy was formulated in 1871 it has commanded a majority in Ireland; but only in 1885 did the extension of the franchise give the opportunity of a true vote.’ Then 85 Irish Home Rulers were sent to Parliament; and Mr. Gladstone’s first Bill was introduced next year. But Great Britain was against it; the conversion of the British electorate was necessary. Mr. Redmond writes : ‘ During the six years of Lord Salisbury’s Government, 1886-1892, the Irish question was discussed and canvassed through the length and breadth of Great Britain, and the result was that in 1892 a Liberal Government was returned to power explicitly pledged to give Ireland self-govern-ment.’ I may add that were it not for the untoward happenings in Ireland during the momentous years of 1900-’O2, the Home Rule majority might have been nearer to 200 than to 40. As things were, however, the second Bill introduced by Gladstone was carried triumphantly through the House of Commons. And ‘ It was immediately, and almost without consideration, rejected by the House of Lords. Mr. Gladstone was in favor of challenging at once the opinion of the country directly upon this great issue, but, unhappily, the Liberal t Party was then led by Lord Rosebery, whose adherence to Home Rule, or, indeed, to any other Liberal principle, was not destined to be longlived. Two years of ineffectual government under the leadership followed, and, in 1895, a general election took place which expressed the opinion of the country on a great many other issues besides Home Rule. After this second defeat of Liberalism, it became the fashion to speak of Home Rule as a dead issue, and for a •matter of ten years it was not greatly before the British electorate. In Ireland, the public demand was unaltered and unalterable.’ More recent events are well within the memory of the general public. The electorate pronounced for Home Rule in 1892. Home Rule was not the issue in in 1896 or 1900. Mr. Chamberlain’s unexpected adoption of Tariff Reform’ confused and complicated the situation in 1906; and at the general election of that year, ‘ the Liberal Party, proposing to limit controversy so far as possible to the question of Free

Trade or Protection, pledged themselves that, if returned to power, they would not introduce a Home Rule Bill.’ It was an unnecessary pledge; but I shall not deal with A Dead-and-Gone Situation. Mr. Redmond aptly recalls the vitally important historical fact that —• - . • . • ‘ In the course of that Parliament it was thought advisable to take a solemn declaration of opinion on the subject, and a motion, put forward by the Irish Party, demanding self-government was accepted by the Government and was passed by a majority of 156. It was plain that the conversion of Great Britain to Home Rule had been going on steadily, and had advanced far beyond the limit of 1892. But it was none the less certain that the House of Lords, the one remaining obstacle, then untouched by public opinion, would reject any Home Rule measure.’ Liberals came back from the general election of January, 1910, with a majority of 124. The death of King Edward VII., whose partiality for a Home Rule settlement of the ‘ Irish question ’ is now admitted —interrupted the work of that Parliament and the famous Conference was arranged between British party leaders. This experiment failed and ‘no one doubts that the real obstacle to a settlement was found in the Irish question.’ Mr. Redmond does not note that while the Conference was still proceeding', practically all the leading organs of Tory opinion in the British press became ardent, almost rabid, advocates of Home Rule. No one with a shadow of regard‘for the sanctity of truth disputes the decisiveness of the country’s pronouncement for Home Rule at the general . election of December, 1910. Mr. Redmond reminds us that- * The entire effort of the Unionist Party was directed to excite hostility and racial prejudice against the Irish cause. Every hoarding was plastered with pictures of the “Dollar Dictator”; every Unionist Leader declared that if the Government came back into power they would pass the Parliament Bill, whose outlines were already known, and, as a first consequence, would use the powers so secured to give Home Rule to Ireland. This was a perfectly true statement of the position : and, with these facts before them, the country, sent back the present Government with a majority of 126.' Therefore, the present is The Fourth British Parliament in which there has been a majority in favor of Home Rule, and it is the third Parliament directly returned with a mandate to pass Home Rule. With these facts before them, Mr. Redmond sums up the existing situation for his readers; Here, then, is the position. Four-fifths of -Ireland demand that power of law-making and administration in local affairs which has been given to every British colony of white men. At eight successive general elections they have returned a party wholly exempt from electoral fluctuations. In three successive Parliaments there has been a huge majority of- British members in. favor of . Ireland’s demand. The whole public opinion of the self-governing Dominions, declared by formal resolution in the Dominion Parliaments of Canada and of Australia, demand Home Rule for Ireland. The United States of America and every European country where freedom is held in value are on the same side. Against this we are told the British nation must decide, because a minority holding the representation of half one province threatens resistance. To yield to such a threat is a mere abdication of the functions of government, an open invitation, not only to Ireland, but to anv discontented section in the community, to seek success by a threat of civil war.’ The ‘threat’ is not more ridiculous than the actual policy of resistance adopted by the small band of placemen and landlords and parasites of a decaying Ascendancy who seek to bend the nation’s will to their own petty prejudices and traditional hatreds. The article from which I have quoted will prove one of the most valuable of the Irish Leader’s many contributions to the ‘literature’ of the National struggle. I congratulate Mr. Redmond ; and Ireland’s debt of gratitude to him can never be repaid in full. : »