THE QUESTION OF FLAGS

New Zealand Tablet, 13 February 1913, Page 13

THE QUESTION OF FLAGS

Mr. John Redmond, speaking in the House of Commons on the amendment moved by Mr. Hamersley regarding the official flag of Ireland when Home Rule is granted, said:—Let me say at the commencement that the right hon. gentleman who has just spoken has, in my judgment, done a profound injustice to the hon. member for South Down (Mr. MacVeagh). I go so far as to say that the object which the right hon. gentleman says ought to be entertained by all patriotic Irishmen—namely, while cultivating her own separate nationality she should also be willing to share and be proud of a wider nationality of the Empire. That is the object of my hon. friend the member for South Down, as it is certainly the object of myself and my colleagues. I was profoundly impressed the other clay by a speech made in the City of London by the right hon. gentleman, in which he enunciated this very doctrine, and I paid him the compliment, if he will admit it is a compliment, of quoting his speech at length at a Home Rule meeting a couple of days afterwards. I concluded the quotation by saying that the doctrine he laid down was our ideal. He said he was proud as .a Scotsman of the separate nationality of Scotland, as the Canadians were proud of the separate nationality of Canada, and as Australians were proud of the separate nationality of Australia, while they were all proud of being citizens of the Empire and of the wide nationality of the Empire. The right hon. gentleman made no reference to Ireland, but it is our ideal, and the Irish people have been debarred from the realisation . of the ideal by the history of Ireland ever since the Union. The right hon. gentleman, I am sure, is well acquainted with the history of Ireland. _ Does he forget that the most extreme movement against British rule for the last 100 years, ever since the movement commenced, was a movement and a constitutional movement for reform. Take the case of Wolfe Tone. His was originally a constitutional movement, which had for its 'object Parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation, and it was not until 1795 when, unfortunately, Lord Fitzwilliam, avlio embodied those ideals, was withdrawn from Ireland, that these men became rebels. The same thing has happened in every movement since that day. The '4B movement was created and conducted by men who originally only asked for Parliamentary reform, and who, when they found that hope was absolutely gone, turned into rebels. Prom the day of Wolfe Tone down to this moment there has been no leader of Nationalist sentiment in Ireland who was not willing and eager to grasp the idea of a separate nationality combined with the Imperial unity if he had been allowed to do so. A Stigma Upon Ireland. Let me come down to this particular amendment. It seeks to impose, for no reason I know of, some humiliation upon Ireland. I do not think it is quite fair that I should be interrupted throughout all these debates. I have refrained from interrupting, and my colleagues have.done the same, and I think I might be listened to now. I say I know not what the object of this amendment is unless it is to inflict upon Ireland some stigma on this point which has not been inflicted on any other self-governing portion of the Empire. Do you think that by putting this provision in the Bill you are going to make the Union Jack the flag of the Empire ? It is alreadv the flag of the Empire and has been so created by the statute, and the Home Rule Bill will not interfere with it. If the Home Rule Bill ps passed without this amendment the Union Jack will still be the flag of the Empire, and it will, be flown in a contented Ireland after the Home Rule Bill is passed. The Detested Union. The Union Jack is provided for by statute. Some hon. gentlemen have said that the Union Jack has been received from time to time, in periods of excitement, with disfavor in Ireland. Remember this, that the Union Jack dates only from the Union of 1800, and everyone admitted that that Union, from that date down to this—l will not go into its history—has been

detested by the overwhelming majority of Irishmen. That flag, created as the symbol of the Union, most naturally in times of excitement has from time to time met with disfavor, but after the passage of this Bill it will no longer be the symbol of a hatred and distrusted Union. It will be the symbol of a Union which Irish people have, frankly and fully accepted. It will be the symbol of an Empire into which, for the first time, the Irish people have been admitted upon terms of equality and honor. It is nothing less than a stigma upon Ireland to say that by a clause in this Bill you should compel the Irish people to put over this building or that building a flag which will be their flag for the first time after this Bill has passed. It is said that Ireland will flaunt her own flag. I do not know what flaunting her own flag means. I will tell you what Ireland will do. She will do what every colony in the Empire does to-day. Go to Canada and you will find there the Union Jack as the symbol of Empire, and you will find the flag of Canada alongside it. Go to Australia and you will find the Union Jack there. I have sat in Australian gatherings with the Union Jack over my head, and side by side with it the Australian flag, with the blue symbol of the Southern Cross on it. Go anywhere you like in the Empire and you will find these flags, and even where there is no Home Rule at all. My hon. friend (Mr. MacVeagh) alluded to the case of Scotland. The Flag of Scotland. I remember being greatly interested in seeing the flag of Scotland, without any Union Jack within sight jf it, the other day, floating over the Scottish Office, even in this City of London. Not long afterwards I passed through Downing street on a most innocent mission, and I found the flag of Wales, without any Union Jack near it, floating over the House of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We will not flaunt the flag of Ireland in the face of anybody. You will have the City of Dublin flying the Union Jack as a symbol of a union for the first time, accepted by the Irish people as the symbol of Empire, and alongside it you will find the Irish flag. Personally I do not know what the flag will be. I know what my own predilections are in that respect, but there is a great .difference of opinion amongst Irish scholars as to what real color the Irish flag should be. Whether it will be the Saint Patrick's blue, or whether it will be what we are in the habit of calling the immortal green, is surely of very little importance to members of this House. The important fact is this that the Irish flag will be the symbol of local separate nationality, while the Union Jack will be the symbol of the Empire into which, for the first time, Ireland will have been admitted on honorable and equal terms. Under these circumstances I think the right hon. gentleman has entirely misrepresented the motives and intentions of my hon. friend's speech, and he has certainly very gravely misrepresented the intentions and ideas of my colleagues and myself.