THE DERRY CONTEST

New Zealand Tablet, 6 March 1913, Page 11

THE DERRY CONTEST

THE IRISH LEADER'S MESSAGE. The Parliamentary contest in Derry created great interest not alone in Ireland but also in Great Britain, and for days before the election yearly every leading newspaper in Great Britain was represented by a special correspondent in the northern city. A great meeting of Nationalists was held in St. Columb's Hall for the purpose of selecting a candidate, and the unanimous choice of the meeting was Mr. D. C. Hoggj a leading Presbyterian, and one of the largest employers of labor in the citv. Mr. D. C. Hogg, H.M.L., the Home Rule candidate, on rising to speak, received an enthusiastic ovation. He delivered a brief address. He had been in the thick of the fight in the past. .He was at one with the Party in reference to one man one vote. He was at one with the Party in reference to the Insurance question and in reference to Old Age Pensions. He thanked them for having nominated him; he thanked them for having accepted him, and if he was elected he would do the very best he could for the city of Derry. The chairman then introduced Mr. William Redmond, M.P., who, he said, had travelled the whole way from London with a message from the Irish Party approving of Mr. Hogg's candidature. Mr. Redmond on rising received a great ovation, the audience continuing to cheer enthusiastically for some time. He said he was there for the purpose of delivering a message to the people of Derry which he had been commissioned the previous night to deliver to them from the chairman and all the members of tho Irish Parliamentary Party. He had been requested to come there on their behalf to tell the electors of Derry that the candidate who had been selected enjoyed in a most whole-hearted way the absolute approval, support, and goodwill of every single representative of Nationalist Ireland in the House of Commons. The people of Derry had to-day the great honor of being able to strike a blow in the cause of Ireland which would be profoundly felt throughout the whole world. During the Home Rule controversy the province of Ulster had been misrepresented. The people of England had been told the lie that Ulster was against the claim of Ireland to manage her own affairs. The electors of Derry had the greatest opportunity probably ever presented to a body of Irishmen of destroying, once and for all, the misrepresentation of Ulster, because if they did their duty, as he knew they would, when this election was over the majority of Ulster members would be with the rest of Ireland. He would tell his gallant young friend Shane Leslie that the struggle he had made had aroused for him the feelings of goodwill and affection amongst his countrymen everywhere, and he told Mr. Leslie further that his action in standing on one side in order that Derry might have the supreme honor of returning a Protestant Home Ruler to be her representative would ensure for him for all time to come the consideration and the gratitude of his fellow-countrymen. The Irish Party felt that it was due to the people of Derry to send to that great meeting of theirs a special representative to wish them God-speed, and to assure them that the ; r choice had the whole-hearted approval of their members. Turning to Mr. Hogg, Mr. Redmond said: ' I tell you, Mr. Hogg, that from the chairman down to the newest and humblest member of our ranks the whole representation of Nationalist Ireland welcomes you with open arms. We recognise in your candidature in support of Home Rule a hopeful sign of that day which we long for, and which, „,„ believe, is utrtu Ucty wimjn we iui, anu winui, WC UOIiOVC, .K near at hand, when many more Protestant well-wishers of Ireland like you will come forward to sit and work for Ireland with the -Catholic representatives of the country, to show that the senseless bitterness and the

t unmeaning prejudices of the past have died away, and that, under Providence, endowed with a legitimate measure of liberty to manage our own affairs, we will tolerate no senseless divisions, but Protestant and Catholic, all classes, high and low, rich and poor, will face, the future hand-in-hand with the one ambition and determination to make our dear Ireland the happy and the prosperous and the contented place it should be.' _ Continuing, Mr. Redmond dealt with the charges of intolerance which had been made against the Catholics of Ireland. To those who really knew them the charges of intolerance so frequently made against the Catholics will carry no conviction, but to those who do not know us, to those who may have any suspicion or doubt, to such people the action of Derry Catholics in rallying round this Protestant gentleman, who is the Home Rule candidate, should be surely proof that Irish Catholics know no stronger desire that in a self-govern-ing Ireland men of all creeds may work and live side by side on terms of absolute and perfect equa]j|y. To Mr. Ure he would say that he had often heard him say on English platforms that they in Ireland on the basis of Home Rule are ready for a future of friendship and unity with Great Britain. The past had been bitter in Ireland, but with legitimate freedom and control of their own affairs we believe and hope and intend the future to be bright and happy for both countries. Above all, he said to Mr. Ure to take away from that meeting the full conviction that it is untrue that Ulster is against Home Rule. Nowhere has Home Rule greater friends than in this province. Whatever happened, Ulster would never leave the rest of Ireland; whatever happened, the rest of Ireland would never leave Ulster. When the reform one man one vote referred to by Mr. Hogg was carried Ulster would be shown, beyond all doubt, to be with the rest of Ireland. The Lord Advocate for Scotland, in the course of a logical and eloquent speech, said:— Sir Edward'Carson makes a special appeal to the Scotsmen to come to the rescue of the majority in the four counties in this hour of their trial and calamity, and he makes this appeal because Scotland is and always has been the land of liberty. I think we could all promise him a ready and an effective response to his appeal if he could satisfy us that there is—l would not say the faintest probability of the liberty of these men in the four counties being affected in the faintest possible degree by any line of clause or word in the Home Rule Bill. Sir Edward Carson knows very well that he cannot. The Ulster protest is not a protest for liberty, for every man in Ireland is fully preserved—nay, indeed, it is guaranteed by the express terms of the Home Rule Bill. The men who sign this covenant do not even claim the right to govern themselves, or to select for themselves the form of government they prefer. What these men who sign the covenant claim is this—to refuse to the overwhelming majority of their Irish fellow-country-men the right to govern themselves. How sane men can put forward so monstrous a contention is an amazing fact which only history can explain. The history of • Ireland explains it all very thoroughly. As long as self-government is denied to Ireland all patronage, profit, and the authority of the Kingdom pass into the hands of a small minority, and no oligarchy will surrender so fair a prize to reason or justice. Now, every oligarchy tries to fortify itself against the day of judgment by attaching to itself a following. That allessential following is to be secured among the Protestants in the North-East of Ireland by creating the tie of religious prejudice. ■ Never, I suppose, was religion so flagrantly exploited by interest as here in North-East Ulster. Tt .-is, indeed, nothing short of deplorable. The young Enniskillens who listened to Sir Edward Carson do not; m their private life detest their Catholic neighbors. They are, indeed, a minority living on good terms with the Catholic majority, and the bewildered Saxon is much tp.mnted to n«k whv if ;„ u,„*. i-- „ l . \ "' * '."*J * u w vuav mcu wjuu call get on with each other in private life cannot get on with each other in politics. There surely ought to be some better way of life than eternal rhetoric about the Siege of Derry and the Battle of the Boyne, threats of rebellion hurled through the air. Well, we Scotsmen know

well what rebellion means, for once upon' a time we were rebels ourselves. We know that there are two conditions which rebellion must satisfy if it is to escape the reproach of wickedness. First, it must be the only way of averting an irremediable wrong; second, it must not create more or worse wrongs than it will avert. This threatened rebellion plainly satisfied neither of these conditions, and Sir Edward Carson makes no attempt to show that it does. He is making an appeal to a liberty-loving people, it is true, but to a very staid and matter-of-fact and law-abiding people. And before we rush to the rescue we must be told in plain English what is the danger ahead, what is the calamity likely to befall, what is the irremediable wrong about to be suffered. Everybody acknowledges now that there is nothing that an Irish Parliament would —even if it had the power, which under the Bill it has notto inflict any injustice or hardship or disability or inequality on a single human being in Armagh, Derry, Antrim, and Down. Their liberties, lives, and property, it is freely acknowledged, are as safe as they are under the Imperial Parliament now.