HOPE FOR IRELAND'S FUTURE

New Zealand Tablet, 3 April 1913, Page 15

HOPE FOR IRELAND'S FUTURE

Mr. John E. Redmond, M.P., visited Waterford on February 10 for the purpose of opening the new bridge across the Suir. The Irish Leader was received at the railway station by the Mayor and members-of the Corporation, and representatives of various societies, who presented addresses. Mr. Redmond, in replying to the addresses, said that the political juncture at which he came to Waterford was indeed full of hope. The spirit that ran through every one of those addresses was the same spirit— A Spirit of Absolute Confidence that they were now at the end of this long and weary struggle, and that the goal for which their fathers worked and died, the goal for which through disappointment and disillusion and heartbreak they had struggled during the last twenty-one years, since he first came to the city of Waterford, was now within their grasp. The spirit of those addresses was not one merely of confidence in the future in the sense that they all believed and knew that in a few short months from now an Irish Parliament would be sitting in College Green. But the spirit of those addresses was confident of something more, and that was when that blessed day dawned the last vestige of racial and religious dissensions and differences would disappear as reptiles from our shores, and that all the sons of Ireland would be able to unite freely with one another, whatever their past history might have been. However bitter opponents they might have been, they would be able to Join hands in making the new Irish Constitution a succcess. He told them frankly that if the success of Home Rule had meant in his mind solely a political party triumph, the triumph of one political party, even though the greatest, over the others, he would not have devoted his life as he had devoted it to this cause. An Irishman for him did not mean a Catholic or a descendant of the Celt. An Irishman for him meant A Man Who was Born and Bred in This Land, and who was willing to work for her freedom and her welfare. They looked forward to Home Rule as the harbinger of better feeling amongst all the population of this country. The greatest guarantee they had of the future successful working of Home Rule would be by blending all shades and all creeds and all races of the Irish people into one body, whose one thought above all else would be the welfare and the prosperity and the liberty of their country. He did not entertian one single trace of bitterness of feeling to his political opponents in the past. So far from that, he was willing to put them into the very forefront in the government of eland in the future. He knew, their great equalix J-AViullw xii. i/uv. i ouuie. jvxioVv UXIC7II glCdt l|U£ULl* ties. . He knew they were not really responsible for their bitter history. What was responsible for that had been the past conduct of England. He knew their abilities, their grit, their commercial aptitude, and he said

they would be the very salt of the Irish nation in the future when once they made up their minds to join hands with, Their Catholic and Nationalist Fellow-countrymen, He believed that that day was at hand. He was certain of this, and they had had evidence of it in the House of Commons, that all through the South and West of Ireland men who had been Unionist in the past, once the Home Rule Bill became law, would do their best to make it work successfully. Their spokesman in the House of Commons, Mr. Newman, a large landowner in the South of Ireland, who represented an English constituency, made a most remarkable speech a few weeks ago, and told the House of Commons that Ulster Unionists did not voice the opinions or express the views of the Unionists throughout the South and West of Ireland. He said that although they were not in favor of this Home Rule Bill, that they did not believe it as good as it ought to be, and they would be glad to see it defeated , still, if it became law, they would throw in their lot with their Catholic fellow-countrymen and do their best to make it a success. That would be the spirit in every part of Ulster before many months had elapsed after the passage of the Home Rule Bill into law.