THE HOME RULE CAMPAIGN

New Zealand Tablet, 8 January 1914, Page 11

THE HOME RULE CAMPAIGN

A STATESMANLIKE SPEECH BY THE IRISH 'f „ *' • *' LEADER.'

Mr. John Redmond’s speech at Newcastle-on-Tyne on November 14 has made a profound impression on the country (says .the• Irish Frtss Agency). The Irish News refers to it as ‘ the greatest speech ever delivered by Mr. John Redmond— in many respects, the greatest and most eloquent speech ever delivered by any Irishman of any generation in vindication of our country’s demand for self-government.’ Reynolds Newspaper, in a special article headed ‘ Patriot and Statesman,’ says that ‘ by every speech ho makes, Mr. Redmond reveals himself more and more in the light of a statesman who is an Imperial asset.’ And Mr. John Burns, M.P., refers to it as ‘ a masterly, moderate, and powerful speech, showing all the great qualities of statesmanship.’ The reception accorded to Mr. Redmond at Newcastle was extraordinary in its manifestations of sympathy with Ireland and of enthusiasm in the cause of Home Rule. The first to welcome him were the Irish exiles, whose characteristically cordial reception drew from him a. splendid and just tribute to the fidelity of the Irish in Great Britain. After speaking for over an hour at a crowded meeting, Mr. Redmond had to address an overflow meeting of enormous pro-' portions. Then he was escorted to the Liberal Club by a torchlight procession, and had to deliver two more speeches. No wonder he afterwards expressed himself much encouraged' by the Newcastle meeting and the other British meetings he had attended. They show that the Home Rule cause is won all out in the British constituencies, and that, as Mr, Redmond said, ‘no power on earth can defeat the Home Rule Bill.’ * No Compromise.’ The keynote of the meeting was struck at the outset by the chairman, Sir Walter Runciman, Bart., the head of one of the greatest shipowning firms in the north, and the father of the Right Hon. Walter Runciraan, M.P., President of the Board of Agriculture, who is one of the most brilliant men in the Cabinet and a staunch and courageous Home Ruler. Sir Walter said that ‘ until the Home Rule Bill was passed and /atified there should be no conference, and there should be no compromise. It has been the general experience of all the Irish members engaged addressing Home Rule meetings in Great Britain that the one point upon which the people seem to be strongest is that there should be no compromise on the question of Ulster and no lowering of the Home Rule flag in face of the threats of the Balfours and the Carsons and their followers. To the Tory demand of a General Election, Mr. Redmond replied that three General Elections have been fought and won in succession on the Home Rule issue, which, in its present shape, has been before the country for more than a generation. He recalled the fact that the Act of Union was passed without an appeal to the Irish electors, the Catholic section of whom were never afforded the opportunity of exercising the franchise which -Grattan’s. Protestant Parliament conferred on •them in 1793. But, of course, if there were no other Argument against another General Election on Home Rule, the avowal by the Carsonites themselves that twenty General Elections in its favor would not serve to abate their opposition is conclusive. For and Against. , Mr. Redmond’s enumeration of the services rendered to the cause of freedom and democracy in Great /Britain by the Irish members at Westminster was illuminating, as was also his detailed statement of the great reforms of recent years to, which ‘ the Ulster pack,’ - as; Mr. Balfour once'called them, have offered the stoutest opposition. These men shout for Empire. Mr. . Redmond proved out of the mouth of Wellington, himself an Irishman, that England’s military pre- . eminence; at the close of the Napoleonic wars was , due to Irish Catholic soldiers, and : he : might have added that the naval supremacy of England was largely due

to;. the Irish Catholic -seamen;- ; variously estimated at from two to three-fifths of the whole, who fought under Nelson at Trafalgar. And - when the Empire was fighting for its very life in the - Boer war, / whilst Irish Catholic soldiers were saving South Africa and the honor of the British flag, the' Carsonites in ‘Ulster’ showed their zeal for the Empire by preferring one thousand men fox' garrison duty.’ . . , * * Ulster.’ ■ -r| ’ Mr. Redmond’s statement on the Ulster ’ question was as convincing as it was complete. The claim for the exclusion of Down, Antrim, Derry, and Armagh has been put forward on the ground that these four counties are homogeneous in ■ population, race, religion, politics, and opposition to Home Rule. Here is Mr. Redmond’s reply: • Homogeneous in politics !V Why, 'every one of these four counties returns one Home Rule member to Parliament. Homogeneous in religion and politics ! Allow me to examine that. I have here the figures from the latest census, and they show that in tlx© County Down there is a percentage of 31.6 Catholics in Antrim there is a proportion of 20.3 Catholics;, in Armagh there is a proportion of 45.3 per cent. Catholics; in Derry County there is a/proportion of 41.4; in Derry City, there’ is a proportoin of. 56.2 Catholics ; and in Belfast itself there is.-.a proportion of 24.1 per cent, of Catholics. Now, to consider the politics of those counties. You start from the assumption, which, of course, is true, that all these Catholics are Home Rulers. The Protestants of the four; counties number 729,624; and if you take the percentage of 10 per cent, of the Protestants as Home Rulers —and everyone who knows the North of Ireland knows that this is a ridiculous under-estimate of their number—and if you add this 10 per cent., that is, 72,962 Px‘otestant Home Rulers, to the 316,406 Catholic Home Rulers, we then have a grand total of 389,268 supporters of Home Rule in these four “ homogeneous ” counties. Now, that amounts to 37 per cent, of the whole population of these counties, and therefore to arrive at a homogeneity in, these counties our opponents are obliged to wipe out of-existence for the sake of their argument 37,2 per cent, of the population. |’ ‘ Prosperity ’ in ‘ Ulster.’ £ Coming to deal with the ‘ prosperity ’ argument, Mr. Redmond pointed out that there was no power under the Home Rule Bill to discriminate against ‘ Ulster’ or - any part of it in regard to taxation. But the claim as to ‘ wealth and prosperity ’ set up on behalf of ‘ Ulster ’ was disproved by’ a Treasury Return of December 9, 1912. ' ‘ The • gross annual value of property under Schedule A, Schedule D, and Schedule E, in Dublin, was £10,717,391 ;in Belfast it was £6,339,214. The estimated income tax payable for 1911-1912 in Dublin was £361,000, and in Belfast £206,000, and the gross assessment per head of the population in Dublin was £36 8s 9d, and in Belfast £l6 7s 7d. But let me go now from the dividual cities to provinces. The rateable value per head-of the population in Leinster was £4 8s 9d; in Ulster, £3 9s 8d; in Munster, £3 4s 8d ; and in Connaught, £2 5s Id. And, lest it should be thought unfair to take provinces, let me take counties let me take these four counties that are supposed to represent practically the whole wealth of Ireland. S I have a list here of all the counties 'of Ireland according to their rateable value. I find that the County Down, instead of being at the top, is the fifteenth county, . that the County of Antrim is twentieth, County-Derry twenty-sixth, and Armagh twenty-first. In the face of these hard official figures, what is the' use of people coming and talking about - these counties'being the only prosperous part of Ireland V .4 Emigration axxd Finance. .From .the Emigration Returns, Mr. Redmond showed that the total emigration from Ulster since 1851 was 1,190,194, the greater proportion of which, ; 652,957, was from the four North-Eastern counties. ; The emigration from the County of Antrim- alone last year was 3628, which was within-600 of the total';for

the whole 1 Province of Leinster. . „ The absurdity, of the contention, that Belfast, with its sweated workers s and jerry-built workers’ houses, ought to be efedited with the £2,206,000 levied in Customs duties on imports at that . port,; the . total for all Ireland being only £3,271,000, . was exposed by statement of the obvious fact that the “duties were paid, not by’Belfast but'by the consumers all over Ireland, for whom Belfast, with its monopoly of shipping, is only the port of entry. And Mr. , Redmond was careful to point out that the exclusion of Belfast from the Bill would porbably "result in its import trade being diverted to Dublin, Cork, and Waterford. That, and the fact, which he dwelt upon, that all Ireland is drawn upon by Belfast banks and their branches to finance Belfast trade and indxxstries, furnish two of the strongest and most practical arguments against the , exclusion of ‘Ulster’: — - ‘ I say,’ said Mr. Redmond, ‘as who, whether it is believed or not, will continue to assert, as one who is as anxious for the maintenance of the prosperity of Ulster and Belfast as of any other part of Ireland, I say that the exclusion of Ulster or any part of Ireland, would mean the ruin of its prosperity.’ ,;s< - Ascendancy. i Mr. Redmond. argued that what. ‘ Ulster ’ feared was the loss of ascendancy. He quoted an extract from the leading Unionist newspaper in Belfast, in which what he justly called ‘these dreadful words’ occur: ‘ Live in peace and amity with all men certainly, but clip the wings of Rome by keeping her .apostate Church and slaves in their proper places. The Papist makes a a good hewer of wood and drawer of water; he is servile to baseness, his Church teaches him that, but he makes the most tyrannical of masters at the instigation of the black-coated bigots who own him body and soul.’ •: And then he quoted some figures illustrating the Protestant ascendancy which now obtains in every department, of Irish government ‘I have some figures here I am loth to. q tote. Out of 6000 justices of the peace, the ascendancy ’action hold 3653. /> Out of 30 lords-lieutenant, the ascendancy hold 27. They have 30 high sheriffs, parctically the whole, body. ..., They have 601 deputy-lieutenants out, of 650. They have 62 members of the Privy Council out of 72. They have 57 stipendiary magistrates out of 76. They have nine judges .of the High Court out of thirteen. They have 33 county inspectors of police out of 37; and so on. I might continue the list. All through the whole hierarchy of government in Ireland it is the same the ascendancy holds to-day, and has held, a practical monopoly of every office of power, emolument, honor, and dignity in Ireland; and fivesixths of the peoplethe mere Irishthe Papists—the “‘mere low Irish” in Ireland who happen to be the remnants of the ancient Irish are to remain “hewers of wood and drawers of- water.” ’ ‘We Will Never Submit.’ And this was Mr. Redmond’s comment on Ascendancy : —‘ Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, it is not fear

of religious persecution. " Men-like the Protestant Bishop of Tuam, where hot "3 ;? per ' cent, of -’ the population is Protestant, he and men like him know well that the spirit of ‘ intolerance and persecution' does not exist amongst ;the. Catholics of Ireland to-day. It is not fear of religious persecution fit'" is not fear of taxation, of I Unjust taxation- in Ulster. If there were any such j fear, I fancy that Lord Pirrie, who is the biggest* business man of Belfast, and ‘ who pays, I believe, something like £28,000 a week in wages, would not be, as he is, enthusiastically in favor of the Home Rule Bill. No, it is . not fear- of religious persecution. It is not fear of unjust taxation which animates our op-; ponents, it is fear -of the loss of .the old ascendancy. And - to-day in defence of» that?monopoly and ascend-', ancy these men threaten civil - war on; the Empire and the ~ Throne! Their threats are idle. In Ireland we; will never submit to them. For Great Britain to; submit would be not only treachery to Ireland, but would be treachery to the best interests of Great; Britain herself. This demand of our opponents means the -wrecking of the; Parliament-Act and the restoration of the Veto of the House of Lords.’ Irishmen at home and . abroad v will echo and reecho those words of Mr. Redmond-— ‘ In Ireland we will never submit- to - them.! . If the Home Rule Bill were hopelessly : beaten to-morrow, Ascendancy in Ireland is doomed. There shall be equality of opportunity for all, but ascendancy for none. '• What do They Want? ■ . . ' Coming .to the crux of the Home Rule question and' to close quarter with the Carsonites, Mr. Redmond repeated his desire for a settlement by consent. He spoke for every Irish Nationalist when he said that Ireland ‘ profoundly trusts the great man who is leading the. Home Rule movement— Prime Minister.’ nd then he went on: — We are willing, and always have been willing, to safeguard every possible danger to civil and religious liberty of every section of our people, no matter how small. All I say to-night is this— these men say what they want, and I repeat what I have so often declared, that there is ho demand, no , matter how - extravagant and unreasonable it may appear to us, - that we are not ready to carefully consider so long as it is consistent‘with the principle for which generations of our race have battled —namely, the principle of a settlement based upon the national self-government of Ireland.’* • . . '■ i, Ireland’s Position.. The position of Irish Nationalists in regard to Carsonism was made, positively clear in Mr. Redmond’s closing words. He said:—‘l therefore, ladies arid gentlemen, do not shut my door on a possible settlement by consent. On the contrary, no man living would welcome such a settlement more than I would but I say here and let it be clearly understood I mean what I say— will not be intimidated ;or bullied into . the betrayal of Ireland. It is said that we are asking for the exclusion of Irishmen from their British, citizen-

ship.,V That is ridiculously untrue. We don’t desire the exclusion; of any Irishmen from British citizenship. On the contrary. 4 What We are demanding is admission for ourselves to the British constitution. We have never during the last century lived under the blessings and the safeguards of the constitution which has been ; tho palladium of your liberties. We stand to-day, W we, the Irish Nationalists- to-day at the door of the Empire, and we ask for admission. • We 'pledge you on our fealty as a nation and our loyalty as men. . . . . I beg of you and those whom you represent, I beg of you- in the name of justice and of honor, no less than in the name of wisdom and of self-interest, if, as I fear will be the case, our opponents remain obdurate and will agree to no reasonable settlement of this question, I beg of you not to permit the door of the Empire to be slammed in the face of Ireland, either by the" fear of fanatics or by the bludgeons of bullies.’ . Everything in the political situation at the moment indicates - that Mr. Redmond’s appeal has not fallen upon deaf or unsympathetic ears, and that the triumph of Ireland’s causa is now absolutely assured.