Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-02-17
IRELAND'S HOPES.
MIR. I. NJ. Healy's Views on the Present
Agitation-Self-GoTer the
Ultimate Goal.
Increasing Education Of the Masses and
Contact with America as Factors
in the Contest.

Mr.. T. NJ. Heaiy, member OF parliament,
who recently lectured in Memphis, was re-
Gently interviewed in Boston as to the sltua-
ton in Ireland and spoke as follows:
"Our immediate business in Ireland" he
said, sis TO get rid of landlordisn, and when
| we have done that l think we will not have
much difficulty in securing the Legislative in
dependence OF the island. You will remenl-
Der we had a parliament in 1900 and debt
of only 81 500 900. England destroyed our
local government and saddled upon US the
enormous debt of 100000, 900, with which
in equity we should have had nothing to do"
"Then do you regard this land agitation as
merely a means toward that end?'
"Not merely. We regard it both as a
means and an end. II 1 may be pardoned
the paradox, the condition Of the country
| with the destruction of landlordism would
| be immensely benefited, and it would be a
large work for US to accomplish in this gen.
| Grafton; but If We remove the selfish rea-
SON which England has for holding Ire
| land, simply to enable the landlord TO make
| a living out of her, don't think the English
people at large will find that it would conflict
| with their interest for them to give US a
| native parliament"
"Are the objects of the land movement so
| avowed that all yonr supporters in America
thoroughly understand that you have home
| rule as the ultimate oblectT
81 always thought SO myself until few
DAYS ago, when my attention was called to
an article in the American Catholic Quarterly
| Reuietu by one of our most distinguished
| Irish Americans which rather rudely
| aroused me from that delusion. My idea
| was that the fact that several leaders in the
| present struggle had for years prior to the
starting of the land movement been engaged
| in national patriotic efforts-call 1t home-rule
| or what you will-was in itself a sufficient
| he Of hat We
| were not engaged in a purely agrarian agi-
| tation. Men like Davitt and Parnell, one in
parliament and the other in prison, and out
| of it had for years been striving and suffer-
! ing for the Irish cause. There seems to be
an idea in America that home-rule move
ment ought to be started. The fact is that
such a movement was inaugurated ten years
ago by the Home-Rule League, exist
| ing in Dublin. Every Land League
in Ireland is in favor OF leg
islative independence, but every one
feels that the best way to attain this de-
sired end is by keeping for the present on
the line we are taking. There is no neces-
sity for introducing new plank In the plat
form. The plank has always been in it, and
people who say they are not aware OF the
fact are simply confessing their own igno-
rance of the matter"
apo YOU expect ever to succeed in getting
home-rule?"
ssWell, 1 think that the less we make the
words 'home-rule' our battle cry, the more
likely England is to give the thing home
rule. 1t is getting very hard for England to
hold Ireland. She finds the presence of
twenty or thirty determined Irishmen in par
lament 30 unpleasant that she has frantically
broken up her parliamentary system and in
troduced this session the rules Of the new
tangled French assembly. Then Englishmen
like Mr.. Forster, who 60 over TO Ireland with
the best intentions, find themselves hope
lessly at sea, and nave recourse to the old
laundering methods OF coercion, adding
wilder storms to their sea of troubles. Then,
again, Irishmen are better educated than they
were before. For generations England ex-
cluded schools from the country, and put
price upon the head of a schoolmaster. The
men have not yet passed away who were kept
in ignorance by laws worse than those which
prevented your slaves in the South from
being taught. But the younger generation
has had some sort of schooling, and the
more an Irishman knows the less he wants
England to have anything to do with
ruling his country. Again, the influence
of America has had an enormous effect.
Your Irish population here is already
to equal ours at home. Letters are being con-
tinually sent across the water giving glimpses
! of American life and Institutions; many
s-n;sra.... have ssasal, Aa@l I'D -syisited their
old country, and then an infusion OF unrest,
brought about by contrast, causes continual
mental ferment England knows, too, that
If we had a general election tomorrow, so
great has been the change wrought by the
land movement that, instead OF electing a
third of the representation to follow Parnell,
nearly every man of the one hundred and
three sent from Ireland would be deter
mined agitator, and the presence OF a COM
pact body of one hundred foreign men in the
British parliament, caring nothing for Brit:
ish ways, British thought, British feelings. or
British rules, would add very unpleasant
factor to the difficulties of parliamentary
government Besides, there is large Irish
vote in England which decides elections in
many places, and many English members
are pledged to the principles of local self
government, so that think, on the whole,
the present situation, from our point of view,
is eminently satisfactory"