Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1886-01-02
PARNKLL,s AcH1EvEMESr.
Home Raie 70 Como In lsss.

John Boyle Orally in The North American Review
for January.
While the Fenians lay in prison-from 1895
to 1S7<-and the habeas corpus act was sus-
pended, and the stipendiary magistrates had
the power Of Persian satraps, Ireland lay still
and gnawed her heart in the waiting. Feeble
voices OF timid home rulers were raised in West
minister, and WING landlords patronized Ire
land with q mock patriotism. Then the moral
pressure OF the world, and especially OF
America, compelled England to open the
prison doors for the political convicts and there
came out to the world some scores Of men
whose patriotism had been condensed and
chrystalized into terrible purpose; and many of
them had become powerful leaders by re-
Election and selfmastership. Michael Davitt,
Cnarles kickham, Thomas Clarke Luby, and q
most OF others, were sOwn like seed among the
fertile Irish and Irish-Amercan millions; and
Ihelr impressive st ry and uncompromsing
principles took root and fourished in q new
crop OF Irish unrest. The tendency was toward
land, though alarmed, was secure in the knowI-
euee mat an appeal to arms by the disorgan-
lied, scattered, disarmed Irish could be crushed
as all similar attempts had been crushed.
Then fresh from Oxford with his cold Eng
Ish training his Yankee blood and Irish patriotic
.raolIlonary feeling, came Parnell with a new
MS steps. From the moment he first laid his
mana on the Irish keyboard the lace listened to
MN: he has done what O'Connel failed to do,
enilsted all creeds and classes landlords, pro-
lesslonai men, tradesmen, peasants. He has
MADE the larger Ireland in exile one body with
the hve million at home. The radicals have
Joined his forces, believing in the man The
plshops and priests are his warmest supporters.
at protestant landlord, an aristocrat, and a
OF Archbshops Walsh and Crooke, Michael
nSavltt, the Fenians, the farmers, the laborers,
He has drawn together the forty million OF
people who respond to the Irish barometer, in
all lands and made them into one marvellous
aod If Grgan,zed nationality supporting Ire
me thirty million of Englishmen are con-
lronted with this extraordinary, cloud like, but
yet they do not know quite what it means.
Inc late elections have opened the eyes of the
world to the fact that Ireland is overwhelm-
members stand behind MIR. Parnell in parlia-
ment: pledged to vote as he leads, utterly ire
spective of British interests or desires. Liberal
ana tory In England may join to defeat the
irish strength; but 1t will be only for year or
two 1t is clear now that another Crom well
England must grant her constitutional demand
for home government The abominable selfish
ness which would destoy Ireland for England's
sake, If now allowed to operate in another con-
quest and disfranchisement, would assuredly
destroy England-and England is learning the
great lesson: Ireland is saved by the twenty
million Irish blOoded Americans; by the five
million Irish and their defendants in England,
Scotland and Wales; by the vast numbers of
lIISH SS npatnlZerS IN Austria, New ZeaIanQ,
canada and other countries. 1t would be highly
dangerous to slaughter the kindred OF such
people.
1t is not likely that Ireland will gain much
from the coming parliament. The parliament
cannot last long; it is too evenly balanced.
BESIDES, England has not yet realized that
home rule tor Ireland is inevitable. 1t will
take three years to vaccinate her with the idea
and allow it to "take.''
The second leader of English liberals, during
the recent elections, several times repeated this
assertion, that the Irish elections not
truly the expression Of the cOuntry-that Mr..
Parnell was "grnding" and depressing the
irish people! glance at the returns-at the
ten and twelve to one in scores OF cities, towns
and counties. makes such charge ridiculous.
But 1t indicates the perverse ignorance or the
audaclOus dishonesty OF even leading English
men. In returning eighty-siX nationalist MEM
beers to parliament the Irish have not ended,
but just begun, their national struggle. There
are three stages in pacific reform: agitation con-
troversy, and legislation. The Irish have
passed through the first and are entering the
second. Parnell with fifteen or twenty votes,
was not power; he was only voice, an en-
phasis, an appeal. He was an agitational infiu-
ence. With eighty-six votes he is a controver-
slal force. He has compelled John Bull to
l1sten, as Wendell Phillips said of him. In
1889. predict, the legislative stage of the Irish
question will have arrived; and the union with
england, which shall then have cursed Ireland
for nine-tenths of a century, will be repealed.
hiGnH Il M