The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-02-20
SEATTLE. sArURDAY, FEB. 20.
= GREAT DAY FOR IRELAND.

nome Rulers saluted the "local Irish gov
eminent bill" with the organized inso-
lence OF debate. From English John Nor
ley down to Parnellite John Redmond the
language of the Home Rulers was coIored
with the exultation born of absolute con-
hdence OF victory in the next general cleo
ton, which will probably be ordered this
year, perhaps as early as May next, GER
ta;nly not later than October. The pres
ent parliament was elected in July, 1856,
and might legally go on until July, 1893,
but all the signs of the time indicate that
longer delay than this year would only
increase the anticipated Gladstonian ma
jority.
Salisbury's administration promises to
be the longest-lived administration of
Victoria's reign. The weight OF argument
has been entirely with Gladstone for six
years past. He has contended for the prin-
ciple OF home rule. He has said in sub
stance thai England had tried coercion for
more than ninety years; that England had
cured Canada's rebellious stomach in 1910
with home rule against more alarming
difficulties of recent instruction, of d.
vided public sentiment, split by ancient
hates Of race and religion, and he has
steadily urged England to try Ireland with
the same sedatlve draught for her chronic
collie of unresting agitation rather than
press again to her infamed lips the bitter
cup OF coercion, on the stupid plea that
every Irishman is either mobocratic slug
ger or lurking assassin watching for
chance to shoot landlord.
The answer of Salisbury all these six
years of debate has been that home rule
would result in the separation of Great
Britain and Ireland and the establishment
of the latter as separate state; that the
ultimate and near consequence of home
rule would be the establishment of q hos
ruled by government that would speedily
proceed to establish the Catholic religion,
to plumber the million and half of Irish
Protestants of their property and to in
augurate speedily civil war.
This is an entirely gratuitous assump-
ton and it is just here, where Salisbury
passes beyond an impartial statement of
historical facts of the situation to the Tory
theory of the practical consequences of
home rule, that Mr.. Gladstone, half the
English and all the American people take
issue with the great Conservative leader.
Canada, always wrenched by turbulence,
rising to rebellion in 1887 because of the
quarrels between the Catholic French
Canadians and the loyal English Protest
ant party of the provinces, advanced stead
lily to its present state of comparative
prosperity and tranquility from the day
that home rule was granted in lSi0in Lord
Durham's governor generalship
fit be said that the nearness of Ireland
to England makes the grant of home rule
a more doubtful and dangerous expert
ment than in the case of Canada, then
there is the example of Hungary that was
z constant menace to Austria, until she
was granted in 1867 the home rule she rose
in armed rebellion to obtain under Kos
suth in 1S4s. Austria, with the help of
Russis, crushed the revolution with a
cruel and bloody barbarity that equaled
the worst acts of English reprisal in Ire
land of 17oS. Scores of the noblest youth
of Hungary were shot and hanged
in cold blood. after surrender; hum
dreds of women were stripped and
horribly logged by order of Marshal Hay
nau; the Austrian dungeons were filled
with political prisoners, and England and
America became places of exile and asylum
TO a large number of patriots upon whose
heads Austria had fixed price. Hungary,
an integral part of the Austrian empire,
had suffered terribly at the hands of her
conoueror; her memory of bitter, burning
wrongs. in shape of dreadful acts Of repri-
sal. was far more vivid than that of the
Irish of today, because Hungary's wrongs
we're recent and modern, while Ire
land, though suffering today the Sc
we're consequences of past misgov-
ernment. has to go back sixty years
IN the 1.-THE war to find anything that
approaches the Austrian brutality Of 1919
Hungary remained constant thorn in
the flesh of imperial Austria until the
great statesman, Won Beust, in 1867, per-
suaded the crown to grant Hungary the
home rule she had vainly pleaded for
twenty wears before During the quarter
century that has elapsed since hungary
was granted home rule, she has become
the most peaceful, prosperous and in
tensely loyal portion of the empire
Gladstone quotes these facts of history
and fairly asks, s'If Canada and Hungary,
from a condition of chronic turbulence
and discomfort, finally becoming eruptive
with open rebellion, have become con-
verified under the grant of home rule into
a peaceful, loyal and contented people,
wbv not Ireland?" The American people,
accustomed to the successful application
of the principle of home rule in the
domestic civic freedom of the states under
the federal government naturally agree
with Gladstone and ask with him, why
not Ire,andP"
The pretense that the rights and priv
ileges. civil and religious, of Protestants
would be endangered by the grant of
home rule is absurd. The heroes and
martyrs of Ireland's struggle for home
rule from the days of Flood and Grattau
70 those of Gladstone and Parnel have