Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1898-11-19
Ireland Can Not Be Governed
by Coercion and Force.
Causes Only Trouble.
Home Government and Home
Rule Throughout Ireland
the Only Remedy.
SPEECH OF HERBERT GLADSTONE.


ferred as follows to home rule and the
Irish local government bill:
"a good many wiseacres have been
saying of late that home rule is dead.
Those who say so, I think, are not pos
sessed of a very high order of political
intelligence. If these gentlemen who
glibly talk of home rule being dead ever
studied the history of Ireland's relations
with England, let us say through this
century, have they not observed that
through the whole course of the nine
tenth century no single Government
whether Wing, Radical, Liberal or Tory
has been able to turn that old Man of
the Sea- off its shoulders? Every year
Ireland has come 10 the front in some
shape, compelling the attention of Eng
lish Governments and Parliaments and
people. Through the century the gov
eminent of the country has been carried
on by means of specially contrived coer-
cion acts. The whole history of this
country teens and bubbles over with
Irish affairs. This Government appealed
tothe country in 1895 so that Parliament
might quit of the Irish question. What
have we seen? Every year this Unionist
Government, supported by its $50 ma
jority, has been compelled to give its
first attention to the government, the
education aud the maintenance of peace
and order in Ireland. Am to be told,
with these facts before me, that home
rule is dead?
1Underlying all the Irish movements
of the nineteenth century there has been
one common denominator, one dominant
feeling which has guided and governed
sometimes misguided and misgoverned,
but has always influenced Irish thought
and action. That dominant feeling is
the wish to be put on level with this
country in its forms of government If
you have not learned that lesson l am
sorry for you. l stand by it and shall
continue to do so. 1t is under these cir
cumstances we are told home rule is dead.
1t is not. Only recently was reading a
speech by the Irish Attorney General or
Solicitor General forget which. He said
home rule was not dead. 1t was very
much alive and always would be while
there were eighty Irish home rule men,
beers of Parliament.
"If we home rulers are right in saying
that this question is at the root of all the
irish movements of the country, how do
we stand? We are face to face with Mr..
Balfour's alternative policy of Irish local
government and the policy of killing
home rule with kindness, which simply
means giving a good deal of money to
Ireland. So far as our position as home
rulers is concerned we never stood better
than we do today and the prospects of
Irish home rulers were never brighter. l
say it without the slightest qualification.
at is the old situation over again, with
this difference: The Irish Nationalist
are in much better position because of
the experience all parties have gained.
There is another factor and that is the
local government act. That act is the
last shot in the locker of the Conserva-
tives against home rule. If that falls
short, what can they fall back uponl Only
upon the old, old system of coercion.
They have made this throw and they are
all anxiously watching the result. Per-
sonally, thought we made great mis-
take in 1891, when we did not give hearty
support to the then Irish local govern
ment bill of the Tory Government; by
our opposition we gave that Government
an excuse for not going on with it. Now,
however, the case is different. They
have brought forward much better bill
than that of 1891, and it Is now the law
of the land. They have given the Irish
people the same democratic system we
have in this country; they have given
them full powers over such matters as
are placed in the hands of county coun-
ellis and, city councils in this country.
The Conservatives say they have given
them all they could reasonably ask; that
it will settle the country and that we
shall hear no more about home rule.
Well, that is an open question.
'But in the event of Irishmen being
true to home rule, as l am absolutely
convinced they will be, how does this
act Affect the question: have said be-
fore,and i say itenow with considerable
authority TO rely upon-I said it was per-
fectly obvious if you gave democratic
system of local self-government to Ire
land and set up county councils all over
the land, the Nationalists would run
candidates in every province, in every
parish of Ireland, and in five-sixths of
those. new assemblies there would be an
overwhelming Nationalist majority. l
have just been reading speech by Mr..
Dillon. What does he sayl He says it
will be the duty of those new bodies to
take advantage of the act, to turn their
attention at once to local affairs and to
do their best for the people so far as the
provisions Of the act will enable them to
do so. But he says it will also be their
duty to express a decided opinion that
the one essential thing; is that there
should be "a central body in Dublin. to
which all those local authorities can look
and appeal. If they do that, one can
imagine that the next step may follow
'easily-that each one of those assemblies