The Alaska daily empire., 1914-09-23
lRELANDS VICTORY
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 Home Rule for Ireland is now law. The signature of King George V which was affixed to the administration biil granting home rule to Ireland has gladdeaed the heart of thousands up- on thousands of loyal Irishmen scat. tered all over the globe. The thought of the long and noble fight is over whelming; few of the many things that suggest themselves will prove interesting reading matter. The an. nals of Parliamentary government in all countries show us nothing to equal history of the fight for Home Rule for Ireland. As a story of true, deep, earnest, patriotic devotion to loos- ing game for 75 years, to a gradually but slowly winning cause for 40 years more, the story of the t15 years since the Union,--the Union which never united no parallel in political his tory.
 Only the men who gave their lives to the task knew what 1t cost. o'Con- nell looking with the dim eyes of his old age upon the great famine and the wreck of his young hopes; Gafin Duffy, in despair, leaving the land he loved so we'll, to become Grown min ister in a part of the Epmire where an Irishman was trusted; Parnell (and 20 of his members) In prison cells: these are the men who knew what 1t cost to follow Grattan's advice and to keep knocking at the Union" which Grattan failed to prevent.
 The hotter.blooded or less self-con- trolled patriots who broke away from constitutional agitation, men like Mitchell, Meagher, o'Brlen, and oth. CTS suffered less than the men who have sat as members for Irish con. stltuencies these last 40 years.
 For more than ten years after Par nell began his policy to force John Bull to listen," to be an Irish member of Parliament was to be subjected to daily insult and gIbe and jeer from the press of the greatest city in the world. The Irlshmen bore 1t. Slowly but surely they built up the strength of their party; and when fortunate extension of the franchises gave them SC members in Parliament, the first Home Rule bill came.
 All due credit should be given to Gladstone, to Campbell-Bannerman, to Asquith, but at the same time 1t should be borne in mind that three Home Rule bills have been introduced into the British Parliament; in 1886, in 1892, and in 1912, and on all three occasions the Irishmen held the bal. ance of power between the English parties. And when we reflect on the storms which the English ministry had to face in this year 1sI4tO pass the bill, we cannot but doubt whether any Home Rule bill would ever have been introduced, if the Home Rulers from Ireland had not held the balance of power.
 The paths of the politicians in most countries, lead to promotion or pre-, ferment or permanent settlement of some kind, or else to a voice in the general affairs of the Nation in whose Parliament he sits. The path of the Irishman at London led to none of these things. Men sat there and spoke and voted and grew old and died; and no reward could come to them; for they were in receipt of a salary from the nation, and they were pledged to take no office.
 Even the opportunity to influence the affairs of an Empire was denied them; for except on the occasions on which they held the balance of power, their intervention in Imperial affairs was regarded as an unmitigated i'm pertinence; Parnell's first attempt to discuss English bills produced the ugliest exhibition of temper ever wit. messed in the House up to that time.
 On the whole, the lot of the Irish M. P. was not a happy one. He could not run back and forth to his home, as Englishmen could do. He was un- welcome in London, an outcast so. clally, who became important only when the Government needed his vote We'll, that long struggle is at an end. Mir. Redmond and his gal