Daniel Desmond Sheehan

“ If we are but true to ourselves, true to our cause, true to those sanctified principles that have been handed down to us by the patriots of the past, the day of our emancipation is at hand and the glory of a struggle nobly fought and won will be ours. ”

“ At present a young labourer has no inducement whatsoever to stay in his native land. He cannot get a house and an acre of land under the labourers’ acts unless he has someone depending on him, and however wishful he may be to get married and settle down at home the chances are all against him. Hence the claim for allotments, a claim which has the warm support of Mr. William O’Brien and the Irish party. The labourers say, and with justice, that they have an inherent right to the soil, inasmuch as they are in most cases the lineal representatives of the evicted tenants of the past. ”

“ The fight for Home Rule to be pushed While this agitation on behalf of the workingmen is in progress it must not for a moment be imagined that the great and paramount object for which Irishmen must ever band themselves, in strength and unity, together until it is attained—the legislative independence of Ireland—is being kept in the background. ”

“ The Labourers the mainstay of the Irish National Movement In their endeavours to secure a good bill next year the labourers will have the whole-hearted and earnest support of the Irish party and the Irish people. They have earned it by sacrifice ungrudgingly made all through the agrarian struggle, when it may be truly said they were the mainstay of the national movement. ”

“ The labourers seek to remove all hampering restrictions, to simplify procedure, and to have operations so hastened that the 100,000 labourers who live in wretched, squalid hovels at present may be decently housed with as little delay as possible. The next demand, and perhaps the most important, since it aims at keeping the young labourers in Ireland, is that out of the untenanted lands and the large grazing ranches small holdings should be parcelled out in allotments of reasonable size, say five acres, on which the landless should be settled. ”

“ The Irish Labourers must be rooted in the soil “Back to the land” is a principle to which the Irish hierarchy have given their adhesion, as they rightly believe that Ireland can never be prosperous until the land is restored to the industry of the Irish peasantry, and emigration can never be successfully checked until legislation approves some such scheme as I have outlined. ”

“ Whenever it does come it will find the Irish people prepared. It will be the aim of the Irish party to so level up the Tories and the Liberals in Great Britain as to leave the balance of power with the Irish members, who could then dictate their own terms. Such is the Irish political situation. It is bright with hope and promise for Ireland. We are marching rapidly toward the consummation of our most cherished aspirations. ”

“ And many a weary exile in the vast continent beyond the seas, his day’s toil being done, will think with pride and satisfaction of the fact that the tyranny which forced him from his native shores is crushed and trampled on forever. ”

“ Wyndham’s labourers’ bill it will go far to satisfy the requirements of the workers, it will re-people the derelict land, dot the country over with happy homesteads, multiply the thinned-out population, build up a contented and industrious peasantry, and be an effectual check on emigration. ”

“ There is, besides, a clear field for the consideration of their demands, and it would be the blackest ingratitude to neglect their demands when a golden opportunity presents itself for effecting a sensible amelioration of their lot. ”