President of Ireland

“ I trust that the opportunity of making a great advance on this question of Irish government will not long be delayed, and when that opportunity comes my firm belief is that a greater measure of agreement than hitherto as to the ultimate solution will be found possible, and that a keener appreciation will be felt of the benefits that will flow to the Irish communities and British people throughout the world, and that Ireland, from being disaffected, impoverished, and discouraged, will take its place as a strong, harmonious, and contented portion of the empire. ”

“ At least six American Presidents had more or less of the Celtic strain. President Jackson, whose parents came from Co. Down, more than once expressed his pride in his Irish ancestry. Arthur's parents were from Antrim, Buchanan's from Donegal, and McKinley's grandparents came from the same vicinity. Theodore Roosevelt boasts among his ancestors two direct lines from Ireland, and the first American ancestor of President Polk was a Pollock from Donegal. The present occupant of the White House, Woodrow Wilson, is also of Irish descent. ”

“ Our aim is the establishment of an Irish Republic, for the simple and sole reason that no other ending of our quarrel with England could be either adequate or final. This is the one central and vital point of agreement among all who are worthy of the name of Irish Nationalists-that Ireland is a separate nation-separate in thought, mind, in ideals and outlooks. ”

“ That, in carrying out these resolutions, the representatives of the Irish people should always keep in mind the adopting such a prudent and wise course as shall enable them to realise for the Irish nation the greatest possible quantity of good, and as shall also enable them to support and sustain in office, without any violation of principle, the first and only true and honest government that has ever been known in Ireland. ”

“ Their great weakness has lain in the fact that they have had no consistent aim. Some of their leaders have looked for a return to Ireland’s Constitution, and built upon the watchword of the volunteers, ‘The King, the Lords, and the Commons of Ireland.’ Some have dreamed of a complete independence, of an Irish republic shaping its own world policy. Some have wholly distrusted politics, and given their strength to the intellectual, spiritual, or material regeneration of the people. Among these men have been found the sanest practical reformers and the wildest revolutionary dreamers. ”

“ The noble Lord cannot, in his position, remain inactive. Let him be as innocent as he may, he can never justify himself to the country, or to the world, or to posterity, if he remains at the head of this Imperial Legislature and is still unable, or unwilling, to bring forward measures for the restoration of Ireland. I would address the same language also to the noble Lord at the head of the Irish Government, who has won, I must say, the admiration of the population of this country for the temper and manner in which he has administered the government of Ireland. ”

“ It is to me astonishing that so little weight is attached by many to the fact that Irish wishes of self-government were represented only by a small minority.
Now what voting power are the eighty members to have? Ireland is to be represented here fully; that is my first postulate. My second postulate is that Ireland is to be invested with separate powers, subject, no doubt, to imperial authority. Ireland is to be endowed with separate powers over Irish affairs. Then the question before us is: Is she or is she not to vote so strongly upon matters purely British? ”

“ It is then our duty to declare to the universe, that we are of right a free nation, not to be subjected to any laws, but such as are made by the King and Parliament of Ireland.
"Desirous of nothing so much as to live always in good intelligence with the British nation, on account of the union of the two Crowns, our instructions are, that you shall make the greatest efforts to obtain an act, which shall establish forever the independence of the legislative power of Ireland. ”

“ It is that the only way of healing the evils of Ireland,—difficulties of her administration, of giving contentment and prosperity to her people, and of making her a strength instead of a weakness to the empire,—is that the Irish people should have the management of their own domestic affairs ”

“ The evils are increased because the Irish members are turned into a delegation from the Irish State, and their action ceases to be influenced, as it now is, by the consideration—a very important one—that the Imperial Parliament not only in theory but in fact legislates for Ireland, and that the English Cabinet controls the Irish administration and directs the course of political promotion in Ireland. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The object aimed at by the Irish National party—the recovery of Ireland’s national independence, and the severance of all political connection with England—is one that would require the utmost efforts and the greatest sacrifices on the part of the whole Irish people.... I am not one of those who despair of Ireland’s freedom, and am as much in favour of continuing the struggle to-day as some of those who talk loudest against constitutional agitation. ”

“ If we accomplish no more than we have accomplished, I am satisfied. I am satisfied that we have saved Ireland's honour. I am satisfied that we should have accomplished more, that we should have accomplished the task of enthroning, as well as proclaiming the Irish Republic as a Sovereign State, had our arrangements for a simultaneous rising of the whole country, with a combined plan as sound as the [111] Dublin plan has been proved to be, been allowed to go through on Easter Sunday. ”

“ Should she be left out, the argument that she is being treated unequally and unfairly, as compared with England, would gain immense force; because the present local government of Ireland is admittedly less popular, less efficient, altogether less defensible, than even that of England which we are going to reform. If, therefore, the theory that the Imperial Parliament is both anxious and able to do its duty by Ireland is to be maintained, Ireland, too, must have her scheme of local government. ”

“ Comfortable politicians in Westminster can legislate and talk of Ireland far from the centre of the problem, and unhampered by the local difficulties that are to be met with in Ireland. They know nothing, or else conveniently forget that, while Liberalism in England can, and does, hold Home Rule compatible with loyalty to the king, such an amalgamation of ideas has not been {329} recognized hitherto in Ireland. ”

“ If we withdraw the Irish Government from Ireland, and put an end to its separate local existence,—surely we should place its management as a portion of the general government, not merely on a footing of equality, but on that of identity, with the executive for other parts of the United Kingdom. ”

“ In the case of Ireland, we may assume that the majority of Irish patriots have the best interests of their countrymen at heart; but the placard of which the contents are quoted above never emanated from any Irish patriot; it was a definite and ineffectual attempt to stir up the worst passions of which humanity is capable in the hour of England’s greatest need, at a time when all Irish patriots were voicing unity and support to their Government, whether they were Home Rulers or Orangemen—the action of Ireland has proved that. ”

“ For twenty-five years past—with the exception of the abortive Fenian movement—the Irish people have acted as if green flags, denunciation of England, and poetic sunburstry were enough to establish Ireland's claim to national independence.
We trust and believe that a change for the better is coming. Ireland is beginning to see that the men who are able to do something for themselves, the men of judgment and prevision in their own affairs, are likely to bring the best intelligence into national deliberations. ”

“ It will be a Bill which, save possibly for a pious expression of hope in the preamble, will deal with Ireland only. It will set up in Ireland an Irish legislature and executive responsible for the "peace, order, and good government" of Ireland, subject to certain restrictions and limitations. It will assign to Ireland the whole of the Irish revenues, though probably retaining the control of customs and excise, and in that case retaining some Irish representatives at Westminster. ”

“ For a principle to be fundamental in a country does not mean that it must be absolute. I hope society in Ireland will be organized that the idea of democratic control of its economic life will so pervade Irish thought that it will be in the body politic what the spinal column is to the body—the pillar on which it rests, the strongest single factor in the body. ”

“ The Irish, however, have now in their own hands the adequate means of national representation; and this, it seems to us, is the great first step towards a true national life. Whether in after-years that life will have its centre in London or in Dublin seems to us a question hardly worth discussing just now. We like to take hold of actual facts and shape the future out of them. At present Ireland is represented in the English Parliament by a strong, resolute, and able body of Irishmen. These men may not be collectively or individually the ideals of political wisdom and sagacity. ”

“ After having heard and written so much of the wrongs of Ireland under the domination of the English Parliament, he found that Ireland actually and practically formed a part of that Parliament,—the legislature being, not English, but Imperial. He must have known this before; but he had never felt it. He now saw that Ireland was as well represented as England or Scotland; that political offices were held in fair proportion by Irishmen; and that the Irish members engrossed much more than a fair share of the national time in debate and projects of legislation. ”

“ I believe the Irish have no wish to appear in the British Parliament. They wish to manage their own affairs, and are ready to leave Great Britain to manage its own affairs and those of the "Empire" to boot. It is very hard to see in what character the Irish members are to show themselves at Westminster. If they may vote on British affairs, while the British members do not vote on Irish affairs, surely too great a privilege is given to Ireland; it is Great Britain which will become the dependency. ”

“ These—all these things—we, people of Ireland, must know if we would be a free, strong nation. A mockery of Irish independence is not what we want. The bauble of a powerless parliament does not lure us. We are not children. The office of supplying England with recruits, artizans, and corn, under the benign interpositions of an Irish Grand Jury, shall not be our destiny. ”

“ Nor do they realize, I venture to think, that any Irish Government, however composed, will be a patriotic Government pledged and compelled for its own credit and safety to do its best for the interests of Ireland. ”

“ Ireland will never be content with a system of self-government which lessens its representation in the Imperial Parliament, and still retains for that Parliament control over all-important matters like taxation and trade policy. Whoever controls these controls the character of an Irish civilization, and the demand of Ireland is not merely for administrative powers, but the power to fashion its own national policy, and to build up a civilization of its own with an economic character in keeping by self-devised and self-checked efforts. ”

“ Impossible to refuse any request compatible with the general safety of the United Kingdom, which Ireland as a nation might prefer. Impossible to establish that system of Crown Colony Government which we had come to perceive was the only real and solid alternative to self-government. To those of us who had been feeling that the Irish difficulty was much the greatest of all England's difficulties, this stood out beyond the agitation of the autumn and the compromise of the winter as the great political event of 1884. ”

“ Their idea was to make an attempt to emancipate Ireland by striking a blow for freedom on the soil of the Emerald Isle itself, and if successful to establish their cherished Republic firmly, become recognized as a nation by the different nations of the earth, and thereafter govern their own affairs. On their arrival in the United States the Irish envoys received a most enthusiastic welcome from their countrymen, and receptions were arranged in their honor on their visits to all of the principal cities in the Union. ”

“ The motive passions of the Irish agitation have all along been hatred toward England and a desire to make Ireland a nation, holding her independent place among the nations of the world. This design was proclaimed by the Young Irelanders of 1848 and by the Fenian rebels of 1866; it has been avowed, in intervals of candour, by the present Nationalists themselves. The grant of an Irish Parliament will stimulate rather than appease this thirst for separate national existence. The nearer complete independence seems, the more will it be desired. ”