I 953 
 
 l886 
 
 15 
 
 CHE MERITS 
 
 —OF— 
 
 "HOME RULE" 
 
 B/ 
 
 -IN- 
 
 ' ^?'\reland. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH NIMMO, Jr. 
 
 THE LONG-ISLANDER" Prii^NieM.' \ 
 
 •■ — 'ii.lM.IMi><ilfc-"" 
 
The Merits of "Home Kule" in Ireland. 
 
 Mr. Griadstone's appeal to tbe people of 
 Great Britain and Ireland bas been made, 
 and tbe reform of Home Rule, altbougb not 
 fully endorsed at tbe polls, bas yet advanced 
 to a stage at which final success appears to 
 be inevitable. Since the result of the strug- 
 gle has been made known, the criticism has 
 been freely offered, both in this country and 
 in England, that the great Premier has been 
 precipitate, that he had better have post- 
 poned the election until tbe autumn, for the 
 reason that tbe Ena^lisb mind if* slow to 
 adopt new political dogmas. This appears 
 to be the philosophy of people wbo have lit- 
 tle cause for pride of foresight, but who take 
 infi.nite delight in the infallibility of their 
 backsight. The world, however, recognizes the 
 fact that Mr. Gladstone is not only a states- 
 man of great resources, but also a poliiician 
 of wonderful astuteness. No man knows 
 better than he that tbe political advancement 
 of nations proceeds not like the steady flow- 
 ing river, but like the receding and advanc- 
 ing billows of the incoming tide. At the be- 
 ginning, Mr. Gladstone announced his pur- 
 pose of forcing the consideration of his 
 
Home Rule Measure upon Parliament, to the 
 exclnsiou of all other legislation except the 
 passage of bills for providinjj the means of 
 carrviutr on the government. A^ccordmgly 
 he demanded for its di>-cu>*sion live out of six 
 days of each week, a right exercised by the 
 ministry only in cases of emergency. The 
 plecHon so soon following tbe final vote in 
 Parliameut wa-* clearly a part of ibe same line 
 of tactics employed in tiie House of Com- 
 mons. His uniform declarations from the 
 beginning have been to the effect that he 
 should regard defeat in Parliament and at 
 the polls as merely incidents in a struggle 
 the result of which mast be the eventual tri- 
 umph of the principle anuouiicedin the 
 Home Rule Bill. He nas succeeded in mak- 
 ing the measure the foremost and absorbing 
 political issue of Great Britain, and all the 
 advices indicate that no other measure can 
 command the attention of the country until 
 this is disposed of. 
 
 The present time appears to be opportune 
 for presenting an analysis and explanation 
 of the features of the bill, which I am able to 
 do, having received a copy of it at the hands 
 of a friend, from the Eon. Wm. J.Lane, 
 member of Parliament for the City of Cork. 
 Generally it has been said that the 
 Home Rule Bill proposes to confer rights 
 
 f local government similar to our state gov- 
 
ernments. But that is not safficiently accur- 
 ate in order to convey a definite idea of tbe 
 merits of the measure. The rights granted are 
 in tact much narrower and more constrained 
 the powers of government enjoyed by the 
 states of this country, as will appear from 
 tne following review : 
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE AFTHORITY. 
 
 The legislative authority proposed to be 
 created in Ireland is summarily described in 
 ihe Bill in these words, "There shall be es 
 tablishedin Ireland a Legisla^.ure consisting 
 of Her Majesty, the Queen, and an Irish Leg- 
 islative Body/^ In a word the Lord Lieu- 
 tenant of Ireland, appointed by the Crown, 
 and paid out of the Royal Exchequer, -'shall 
 give or withold the assent of Her Majesty to 
 Bills passed by the Irish Parliament.'^ This 
 legislative body is debarred from passing 
 laws in regard to the status or dignity of the 
 crown, the making of war or peace, the 
 army or navy, forts or arsenals, intercourse 
 with foreign countries, dignities or titles of 
 honor; treason, alienage or naturalization; 
 the postal or telegraph service ; navigation, 
 beacons or lighthouses ; money ; copyright, 
 or patent rights. ISTor shall tbe Irish Legis- 
 lature make any law respecting an establish 
 ment or endowment of religion, or prohibit- 
 ing the free exercise thereof, or in any man- 
 ner working disability on account of relig 
 ious belief, or in any manner prejudicially 
 
affectinor the right to establish or maintain 
 denominational senools. The Irish Parlia- 
 ment IS to consist of two branches known as 
 "The first and the second order/' The first 
 order is to consist of one hundred and three 
 members, of whom seventy-five are to be 
 elective, and twentyeigbt peerage members 
 and the second order is to consist of two 
 hundred and four elective members. A pro- 
 perty qualification is established with the 
 limit of two hundred pounds a year} income, 
 or a capital value of four thousand pounds. 
 
 "Whetber Ireland shall or shall not contin- 
 ue to send members to the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment to legislate upon matters other than 
 those relating to Ireland is as yet an open 
 question. In fact Mr. Gladstone has repeat-^ 
 edly declared the entire detail of the Bill to 
 be subject to amendment or even to radical 
 change. His present fight is directed to the 
 single thought of establishing the principle 
 of tbe bill, viz. : the right of Ireland to man- 
 age her own internal affairs. 
 
 THE EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY. 
 
 The Lord Lieutenant, who is to be the 
 Chief Executive of Ireland, is to be appointed 
 by the Queen ; his salary, and the expenses 
 of his household and establishment to be 
 paid from the Koyal Exchequer, and the 
 Legislature of Ireland is debarred from pass- 
 ing any Act relating to his office or functions. 
 
6 
 
 The veto power over legislation by the Trish 
 Parliament is delegated to hira, subject to 
 instructions which may from time to time be 
 given bim by Her Majesty. He is also em- 
 powered to exercise the prerogatives of Her 
 Maje=sty in respect to summooing, prorogu- 
 ing and dissolving the Irish Legislative 
 Body. It must be remembered that this, to 
 us Americans, apparently despotic power is 
 so exercised in Great Britain, as to voice 
 public sentiment even more promptly than it 
 finds expression in this country through the 
 election of a House of Representatives once 
 in two years. 
 
 THE JUDICIARY. 
 
 Under the provision of the Home Rule 
 Bill, the Judges of the Supreme Court of 
 Judicature, and other Supreme Courts of Ire- 
 land and of County Courts, and of other 
 courts of like jurisdiction in Ireland, will con- 
 tinue to be appointable by the crown, and to 
 be removable in pursuance of an address to 
 Her Majesty from both branches of the Irish 
 Legislative Body. The salaries of such offi- 
 cers will be paid out of the "Consolidated 
 Fund of the United Kingdom." 
 
 OTHER FEATURES OF THE HOME RULE BILL. 
 
 Constitutional questions arieing in the 
 
 course of Irish legislation are to be decided 
 
 by appeal to Her Majesty in Council. This 
 
 in the eyes of Americans involves the anom_ 
 
aly of placing tbe decision of questions 
 of a legal and judicial nature in the deter- 
 mination of a body which from its constitu- 
 tion IS moved by political rather than by 
 judicial considerations. 
 
 Evidently the legislative, executive, and 
 judicial power granted to the proposed Irish 
 government by Mr. Gladstone's bill, consti- 
 tute a scheme of government very much in- 
 ferior in scope and function to that very gen- 
 eral and unconstrained provision of our nation - 
 al constitution which provides for the admis- 
 sion of new states into the Union upon the 
 simple condition that they shall have a gov- 
 ernment which is republican in form. 
 
 FINANCE. 
 
 The system of finance provided in the Home 
 Kule Bill, appears in the light of our own na- 
 tional experiences to be not only clumsy, but 
 unnecessarily complex. Under its provis- 
 ions Ireland is to collect all internal taxes, 
 and to pay a portion over to the Consolida- 
 ted Fund of the United Kingdom. In case 
 of war the bill, in terms, makes it necessary 
 for the imperial government to call upon Ire- 
 land for its financial contingent. This iS 
 the method of finance which prevailed in 
 this country from ISTov. 18, 1777 to April 
 30, 1879, when the present Federal Union 
 went into operation. The evils of the old 
 system of finance constituted one of the rea- 
 
sons for establishing "a more perfect Union." 
 Our present system of national finance which 
 was organized by Alexander Hamilton, is 
 entirely independent of state interference. 
 It has saved the country a world of trouble, 
 especially during the late war, and in the 
 adjustment and payment of the national 
 debt. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE HOME RULE BILL. 
 
 The opponents of the Home Rule Bill 
 have during the recent campaign repeatedly 
 declared that the Parnellites intend to use 
 their new powers to enable them to set up an 
 independent government. This however can 
 only be regarded as a political libel. Mr. 
 Parnell and his coadjutors in the new move- 
 ment indignantly repel the charge. Long 
 ago, Lord Macaulay exposed the absurdity 
 of the assumption that any political party 
 can entertain secret designs or cherish pur- 
 poses ulterior to those which it professes. 
 But the disingenuousness of the objection is 
 evident from the fact that under the Home 
 Rule Bill, the imperial government retains 
 its absolute control of the Army and Navy, 
 and of all forts, arsenals and munitions of 
 war, and that it will m no manner be in a 
 less favorable position to suppress insurrec- 
 tion m Ireland, than at the present time, 
 conditions governing the settlement of the 
 Irish question. 
 
9 
 
 The conditions surroundinjj and governing 
 the settlement of the Irish question are so 
 widely different from those which prevail in 
 this country that it is well nigh impossible 
 for an American to comprehend, much Icss 
 to explain the considerations involved in the 
 deiMils..ol the Home Rule Bill. The social 
 and political institutions of Great Britain 
 and Ireland a,re characterized by peculiarities 
 which have no correspondent whatever In the 
 poliiical institutions of this country. I refer 
 especially to ecclesiasticism in politics, to in- 
 herited religious prejudices, to the moral in- 
 fluence of historical events in the course of 
 the developement of the country, to the in- 
 flnence of class distinctions, in social and po- 
 litical affairs and especially the institution of 
 a hereditary nobility, to the nature and ex- 
 tent of landed proprietorships and their rela- 
 tion to the agricultural classes, to the law of 
 primogeniture and entail, and to the inci- 
 dents of a monarchy cherished by a people 
 who in the detail of their governmental sys- 
 tem have in certain particulars taken hold on 
 democratic ideas even more vigorously than 
 ourselves. 
 
 But the whole course of the development 
 of political idea in Europe and in America 
 has preceded from diametrically opposite 
 points. Our system is in fact the very invert 
 of theirs. We began our political existence 
 with only "Home Eule." It is no stretch of 
 
10 
 
 the verities of our political history to assert 
 that the town was the germ of governmeot 
 in this country. Mr. Charles R. Street of 
 this village has in his interesting historical 
 sketch of Huntington shown that it was at 
 one time a governmental autonomy. At the 
 time of the Declaration of Independence go^^- 
 ernmental sovereignty existed only in the 
 states, but in the course of events, they were 
 forced by the exigencies of self preservation, 
 and the highest considerations of self interest 
 to evolve the national sovereignty which since 
 1789 has constituted us a nation. Neverthe- 
 less, the state now touches the individual at 
 a hundred points where the national govern- 
 ment touches him at one, and the tendency 
 toward sendmg the exercise of governmental 
 powers to the extremities is stronger than 
 that toward increasing the powers of the gov- 
 ernment at Washington. These two tenden- 
 cies are not conflicting but co-ordinate. Both 
 tend to functional efficiency in administration. 
 The constitution of our own state now con- 
 fers upon the boards of supervisors of the 
 several counties, certain "powers of local 
 legislation and administration," and as we all 
 know this special form of "home rule" has 
 operated beneficially for Long Island particu- 
 larly, in respect to its fisheries, which inter- 
 ests it has in common with no other part of 
 the state. 
 
11 
 
 But the relation of political institntions .to 
 the people is widely diflferent in Great Bri- 
 tain, and in fact throughout Europe. There 
 the theory has from time immemorial taken 
 possession of the minds of men.that the germ 
 of political power resides in the national sov- 
 ereignty, and that all local self government 
 and in fact all popular liberty has, in the pro- 
 gress of civilization and of reform in guv 
 ernmental methods been accorded by, or 
 wrested from the sovereign power, 
 
 irela.nd's geievances. 
 
 During the recent debates in Parliament 
 and in the campaign just closed, Mr. Grlad- 
 stone has labored to impress upon his coun 
 trymen the advantages of federated gover 
 mental powers, and the Idea that the empire 
 would be all the stronger for local self gover- 
 ment. This idea as before shown is elemtsn- 
 tary to our system of goverment. It is 
 therefore quite incomprehensible to us that 
 80 large a proportion of tne British nation is 
 not to-day educated up to the doctrine that 
 the summation and formulated expression of 
 all the liberties whicb a people can, and ought 
 to enjoy under the guardianship of legal 
 sanction, is a code of laws framed with a 
 view to meeting their specific wants, and con- 
 formed to their specific experiences and the 
 particular conditions which constitute their 
 environment, and that such laws can only be 
 
12 
 
 devised by those whose interest it is to have 
 them enacted. The sullen answer of Tury 
 and Conservative to Mr. Gladstone's eloquent, 
 and almost pathetic pleadings upoa this point 
 is that he is "taking a step t<jward the dis- 
 memberment of the empire". Tney also 
 point to the fact that Ireland has already 
 been granted many important concessions, 
 and, that she is unreaf^onable now in asking tor 
 more. But all experience proves that a 
 proud people can never be satisfied to barter 
 rights tor privileges. A surfeit of largesses 
 may be heaped upon them but they will hate 
 the donor, who at the same time deprives 
 them of a single liberty. When therefore 
 John Bright, refers to the enfranchisement 
 of Catholics, the disestablishradut of_the 
 church-state in Ireland, the reform of the 
 land laws, the arrears act, and other legisla 
 lion, ending last year with an act securing 
 Ihe widest household sufferage, and asks 
 "Could any government in the same length 
 of time have done more for any people", we 
 are prompted to refer him for reply, to the 
 noble and statesmanlike utterance of Cardi- 
 nal Manning in his recent letter to an Amer- 
 ican friend ; "In your majestic uuoin there 
 is a central power which binds all your liber- 
 ties and legislatures int') one commonwealth. 
 England, Ireland and Scotland must, in my 
 belief, all alike hare home rule in ajSairs that 
 are not imperial; but there is an august sov- 
 
13 
 
 erei^nty of a thousancl years, the centre of 
 a world-wide empire standing in the midst of 
 
 us. The sovereientv 
 
 pervades all its parrs and will ever restrain 
 and promptly redress all excesses of delejia- 
 led power." 
 
 But there is uudoubtedly an expression less 
 specious than that above mentioned to al 
 lowinjr Ireland the advantages of ''Home 
 Rule." It IS an objection heard only in deep 
 under tones. The lesst^u of the revolt of her 
 American colonies, gradually forced G-reat 
 Britian to accord to her remaining colonies 
 commercial independence. By virtue of 
 such privileges, the colonies generally have 
 discarded the sophisms of free trade, and 
 have enacted tariffs protective of their own 
 manufacturing and other industries. The 
 real bugbear of "Home Rule" at the present 
 time appears therefore to be, that Ireland 
 might in time gain the right to make her own 
 tariff, in which case ^he would in all proba 
 bility discriminate against Mr, John Bright'g 
 Birmingham carpets, and against many other 
 products of English manufacture. So hidden 
 away under much inconsequential rubbish 
 may be found a very concete objection 
 expressed in terras of pounds, shillings and 
 pence. 
 
 It is of course impossible in a single news- 
 paper article to portray the wrongs of Ire- 
 
14 
 
 land. They had their origin centuries a?o, 
 in the conflicts of antag:onistic races, and in 
 religious differences. From the time when 
 the Briton first dominated Ireland she has 
 been held oy military torce. In referring to 
 the period of reconstruction involved in plac 
 lug the Scottish King, James Yl, upon the 
 English throne as James I, Lord Macaalay 
 says ''Ireland was undisguisedly governed as 
 a dependency won by the sword." Since that 
 time she has suffered woes which would have 
 obliterated a people less brave and less ro- 
 bust. On the first day of the present cen- 
 tury the Irish Parliment was abrogated and 
 the so-called "Union" was inaugurated un- 
 der circumstances of outrage and perfidy. 
 For twenty nine years thereafter, Catholics 
 were disfranchised through what Mr. Glad- 
 stone in a recent speech in Parliament has 
 declared to be "a woeful disregard of solemn 
 promises." Finally, in the year 1829, Cath- 
 olic emancipation was achieved, mainly 
 through the eloquent pleadings of Daniel 
 O'Connell. But as Mr. Gladstone observes, 
 this right was accorded, "not from good-will 
 but from abject terror, and to avoid civil 
 war." 
 
 The most aggravating evil, which for near 
 
 ly two centuries afliicted the Irish people. 
 
 Catholics and Presbyterians alike, and which 
 
 nurtured their animosity toward England, 
 
 was the fact that they were taxed for the 
 
15 
 
 support of a state-cburch with wbich they 
 held no voluntary conDection, and for which 
 they had no atfection. Thi^ abuse was final- 
 ly abolished in the year 1871 under the 
 leadership of Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 Pr<*haps the most serious caase of com 
 plaint by the Irish people has arisen from the 
 failure of the Imperial Parliament to act up- 
 on Irish interests. Failure to act is often- 
 times a deed done, for time legislates as well 
 as puriiaments, and the decree too late, stands 
 as tne tinaiity of many a political opportun 
 ily lost. In this country, with a Congress 
 charged only with the duty of attending to 
 nati<M3al affairs, there are many importan 
 bills which die at the expiration of each Ooq- 
 gre.ss. How then must it be in the case of a 
 Parliament charged with the duty of legisla 
 ting for an Empire upon which the sun nev- 
 er Sots, and also with the home interests of 
 England, Scotland and Ireland. Even in the 
 legi-ilation which is effected blunders are 
 made from sheer ignorance of Irish affairs. 
 BiU Irish interest suffer far more from inat- 
 tention. 
 
 Besides the evils of governmental misman- 
 agement, Ireland has suffered untold miseries 
 from her system of land tenures, which cry 
 aloud for reform Absentee landordism has 
 added the coldness of neglect to the hard- 
 ships of a system, harsh enough in its legal 
 
16 
 
 characteristics. Small wonder is it that Ire- 
 Jaud has for more than a hundred years pre- 
 sented a scene of domestic turbulence and of 
 downrigbi violence. Smce the bearinning of 
 the present century the wiit of Habeas Cor- 
 pus has been suspended twenty four timiis, 
 and various bills have been passed by Parlia- 
 ment for the purpose of ?upprepsing inc^ur 
 rection and of preventing ihreaieued out- 
 break. In his closing speech of the recent 
 debate in the Bouse of Commons, Mr. Par- 
 nell said ''During the last five years jou have 
 had suspension of the Habeas Corpus in Ire- 
 land A thousand of your fellow — subjects 
 have been imprisoned without specific chaige, 
 many for long periods, — twenty mouths,— 
 without trial, and without any intention to 
 try them. You have had the right of domi- 
 cile infringed at all hours of the day and 
 night; You have fined the innocent for the 
 guilty : You have assumed the power to ex- 
 pel aliens from the country, you have re- 
 newed the "Curfew law" and ''blood money'' 
 of your Norman Conquerors ; you have gfig 
 ged the press, seized and suppressed newspa- 
 pers, manufactured new crimes and ofi'enses 
 
 and if the proposed coercion 
 
 policy, which is involved in the rejection of 
 this Dill is to be carried out,— all this and 
 much more you will do again." On the same 
 occasion Mr. Gladstone declared the treat- 
 
17 
 
 ment of Ireland to be "a black blot upon the 
 pages of England's history." 
 
 WHAT ''HOME RULE'' OFFERS. 
 
 The provisions of the Home Rule Bill have 
 alreaay been def<cribed. Unquestionably the 
 dejiree of favor with which it has been re- 
 ceived in England and in Scotland is due 
 very largely to Mr. Grladstone's personal in- 
 fluence. Without going into the detail of the 
 benefits likely to be afforded by the bill, for 
 that would transcend the proper limits of 
 this article, it is sufficient, here to give Mr. 
 ParnelFs opinion of its merits. In his clos- 
 ing speech in the House of Commons he said- 
 — "The Irish people can accept this bill; they 
 have accepted it without reserve, as a meas- 
 ure which may be considered the final settle- 
 ment of the whole question." But as a prac- 
 tical measure of adjusting political diflfer- 
 ences, the chief value of the Home Rule 
 Bill consists in the moral influence of the 
 circumstances under which it has been pro- 
 posed, and under which, with the preserved 
 life of Mr, G-ladstone the principle which it 
 announces will in all probability be enacted 
 into law. Unlike other measures of reform 
 which have come to the Irish people as tro- 
 phies of a conflict, and for that reason have 
 buried no resentments, this comes to them in 
 the manly spirit of good fellowship, with 
 stalwart honesty of faith in them, and hope 
 
18 
 
 for them, and charity toward them. It is at 
 once an act of justice and a becoming appeal 
 to a race characterized by warm hearts as 
 well as strong heads. In the finest sense it 
 is a measure of Union. There is about It 
 "the touch of nature" which "makes ihe 
 whole world kin." Happily too it comes at 
 a time when the Irish people, Catholic and 
 Protestants, — are united in purpose and in 
 organization. The most benign feature of 
 the whole movement consists in the fact that 
 although the Catholic population of Ireland 
 largely preponderates, leadership is now with- 
 out rivalry accorded to Charles Stewart Par- 
 nell, a Presbyterian. The import of this fact 
 may be the better comprehended by stating 
 thatof the total number of church adherents in 
 Ireland in 1881 there were 3,951,888 Cath- 
 olics, 485,503 Presbyterians, 635,670 fol- 
 lowers of the Church of England, and 97.778 
 adherents of all other religious denomina 
 tions. 
 
 But this IS not the first time that Iiish 
 Catholics have followed the lead of Protes- 
 tants, in their attempts to throw off the yoke 
 of political oppression. There were Dean 
 Swift, and Theobald Wolfe Tone, and Rob 
 ert Emmet and Edward Fitzgerald, and 
 Henry Grattan and many others of less celeb 
 rity. Could the Catholics of Ireland give a 
 better pledge of their sincerity, or a more 
 convincing proof of their honesty of purpose. 
 
• 19 
 
 It is a cruel aspersioa upon a chivalric race 
 to assume now that they will prostitute 
 civil liberty to the cause of religious intol- 
 erance. 
 
 Nothwithstandingrthe efforts of Tory lead- 
 ers to sow the seeds of political dissension, 
 and to excite religious strife between Catho- 
 lics and Protestants, the Home Rule Bill 
 has been accepted by all true Irishmen with- 
 out regard to creed. From Westminster, 
 Cardinal Manning sends his hearty endorse- 
 ment of the bill, and unstinted Commenda- 
 tion of Mr. Parnell, and from Princeton, the 
 Rev. Doctor Mc Cosh, President of the Col- 
 lege of N"ew Jersey, who may be regarded as 
 the representative Protestant Irishman in 
 America expresses his warm sympathy 
 in, and adhesion to Mr. Gladstone's measure 
 of relief for his native isle. Cardinal Man- 
 ning, and Doctor McCosh both accept it, as 
 being purely political in its character, and as 
 an act of justice to an oppressed people. 
 
 N"o movement in Europe, during the pres- 
 ent century has so strongly elicited the atten- 
 tion or evoked the sympathy of the people of 
 this country, nor has there been presented to 
 them a spectacle so fascinating as the action 
 of England's greatest stateman, who after a 
 career of unexampled success indeyisingand 
 promoting measures of political reform, now 
 in the fullness of his fame, and at a period 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ^ 
 
 021 356 770 6 
 
 of life, reachine almost RmieintTmate lim- 
 its of the allotted time of mau upon eartb, 
 implores his c(ynntrymen, in the treatment of 
 a portion of their fellow subjects, to substi- 
 tute love for hate, trust for suspicion, gen- 
 erosity for selfishness, respect for contempt, 
 and justice for oppression, and who in the 
 joyous anticipation of the dawn of a bright- 
 er day for his country, exclaims witt^all the 
 ardor of youth— "Ring out the old, ring in 
 the new." 
 
 Joseph ISTimmo, Jr. 
 
 Huntington, N. Y., July 16th, 1886.