File:Ireland yesterday and today (1909) (14770574771).jpg

Identifier: irelandyesterday00suth_0 (find matches)
Title: Ireland yesterday and today
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Sutherland, Hugh
Subjects: Land tenure Home rule
Publisher: Philadelphia, The North American

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echo to-day. Indeed, I have heard the sameflippancy from Americans. At the bottom of it, of course,is ignorance. Few Englishmen understand, or have anydesire to understand, the Irish question in its complexphases; and too many Americans, through intellectual indo-lence, have accepted the view industriously propagated byToryism, that the Irish demands are totally unreasonableand the race incapacitated for the affairs of government. I purpose to examine, from the viewpoint of an Ameri-can who has taken the trouble to study the problem histor-ically and by actual observation, what these demands areand what measure of justice there is behind them. Theterm Home Rule, of course, carries its own definition. Ire-land demands that her laws, now made and administered bya people foreign in blood, in religion and in sympathy, shallbe made and administered by Irishmen. She demands self-government, instead of government by an alien class; a gov-nent which shall be created by the votes of the Irish
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THE CONQUESTS 187 people and shall be responsive and responsible to them—inother words, a free Irish Parliament and an Irish executiveresponsible to the elected body. There is, in truth, a sectionwhich goes far beyond this, which demands complete sepa-ration from Great Britain and the erection of an independ-ent nation. But this policy, however inspiring it may be tomen whose very souls have been embittered by broodingupon past wrongs, does not come within the scope of prac-tical politics at this time. Whatever the future may hold, itis fairly obvious that Home RuleT as it is usually defined, isthe vital and living ambition of the people. Are all the great reforms, then, which have been dis-cussed in previous chapters to be dismissed as useless?Hardly that, yet they alone can never satisfy the Irishpeople, can never establish peace and prosperity on a soundand permanent basis. The inmates of an almshouse arefree from care; all economic problems have been solved forthem; yet they oft

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