Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home RuleBuckley, Robert John
History
Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home Rule
Buckley, Robert John
Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901; Irish question
A never-ending complaint which follows you everywhere is the
supineness of the English electorate. Men whose interests are
seriously threatened, such as the better class of shopkeepers, are
unable to understand the comparative calmness of the British public at
large. Passionately they ask why England leaves them to their fate,
and strongly they urge that prompt and decided action should be taken,
if not for the sake of Ireland, then in the interests of England
herself. Disruption, pure and simple, the breaking up of the Empire,
with panic and general ruin, are in their opinion the sure and certain
concomitants of the bill now before the House. They declare that
Englishmen as a whole, whether Gladstonians or Unionists, fail to
realise the gravity of the situation, and they lose no opportunity of
saying whenever they hear an English accent, "WE DON'T WANT IT, WE
DON'T WANT IT!" Not always do they trouble to say what is the thing
they so emphatically reject. "Pardon me, Sir, but are you English?"
Receiving an affirmative the rejoinder comes at once, and forcefully,
"We don't want it, we don't want it! Tell the English people that if
they knew all they would not entertain the idea for a moment." The
phrase meets you everywhere, is roared at you in chorus in commercial
rooms, haunts you in your sleep, and, if they would own it, must be
painfully suggestive to Gladstonian visitors. But there are none so
blind as those who will not see, none so deaf as those who will not
hear. It is impossible to withhold sympathy with the indignation and
mental anxiety of these industrious men, who have made Dublin what she
is, and whose only notion of happiness is the fulfilment of duty,
their sole means of acquiring wealth or middleclass comfort, hard and
honest work. That the backbone of the city should stand with their
fortunes subject to the will of a few unscrupulous agitators is
indeed, as they say, an inscrutable dispensation of Providence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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