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Show SALISBURY'S AID TO IRISH CAUSE. ! (By John P. Brophy, LL. D.. Ph. D.) The Irish people owe a debt of gratitude grati-tude to Prime Minister Salisbury for bis blunt and brutal declaration. They itnow now where they stand, what they have to expect and with what supreme contempt they are regarded by the degenerate de-generate aristocracy of Great Britain. And if the Irish people are true to the traditions of their sires they will make Salisbury and his arrogant adherents regret the day hi?, lordly indifference betrayed him into the utterance 'J.such an insolent pronunciatnento. , All indications emphasize the fact that his contemptuous disregard of Irish right has aroused a spirit through the world that shall result in the destruction de-struction of the despotic dynasty he so fittingly represents. What form the movement shall take is a matter for serious thought. The manhood of the race would doubtless wish to do as have done the Boers: would wish to seize the sword and trust for triumph to the god of battle; but at this time, and under the conditions that exist reason rea-son forbids the sacrifice-.. Should, the dread forebodings of Salisbury be realizedshould real-izedshould "other nations unite in one great wave to dash upon England's shores," then, indeed, would some Ireland's Ire-land's long-looked- for opportunity. ! But, until the coming of that" fateful day, other means must do the work of righting Ireland's wrongs. "Let us employ the resources of civilization!" civ-ilization!" cry some ardent souls. I can well understand the intensity of that cry; for, even in our own day, anj in the old land, I have witnessed scenes that "would stir a fever in the blood of age, and cause the very stones to rise in mutiny." I have no tears for tyr- anny no anathemas for men who frenzied fren-zied by bitter wrong, have sought for satisfaction in "the wild justice of revenge." re-venge." But individual reprisals cannot can-not be favored not because of any love for tyranny or tyrants, hut because individual in-dividual reprisals would involve the race, and, in the reign of brute force now almost universal, extermination would ensue in Ireland. But are the Irish people to relinquish all hope and to yield at last to dumb despair? Are there no roces presently available and epually potent at our disposal? For long years the people of Hungary rebelled and fought, and again and again were beaten to the ground. Under wise direction, the Hungarian policy was changed from-active from-active to passive resistance; and, as a result, Hungary today dot only has national na-tional autonomy, but she practically dominates the policy of the Austrian empire. In the Land League days a similar policy infused virility into the peasantry peas-antry of Ireland, and brought the accursed ac-cursed system of landlordism to its knees. Through the Land League policy, Ireland commanded the admiration admira-tion of the world, forced the followers of Salisbury to pause in their cruel career, compelled the Liberal party to espouse the Irish cause, and changed from a. persecutor to a friend and champion the greatest statesman that England has ever known. In the Land League days English legislation was at a standstill because of Irish demands; the democracy of Great Britain were warm in support of home rule for Ireland; Ire-land; and the Great Commoner himself, him-self, Prime Minister Gladstone, rose in the House of Commons, stood by the ranks of Ireland's patriot band, and in a speech of wondrous eloquence and power denounced the system that had perpetuated centuries of outrage in Ireland, and demanded that his English Eng-lish countrymen should, at last, give to Ireland that liberty and that justice of which she had been so foully robbed. 1 As "The United Irish League," the old Land League is born again in Ireland. Ire-land. The manhood of the nation are already enroUed and Ireland's sons the world over will rally to its flag. Let the people of Ireland . lift up their hearts! Let Salisbury's brutal threat be but the clarion call to a world-union of Irish hearts and of Irish hands! Everywhere the masses are beginning to feel the quickening of God's law, are beginning to realize the wickedness and the weakness of tyrannical rule. Aye, in England itself, the masses are in array against the arrogance of the classes, and in the Land League days, that Ireland's liberation means England's Eng-land's disenthralment from the terrible sway of consecrated wrong. Why, then, should not Ireland again form an alliance with the democracy of Britain, that, working-together, they may build a federation of republics upon the ruins of hereditary rule? It needs but the bugle blast of brotherhood brother-hood to a"lign the masses of Britain with the people of Ireland in a common com-mon struggle for their common deliverance. de-liverance. To be an ally in the cause of freedom is no denial or abatement of Irish right, no abandonment of one jot or tittle of the God-given, inalienable inalien-able right of the Irish people to be governed by their own laws, made by their own representatives, in an Irish parliament, and linon Irish soil The great evil to be avoided is disunion. dis-union. The great remedy to be applied is the Amerieandea of majority rule. From the moment the old Liberty Bell in Philadelphia sent the keynote of freedom surging through the land till the English flag was struck to George Washington on the victorious field of Yorktown, there were but two parties in America the Patriots and the Tories. When Ireland wins her independence inde-pendence then,, if they will, let Ireland's Ire-land's sons separate into parties, but, in the Ireland of today as in' the America of '76, let there be no parties but Patriots and Tories till, the final j vSctory is won. Leadership is no man's prerogative. It must be of the people, from the people, and by the people. The majority rules. This is the American idea; and from this idea germinates the hope of Ireland's resurrection. |