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Show ! HOME RULE FOR IRELAND. In the House of Commons yesterday Mr. Gladstone, in a speech of three and a half hours' duration, outlined his measures for Home Rule in Ireland, and a close study of his speech cannot fail to convince American readers that in drafting draft-ing these proposals the "Old Man Eloquent" Elo-quent" has been moved by a desire to see partial justice done to a long-suffering and shamefully oppressed race. For many, many years Ireland has been governed as with a rod of iron. The lands which should have been inherited by the natives have been siezed upon and held by alien tyrants, whose sole aim seems to have been the plundering of the tenants and the extension over Ireland of a system of slavery. And while the bone and sinew of the land has striven by toil and the endurance of un-untold un-untold hardships to make the earth produce what would suffice to keep body and soul together and serve to pay the exorbitant rentals exacted, they have been deprived of the. representation in governmental affairs which should have been accorded them, and held and looked upon more as slaves working for masters than as free men living in what is called a free land. The grievances of the Irish people have been many and long endured. The measures' which Mr. Gladstone has drafted for their relief will at. least do them partial justice, and everlasting sname should be the portion of those Englishmen who would longer stand between the Irish people and the rights which this measure would secure to them. |