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Show A FREE PEOPLE. (From the Dublin Freeman's Journal.) We heartily congratulate Sir Thomas Ksinonde. M. P.. on the resolution which he ommended to the unanimous unani-mous approval of the county councils' gener;;l council : "That the Irish people peo-ple should be a free people, with a natural right to govern themselves; that no parliament is competent to make laws for Ireland except an Irish parliament sitting in Ireland. And that the claim of any other body of men to make laws tor or to govern Ireland is illegal and unconstitutional, and a grievance intolerable to the people peo-ple of this country." We concur in bis view that this historic his-toric resolution of the Volunteers expresses ex-presses :n clear, cogent form the National Na-tional demand for Home Rule. We are glad to find I hat the county councils' general council has assunv-d it proper function at last, and is prepared to deal with matters of great and vital interest to the- people. Yet we cannot refrain from regret that so many years of its existence have been spent in a persistent attempt to shut out all political poli-tical questions frem Its consideration. We have constantly protested against such exclusion, and we welcome the more earnestly the conversion of Sir Thomas Esmonde and the enfranchisement enfranchise-ment of the council, who at an early meeting ruled a Home Rule resolution out of order. So far back ns August the 23d. we wrote as follows: "We are convinced con-vinced that Sir Thomas Rsmonde's speech was deliver d without full consideration con-sideration of the inevitable result of the policy he proposed.. He urges the I exclusion ofpolities from the con- sideration of this central assembly I reprrsentinc: the county councils of Ireland." We exposed then the hollow-ness hollow-ness of this cry of "no politics" which is so ready on the lips of the Unionists when they are seeking for Nationalist favors, hnd we argued that the Irish county councils, individually and collectively,, col-lectively,, can be and ought to be used as a lever for the advancement of Home Rule. If they are .willing to. treat the Nationalist Na-tionalist cause as something not to be mentioned ' there- will not lie wanting plenty of Unionist orators and writers to point the moral of that silence. From the first we were convinced that the -great majority of the delegates resented re-sented the closure, and we are glad to bev confirmed in our belief. The secession se-cession of the Unionist delegates is an element' of strength,' 'hot weakness. There j no greater mistake on the part of Nationalists than -to koktow to' Unionist prejudice or .bigotry, and to suppress their own convictions lest they may offend the del'catc susceptibilities suscepti-bilities of their unrelenting opponents. A sin of omission for which a good many Catholic parents w ill one day he held to strict aoe-otiht is their failure to exercise careful supervision over the r-ading matter of their children. The negligence in this respect of some fathers and mothers who in ordinary I n. utters are normally sane and prudent j i almost incredible. Tiiink of the comic (save th? mark!) supplements of I s-'me of our unspeakable Sunday tapers, sheets fairly reeking with the grossest vulgarity think of them be-I be-I ing sent by 'Catholic parents to their j tuns and daughters in college or convent! con-vent! Ave Maria. |