Mr. John Redmond moved his Home-rule Resolution in the Commons
on Monday. The history of the Irish Council Bill had shown the futility of half-measures. As for the bogey of religious bigotry, statistics showed that if there was in- tolerance at all, it was not in the Catholic parts of Ireland, while a change had come over business men, the professional classes, and even the landlords. The argument of fear was unworthy of a great nation, and was disproved by the parallel cases of Canada and the Transvaal. All he called for in his Resolution was that what they had done for the Frenchman in Quebec and for the Dutchman in the Transvaal they should now do for the Irishman in Ireland,—in other words, that they should trust the people. The moment they did so he believed in his heart and conscience that there and then, once and for all, they would have ended the blackest chapter in the history of the Empire.
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