What would happen to the Irish Minority

by William Thomas Stead

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN

TO THE

IRISH MINORITY.

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A MOST POTENT ARGUMENT AGAINST HOME RULE.

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The Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, in a leading article dealing with the Election of the Aldermen on the London Council, says:—

"But what is far more serious is the effect, the very serious effect, which the gerrymandering of the Council will have upon the cause of Home Rule. Let us give credit where credit is due, and recognize frankly and without demur the fact that the Council has been gerrymandered chiefly, if not entirely, owing to the earnestness and ability with which the Star has advocated the course which Mr. Firth carried to victory yesterday. Now, it is no breach of the anonymities of journalism to say that the Star is Mr. T. P. O'Connor—one of the ablest and most industrious of the lieutenants of Mr. Parnell—whose journalistic talents we insisted upon repeatedly long before his present paper came into existence. Now what is it that Mr. T. P. O'Connor has done? He has taught all men that when Parliament creates a subordinate assembly to carry on the work of local selfgovernment, it is in accordance with Irish ideas of fair play to deny to the minority the right to be represented in accordance with its numbers—a right which is recognized as a matter of course in every Committee of the Imperial Parliament. The London County Council is nearer to a Home Rule Parliament than any other body that exists in this country. It has to govern a population as large as that of Ireland, and infinitely more wealthy. Its functions are strictly limited by Act of Parliament, and it has an immensity of heavy practical work to perform. But from the very first moment of its existence the one preoccupation of the inspiring genius of the Star has been to gerrymander the Council, to evade an appeal to the constituencies, and to control everything, not from the point of view of the actual administrative work that is to be done, but in order to use the privileges already conceded to extort more. If this can be done in London, where the people are undisciplined by wirepullers, and distrustful of electioneerers, what security will the Irish minority have of fair play in a Dublin Parliament, managed as it would be by a caucus that is as homogeneous as a patent screw, and which keeps step like a Macedonian phalanx? The refusal of the majority to treat the minority with some regard to the elementary principles of justice and fair play is the most potent argument against Home Rule for Ireland that has reinforced the failing ranks of the Unionists for many a long day."—Pall Mall Gazette, February 6th, 1889.