We call attention to a very able letter, by Mr.
John George MacCarthy, which appears in another column, in reply to Mr. Freeman's article on Home-rule. We agree with a great part of Mr. MacCarthy's answer to Mr. Freeman, not because we agree with his conclusion, but because we think Mr. Freeman's premieses wrong as to the facts of the case in Ireland. The truth is, that unhappy as the relations between the two countries are, they are far too close to admit of the kind of separation implied in Federal- ism. Mr. MacCarthy has no difficulty in granting that the Irish Members must not vote on English or Scotch questions; but imagine the Irish Members refused a vote on Mr. Newde- gate's motion for a Commission to examine into, not the Irish, remember, but the English and Scotch convents ! The thing is impossible. The Irish Members would no more abandon their Roman Catholic brethren here to Protestant mercies, than the English Members would abandon the Irish Protestants to Catholic mercies. History has gone beyond the point where federalism is possible.
Previous page
