At a meeting of the Cork Loyalist Association, held this
day week in Cork, Mr. Penrose Fitzgerald said that he defied con- tradiction in alleging that Mr. Gladstone's Bill for granting Home-rule to Ireland " took from Ireland everything that was worth having as an integral part of the greatest Empire the world had ever seen, and that the only power it gave them in return was the power of taxing one another. It passed his comprehension how the Irish Party accepted such a Bill as that, though he could understand perfectly well Ireland being cast adrift from England and told to shift for herself." That is the tone which we should have expected a great many more Irish- men to take than have as yet actually taken it, for it is precisely what most Englishmen feel when they try to put themselves in the place of Irishmen. How Irishmen could be satisfied to give up all the political influence they now exert over the Empire and over Europe for the sake of a subordinate and parochial Legislature such as was offered them, is perhaps the greatest mystery involved in that most mysterious problem of Ire- land's discontent. Again, Mr. Penrose Fitzgerald put the issue between the National League and Ireland very neatly. "Never before in history," he said, "had there been such terrorism and coercion as that of the National League. They were told that all Ireland, or nearly so, was with the National League. If that were the case, what was the necessity for all the murders, mutilations of dumb animals, and honghing of cattle that they heard of. It was for the purpose of making the tenant-farmers and labourers who did not agree with them subject to the League." And Ireland, we trust, is getting sick of terrorism, and beginning to revolt against it.
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