An appeal, signed on behalf of sixty-two thousand Irish Methodists
to their co-religionists in Great Britain, has been issued by the Continuation Committee of the Irish Methodist Demonstration against Home Rule. The signatories express
their profound conviction that the transfer of government to the Nationalist Party involved in the passage of the Home Rule Bill would mean "either our degradation, or our revolt, or our flight." They accordingly beg of their co-religionists to use their influence to maintain the Union that has brought "prosperity and happiness to us as individuals and established religious freedom throughout the land." The Nationalist Party, they continue, have been both in public and private bitter opponents of the ideals which Methodists have set before them in Ireland as well as in England—in education, Sabbath observance, and temperance. No Nonconformist would tolerate the clerical control over education which they demand, while their attitude in regard to temperance has been conclusively shown in recent statutes. " In the Shops Act, which applies to the. United Kingdom, they had special clauses inserted in favour of the Irish publican and spirit grocer, and, shortly before that, concessions were given to Dublin licensed houses. Temperance legislation could never be expected in an Irish Parliament if past experience is to be our guide."
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