FROM THE ARCHIVES:A hundred years ago, Ireland was about to achieve Home Rule after two general elections left the Irish Parliamentary Party holding the balance of power and gave the Liberal Government a mandate to remove the House of Lords veto on legislation. This is how the situation looked to The Irish Times. – JOE JOYCE
WE SHALL all say goodbye without much regret to the year 1910.
It has been a stormy and eventful period in our political history. It holds the bad record of having witnessed two General Elections and the death of a beloved King. In January the Budget issue was submitted to the electors. Mr [Herbert] Asquith [Liberal Party prime minister] was returned to power, but with the loss of his great majority of 1906. He was left dependent on the Nationalist vote.
Mr [John] Redmond [Irish Parliamentary Party leader] held the Government “in the hollow of his hand” and promised great things to Ireland. We know today how these promises have been fulfilled. With the assistance of the Nationalist Party, the Government [. . .] aggravated the unjust overtaxation of the Irish people. [. . .]
We in Ireland owe little to 1910. We have been dragged into the vortex of British politics and our vital interests have suffered in two ways. They have been made the sport of the Radical and Socialist parties in the House of Commons.
At home the steady progress of our agricultural and industrial development has been disrupted by the renewal of party strife. A year which should have seen the development of land purchase and the improvement of our agricultural organisation has recorded no progress in the one direction and far too little in the other. We hope that the year 1911, when it comes to die, will have a better story to tell.
One thing is quite certain. The Government will not introduce an Irish Home Rule Bill in the coming year. We hope that that fact will be generally realised, and that Irish Nationalists will not waste a precious [. . .] 12 months in agitation over the uncertain prospects of 1912. The best that we can wish for Ireland in the year about to dawn is that she may attend earnestly to the things that really belong to her, prosperity and peace.
Let us improve our educational systems, develop our industries, organise our farmers, make plans for the capture of new markets. Above all, let us cultivate more earnestly than in the past year the spirit of tolerance and good fellowship between Irishmen.
Sooner or later, the strife of parties must involve us in fierce conflict over principles which we may not, and cannot, surrender. It is all the more necessary, therefore, that we should define and establish more securely the national assets in which we all take an equal pride, the traditions and interests which are our common inheritance.
In wishing our public a happy New Year we hope that the end of 1911 may find Ireland a more contented country than she is today, and that ever reader of these lines may be able to claim a share in the work and its blessing.
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