Not all that heralds rake from coffined clay,
Nor florid prose, nor honeyed words of rhyme
Can blazon evil deeds or consecrate a crime."
When the applause these lines elicited subsided, Mrs. Hardinge dilated on the proposed Home Rule that Mr. Gladstone offered. Naturally the Irish party accepted it, but a close consideration convinced her that it was fortunate it was not carried into effect. The local powers Mr. Gladstone offered were very moderate, far less than the Colonies then possessed, whilst, as the price of them, Ireland was asked to virtually relinquish all share in the government of the country. Gladstone saw insuperable difficulties in the way of establishing a federal parliament; and without it his proposals, if carried into operation, would have made Ireland still more governed from England than it was without the so-called Home Rule. In fact, the fruition of Mr. Gladstone's proposals would have driven Ireland to fight for independence. "We Irish are not disposed," declared Mrs. Hardinge, "to submit to be excluded from a share in the government of the nation to which we belong. Mr. Gladstone would virtually have so excluded us; and if we had taken as a boon the small instalment of self-government he offered, we could only have taken it with the determination to use the power we acquired for the purpose of seeking more or of gaining independence. Yes, my fellow-countrymen," she continued amidst loud cheers, "it was good for us, seeing how happily we now live with England, that we did not take Mr. Gladstone's half-measure. Yet there was great suffering and great delay. Weariness and concession stilled the question for a time; but the Irish continued in a state of more or less suppressed irritation, both from the sense of the indignity of not being permitted local government, and from the actual evils resulting from absenteeism. Relief came at length. It came from the great Colonies the energy of all of us—Irish, English, and Scotch—had built up." Long, continuous cheering interrupted the speaker. "You may well cheer," she continued. "The memory of the great colonial heroes whose action we this day commemorate, and whom, as usual, we will crown with wreaths of laurel, will always remain as green in our memory as the Isle of Erin itself." She proceeded to describe individually the prime ministers of the Colonies who had brought the pressure to bear upon the Central Government. "The Colonies," she said, "became every day, as they advanced in wealth and progress, more interested in the nation to which they belonged. They saw that nation weakened and discredited at home and abroad by the ever-present contingency of Irish disaffection. They felt, besides, that the Colonies, which had grown not only materially, but socially, happy under the influence of free institutions, could not regard with indifference the denial of the same freedom to an important territory of the nation. Their action did equal honour to their intellect and virtue."
Mrs. Hardinge concluded by describing with inimitable grace the various benefits which had arisen from satisfying Ireland's wants. "The boon she received," the speaker declared, "Ireland has returned tenfold. It was owing to her that the Empire was federated; at one moment it stood in the balance whether this great cluster of States should be consolidated into the present happy and united Empire or become a number of disintegrated communities, threatened with all the woes to which weak States are subject."
After this address Mrs. Hardinge, in the presence of an immense multitude, placed a crown of laurel on the head of each of the statues of the colonial statesmen, commencing with the Prime Minister of Canada. Those statues later in the day were almost hidden from sight, for they were covered with a mass of many thousand garlands.
XII.