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Title: Ireland and Poland
A Comparison

Author: Thomas William Rolleston

Release Date: October 26, 2008 [EBook #27057]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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IRELAND AND POLAND

A COMPARISON

BY

T. W. ROLLESTON

FIRST HON. SECRETARY OF THE IRISH LITERARY SOCIETY, LONDON; LATE
ASSISTANT EDITOR OF THE "NEW IRISH LIBRARY," AND CO-EDITOR OF "A
TREASURY OF IRISH POETRY"; AUTHOR OF "MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF THE CELTIC
RACE," ETC.

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Publishers in America for Hodder & Stoughton
MCMXVII

IRELAND AND POLAND

The United Kingdom is composed of four distinct nationalities. Each of
these has retained its own distinct character, its own national history,
its own patriotism and self-respect. Their affairs, great and small,
general or local, are administered by one Parliament in which each is
fully represented. A large majority of the Irish people have, however,
asked that in addition to some representation in the united Parliament
they shall be granted a local Parliament for the management of their own
internal affairs. The fact that this demand, which has an important
imperial as well as local bearing, has not yet been complied with has
constantly been used by the enemies of the Entente Powers to represent
as false and hypocritical the claims of those Powers to be regarded as
the champions of the rights of small nationalities; and the case of
Ireland has been compared with that of Prussian Poland, as though the
peoples of these two countries were suffering the same kind of
oppression, the same injustice, the same denial of the right of every
man to live and prosper in his own land on equal terms with his
fellow-citizens in every other part of the realm.

The best answer to this charge is to tell plainly, without contention or
exaggeration, what the united Parliament has done for Ireland since the