25.
My Lord Mayor: Some weeks ago I took it upon myself to suggest to the
four principal Magistrates of the United Kingdom that they should afford
me an opportunity of making a personal appeal to their citizens at a
great moment in our national history. I have already delivered my
message in London and in Edinburgh. To the first of those great
communities I was able to speak as an Englishman by birth and as a
Londoner by early association and long residence. To the second, the
capital of the ancient Kingdom of Scotland, I had special credentials as
having been for the best part of thirty years one of their
representatives in the House of Commons, ["Hear, hear!"] and now,
indeed, by one of the melancholy privileges of time the senior among the
Scottish members. [Laughter.] But, my Lord Mayor, tonight when I come to
Dublin I can put forward neither the one claim nor the other. [A
Voice--Home Rule.] I base my title, such as it is, to your hospitality
and your hearing upon such service as during the whole of my political
life I have tried with a whole heart and to the best of my faculties and
opportunities to render to Ireland. [Cheers.] I come here, not as a
partisan, not even as a politician, but I come here as for the time
being the head of the King's Government, [cheers,] to summon Ireland, a
loyal and patriotic Ireland, to take her place in the defense of our
common cause.
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