/E'r. 39] VISIT OF THE PRINCE OF WALES 4V'
said, ' will respect you in proportion as you respect yourselves. Englishmen will not give anything to Ireland out of justice or righteousness. They will concede your liberties when they must, and no sooner/ In April the Prince and Princess of Wales visited Ireland. Some Nationalists thought that the occasion should be used to demonstrate against the Government. Parnell did not hold this view. He was of opinion that the royal visitors should be allowed to pass through the country like ordinary visitors ; that there should be no demonstrations one way or the other. On April 11 he wrote to ' United Ireland y:
Ijc.ttcr to ' United Ireland '
* You ask for my views regarding the visit of the Prince of Wales, In reply I desire to say that if the, usages of the constitution existed in Ireland as they do in England there would, to my judgment, be no inconsistency in those who believe in the limited monarchy as the best form of government taking a suitable part in the reception of the Prince. .Hut in view of the fact that the constitution has never been administered in Ireland according to its spirit and precedents, that the power of the Crown as wielded by Earl Spencer and other Viceroys is despotic and unlimited to the last degree, and that iu the. present instance the royal personage is to be used by the two Knglish political parties in Ireland for the purpose of injuring and insulting the Irish Nationalist party, and of impeding if possible their work, 1 fail to see upon what ground it can be claimed from any lover of constitutional government under a limited monarchy that the Prince is entitled to aruggle should be carried on. * England/ hod, standing on that platform that night;ght to fix the boundary of the march of a nation. No man has a right totforms by a million voices that the