Sir A. Conan Doyle and Home Rule

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Sir A. Conan Doyle and Home Rule is a letter written by Arthur Conan Doyle published in The Morning Post on 28 september 1911.


Sir A. Conan Doyle and Home Rule

Sir, — You were kind enough to refer in a leading article to my views upon the Home Rule question. I am, as you truly say, an Imperialist, and it is as an Imperialist that I have formed these opinions. I am prepared to admit that in South Africa, as you state, there are still racial difficulties and many injustices. The same has, I believe, in the past held good of Canada. Reasoning from these precedents I should expect to find that Home Rule in Ireland would produce a similar crop for many years to come. All this I am prepared to grant, but I think that for Imperial reasons, so long as the flag and the authority of the King can be kept above all such local dissensions, it is better that we should endure them. We are then at least consistent to one fixed principle, viz., that the majority of the people in each white community of the British Empire should rule themselves. On broad Imperial grounds almost any sacrifice is, as it seems to me, justified in order to attain such a result. No Imperialist can be blind to the evil effects which spring from the disaffection of the Irish both in the United States and in the Colonies. If these, as well as the majority of the actual inhabitants of Ireland, can be thoroughly reconciled to the Flag it is worth a very great deal to the Empire.

Yours, &c.,

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Windlesham, Crowborough, Sussex, Sept. 27