BACK PAGES:The year 1909 was significant in British history, with the veto by the House of Lords of the Liberal government's redistributive "people's budget", which raised income and land taxes to fund social welfare. It led to two elections in 1910 and to the removal of the House of Lords' veto, opening the way for the passage of the Home Rule Bill.
In the midst of these events, The Irish Times summed up the mood of Christmas Eve 100 years ago with this editorial.
Christmas, this year, has taken us almost by surprise. It is our wont to dwell beforehand on the blessings of this happy season, to watch it coming from afar, to make our preparations for it with ample and thoughtful leisure. In this year of grace, the politicians have upset the normal order of things.
During the autumn months, when questions of domestic policy are usually allowed to rest, the country was engaged in the fierce discussion of grave national issues. Christmas finds us on the eve of the most important General Election of modern times. The tumult and the shouting still echo in our ears. They are suspended only for the moment. We know that next week we shall pass from the brief serenity of Christmas into a conflict in which the message of peace and goodwill is only too likely to be forgotten. But these facts should make us value the coming Christmas all the more.
For a little while the inspiration of Christmas is in our hearts. Our fellow men, even though they may differ from us about the Budget, are, we realise, Christians like ourselves, decent citizens, good fathers and husbands, to whom Christmas makes just the same simple, beautiful appeal as to ourselves.
It is a pity that human nature forgets these fine impressions almost as quickly as it receives them. This would be a happy country if all Irishmen felt always towards one another as they feel on Christmas Day. That is an ideal which we cannot hope to realise in full, though there are many public signs that the old ferocity of our religious and political differences is beginning to disappear. We rejoice in that fact today, and we hope that tomorrow prayers for the better brotherhood of all good Irishmen will be offered in our churches.
And, as we pray for the peace of Ireland, we should pray also for the peace of the world. Fortunately, the present Christmas is undisturbed by wars or rumours of war. The year has not been without its excursions and alarms. There have been some ominous activities in the armed camp of Europe. But diplomacy or good luck has prevailed. Christmas sees the nations enjoying peace at home and abroad. They can all celebrate the high festival without the uneasy feeling that they are belying its meaning in word or deed.
In Dublin, politics have not been allowed to interfere with the traditional enjoyments of the Christmas season. Unionists and nationalists have completely forgotten, for the time being, that three hotly-contested elections will soon engage their attention.
However they may have fared during the year, they have put their cares aside. The Budget, grimly as it threatens them in the future, has not closed their purse strings to the demands of this more or less extravagant time. For the worried citizen there has been no better tonic than a walk in any of our principal streets . . .
At ordinary times the ordinary man dislikes the trouble of elbowing his way through crowds. Just now he is infected with the spirit of the season, and the half hour passage through congested Grafton street is beguiled for him with agreeable sights and sounds. He feels it is good to be alive – to be a unit in a multitude where there are no selfish thoughts, where everybody is thinking of somebody else’s pleasure.
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