Title: The Speeches (In Full) of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., and William O'Brien, M.P., on Home Rule, Delivered in Parliament, Feb. 16 and 17, 1888.
Author: Gladstone, W. E. (William Ewart), 1809-1898, O'Brien, William
Language: English
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Transcriber's note

This text contains punctuation inconsistencies and misspellings which
have been retained. A list of unresolved printer's errors can be found
at the end of the book.



  THE

  SPEECHES

  (IN FULL)

  OF

  RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M. P.,

  AND

  WILLIAM O'BRIEN, M. P.,

  ON

  HOME RULE,

  DELIVERED IN PARLIAMENT,

  FEB. 16 AND 17, 1888.


  NEW YORK:
  AMERICAN NEWS CO.



MR. GLADSTONE'S SPEECH.


MR. GLADSTONE. In following the right honorable gentleman, I shall only
touch those portions of his speech which go the heart of the question.
In my opinion, they constituted a very small part of his address
(_cheers_), the rest being criminatory and incriminatory matter, which,
however amusing to a portion of the House, really assists us very little
in getting at the root of the great question before us. I do this
particularly because there is a great difficulty, owing to the enormous
range of the question, in confining the debate within the narrow limits
to which we all desire to confine it. My honorable and learned friend,
the member for Inverness (Mr. Finlay), last night, when no member of the
Government seemed in a condition to follow the speech of the honorable
member for Northeast Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien), (_Opposition cheers_),
gallantly stepped into the breach, and performed that office on behalf
of ministers, which has so often been performed by those who are
sometimes termed "Dissenting Liberals"; namely, that of finding
expedients of defence for the Government which they and their adherents
behind them have been unable to discover. (_Opposition cheers._) My
honorable and learned friend said he thought it high time that the
debate should draw to a close. I can perfectly understand reasons why he
should desire that there might be no debate at all on this subject
(_laughter and cheers_), but when he says that the discussion has
extended to unreasonable length, I point to the speech of the
Attorney-General last night, of the length of which I am far from
complaining, but which was evidently in sharp contradiction with the
view of my honorable and learned friend.

Why, sir, it has not been possible to include in this debate a number of
questions which deserve, and may yet have to receive detailed criticism.
For example, the law of public meetings has hardly been touched, and yet
it is gravely involved in the proceedings of the recess. ("_Hear,
hear._") The relations between landlord and tenant have hardly been
touched, and to that notwithstanding a similiar observation will apply.
("_Hear, hear._") The treatment given to prisoners of a particular class
has not been the subject of discussion, and I will make none of these
three matters subject of discussion; but at the same time no one can
doubt that all of them, and many more besides, are fit for the attention
of the House. ("_Hear, hear._") I must proceed by the method of
selection, and I am bound to say that so far as I am personally
concerned, if it had not been for the pointed references to me, and the
perfectly fair and just challenges delivered against certain portions of
my speeches in the recess, I should gladly have remained out of sight. I
am of opinion that such speeches as have been made by the honorable
member for the city of Cork in moving his amendment, and by the
honorable member for East Cork on the memorable occasion of the opening
of last night's debate (_Home Rule cheers_), go more to the heart of the
matter, and more to the mind of the country, than anything that can be
said or urged by those who, whatever else may be said of them, cannot
deny that they stand in the position of leaders of a party, and are
liable to the imputation of party interests. On the other hand, these
gentlemen are in a position to say that they have shown us independence
of party. They have dealt a death blow to Liberal administrations, and
the members of those Liberal administrations never have complained, and
would not have been justified in complaining. They are the advocates and
the organs of a nation. (_Opposition cheers._) They are in a condition
to speak with an effect to which they cannot make any just pretension
when they address themselves to the heart and to the understanding of
another nation on whose judgment they are content to rely. (_"No," from
the Ministerial benches, and counter cheers._)

But, sir, there was a part of the speech of the right honorable
gentlemen which he introduced with an apology, and which I think it
right hriefly to follow. He referred to the communication between Lord
Carnarvon and the member for Cork, and I cannot question for a moment
the denials he has made. But what were those denials? I attended as well
as I could to his statement, and his denials were three. In the first
place, he denied that any engagement or agreement had been made. Sir, I
am not aware of its having been asserted. He denied, secondly, that it
ever had been stated to be the intention of a Conservative Government to
grant a measure of Home Rule. I am not aware, sir, that that has ever
been stated. Thirdly, he denied on the part of Lord Carnarvon, and I
accept the denial with all my heart, that Lord Carnarvon had ever used
any words inconsistent with the maintenance of the Union. (_Ministerial
cheers._) But these three denials leave entirely untouched the material
parts of the case. What are these material parts? If the right honorable
gentleman wishes to dispose of them, I can only say that they are not
disposed of by what he has said to-night, and he must set about with a
new set of statements and denials in order to get rid of them.
(_Opposition cheers._) It was stated by the honorable member for the
city of Cork, that he found himself in substantial--I might say, in
entire agreement with Lord Carnarvon on the question of Home Rule. That
has not been denied. (_Home Rule cheers._) It has been stated that Lord
Carnarvon spoke for himself, and that I do not question, in so far as a
Lord Lieutenant can speak for himself. (_Opposition cheers._) The right
honorable gentleman, the Chief Secretary, did not deny in the speech he
has just made, and certainly there was space in that speech for such
denial, that Lord Carnarvon and the honorable member for Cork were in
substantial agreement on the policy of Home Rule.

MR. BALFOUR. I may say that, from the abstract I read, Lord Carnarvon
clearly, in my idea, did not express his opinion about the Home Rule
policy.

MR. GLADSTONE. The honorable member for Cork declared that he had an
interview with Lord Carnarvon, and that he found himself in agreement
with Lord Carnarvon on the subject. The right honorable gentleman has
not denied that. (_Home Rule cheers._)

MR. BALFOUR. I interpreted Lord Carnarvon's statement as distinctly
denying that.

MR. GLADSTONE. I ask for the words of Lord Carnarvon's statement which
contains that denial. (_Cheers._)

MR. BALFOUR. I will obtain them as quickly as I can, but it would take
me out of the House to do so now. (_An honorable member: "Send for
them."_)

Mr. GLADSTONE. It is a very dangerous practice to make statements of
that kind and importance without the material on which they are founded.
(_Ministerial cries of "Oh."_) I affirm that I am in the recollection of
the House that whatever inference or interpretation the right honorable
gentleman made upon the declarations of Lord Carnarvon, there was not a
word in the passage he read which contained, or which approached to
containing, a denial of the statement of the honorable member for Cork,
that he and Lord Carnarvon were in substantial agreement on the policy
of Home Rule.

Now I ask the right honorable gentleman what he thinks of another
statement made by Lord Carnarvon in the House of Lords, and within the
memory of all of us, in which, speaking of the measure of entended
government that ought to be granted to Ireland, he said that they ought
to meet all the just demands of that country for local self-government,
and likewise ought to be directed in some degree towards giving
reasonable satisfaction to national aspirations? Does the right
honorable gentleman say that he is in favor of giving reasonable
satisfaction to national aspirations? On the contrary, it is the very
phrase and the very idea which, on no consideration, will he recognize,
and it is the phrase and the idea which form the basis of the views of
Lord Carnarvon, and here the right honorable gentleman cannot contradict
me. Well, I think, having got so far, I may go farther. Lord Carnarvon,
being Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and being a member of the Cabinet, or
whether he was a member of the Cabinet or not, was absolutely bound to
make kown his views to Lord Sailsbury, if not to the Cabinet at large.
He did make known his views to Lord Salisbury in the fulfilment of a
primary duty. Lord Salisbury continued to repose his confidence in Lord
Carnarvon. For months afterwards Lord Carnarvon continued to be Lord
Lieutenant. When he retired he did so professedly on account of his
health and amid the expressed regrets of his colleagues. Now, sir, we
are called separatists. (_Ministerial cheers._) We are denounced as
such. (_Renewed Ministerial cheers._) I am glad to have any of my
assertions supported by honorable gentlemen opposite, whose approval is
conveyed in that semi-articulate manner which they find so congenial.
(_Opposition cheers and laughter._) But we are called separatists, and
because we wish to give effect to the national aspirations of Ireland
within the limits of the Constitution and with supreme regard to the
unity of the Empire. (_Ministerial cries of "Oh," and Opposition
cheers._) Lord Salisbury, as the head of a Conservative Government, was
content to stand before the country, having in Ireland a Lord Lieutenant
who was prepared to give satisfaction, reasonable satisfaction, as we
are, to national aspirations, and at the same time to give Ireland
everything in the way of local self-government that ought to be conceded
consistently with the unity of the Empire. (_Opposition cheers._)

Now, it appears then that a Tory Lord Lieutenant may dally as he pleases
with the sirens of Home Rule. It appears that when a general election is
pending, the Prime Minister may regard the entertainment of a Home Rule
policy as no object whatever to placing unbounded confidence in a Tory
Lord Lieutenant. But when the election is over (_Home Rule cheers_),
when the Lord Lieutenant is gone, and when Liberals declare that they
desire to meet the national aspirations of Ireland with a reasonable and
safe satisfaction, then, forsooth, they are to be denounced as
separatists. (_Opposition cheers._) I must say a word upon the
entertaining speech of the honorable and gallant member for North
Armagh. I was struck, I confess, when, after all his assaults upon us,
the honorable gentleman gravely concluded with an argument in favor of
law and order, but with an insinuation that his countrymen would not be
very much disposed to adopt that doctrine. Well, I don't agree with him
about his countrymen, but if we were engaged in an endeavor to show that
Irishmen were not sufficiently good to recognize the principles of law
and order, undoubtedly the instance to which I should refer would be the
honorable gentleman himself. The honorable and gallant gentleman is
here, forsooth, to instruct and to educate us on the subject of law and
order, while he reserves to himself the right of declaring, and more
than once declaring, in this House, as far as I remember--(_Col.
Saunderson: "Yes."_) So much the better. All right. (_Laughter and
cheers._) He declared that "if Parliament passed ant act for granting
to Ireland a carefully guarded portion of the independence she once
possessed, he will be the man to resist and to recommend resistance."
(_Opposition cheers._) He is dealing with gentlemen below the gangway,
and he has the consummate art and the consummate courage to advertise
himself as the apostle of law and order. (_Cheers._) Then the honorable
member referred to a speech of mine in which I referred to the
lamentable murder of Constable Whelehan in the county of Clare. The
Chief Secretary was not ashamed in this House, where he could not be
answered, to say that I had made adverse comments on the conduct of
Whelehan, a man who had lost his life in the service of his country.

Mr. BALFOUR. I said it in this House on Friday last, and I say it again.
(_Ministerial cheers._)

Mr. GLADSTONE. I have no intention of charging the right honorable
gentleman with anything which is not true in fact. I am glad he has
contradicted me. I did not recollect, for I did not hear it. But it was
totally and absolutely untrue. (_Opposition cheers._) Either he had not
read what I said, or if he has read it, and the same applies to the
honorable and gallant member for North Armagh, they have absolutely
misrepresented the purport of the speech they professed to quote. I
never named Whelehan except to deplore his death, and to express the
hope that his murderers would be punished. In my reference to that
speech, there is not a word to show that Whelehan was the man who was
the unhappy organ of the police in ministering pecuniary payment to the
infamous informer, nor is there one word in all that reference of blame
to her Majesty's Government. On the contrary, there is an express
declaration that I laid no blame upon her Majesty's Government with
reference to the case of Whelehan. Why, then, did I refer to it? On this
account: The honorable and gallant gentleman, in the careless way in
which he refers to these things, said I must be cognizant of the fact
that prices were paid for obtaining information I said at Nottingham; I
made no reference at all to the rather difficult question of payment of
prices for obtaining information: but what I referred to was the payment
of prices, not for obtaining information, but for concocting and
concerting crimes. (_Cheers._) After the gradual revelations that were
made to us of the mode in which Ireland is administered, according to
the traditions of that country, it is perfectly possible that such
things may have been done, though I have never heard of them. But when I
did learn in that particular instance of that foul and loathsome
practice of paying money for such a purpose to a man, as far as we are
yet informed, who was to attend a meeting of the criminals for the
purpose of putting a hand to the arrangement and the execution of it
(_loud cheers_), then I did think it was time to protest in the name of
the Liberal party, if not of the whole country, against the practice
which, in my opinion, is in itself odious to the last degree, which
would not be for a moment tolerated in England, and in reference to
which I thought it wise and right to point out that it was dangerous as
well as odious, that when in a similar case the population of England
had become cognizant of similar practices, they themselves had resorted
to the commission of crime for the purpose of marking the detestation
with which they regarded it. ("_Hear, hear._")

I pass on to the remarks of the right honorable gentleman the Chief
Secretary for Ireland, and I feel bound to refer to the observation he
made during the general debate on the address last week, to what he
called the practice of members on this side of the House of making
statements outside this House which they would not repeat within it, and
especially to his adverse and rather angry comments on tne pacific tone
of the speech which I had just delivered. The right honorable gentleman
overflows with pugnacious matter. He is young and inexperienced in
debate, and bold and able as I confess him to be, I think that when he
has been fifty-six years in the service of his country, it is possible
that his stock of contentious eagerness may be a little abated.
(_Laughter and cheers._) I have many reasons, but if I must give a
reason why I was particularly anxious to avoid the needless introduction
of contentious or polemical or accusatory matter in speaking on the
opening debate on the address. I felt that an Irish debate was pending;
and in the second place, the great object I had in view was to assist
and to promote the purpose of the Government,--to promote, I will also
say, the honor, dignity, and efficiency of this House, by giving what I
may call in homely language a good start to the business of the session,
by detaching it from everything like controversy. But if the right
honorable gentleman laments the uncombative character of that
discussion, I think he will derive probably ample satisfaction in the
future. There is no fear, I believe, that Irish debate will be wanting
in animation, possibly in animosity, so long as the right honorable
gentleman continues to be Chief Secretary. (_Opposition cheers and
laughter._) The right honorable gentleman even on that occasion found in
my pacific speech matter deserving of indignant rebuke. I repeat my
lamentations that some of the most difficult and the nicest parts of the
law are removed by the operation of the Coercion Act of last year from
judges and juries to men whom I termed of an inferior stamp. That was
the observation I ventured to make, and the right honorable gentleman
was rather wrathful over it. I fully admit that he is a perfect master
of _tu quoque_. He said, "Whoever they are, they are the men whom Lord
Spencer appointed." In the first place, that is quite inaccurate; and in
the second place, if inaccurate, it was totally irrelevant. It is
perfectly inaccurate.

Mr. BALFOUR. I said that sixty out of seventy-three were appointed
mostly by Lord Spencer, or else were the appointments of previous
Governments revived by him.

Mr. GLADSTONE. And so the right honorable gentleman thinks that what he
calls reviving--that is to say not dismissing--is the same thing as
appointing. (_"Hear, hear," and laughter._)

The gentlemen of whose conduct as resident magistrates I especially
complained, were Mr. Eldon, Captain Seagrave, Mr. Cecil Roche, Mr.
Meldon, and Mr. Carew. These five, and undoubtedly these are the
gentlemen I had specially in view when I spoke of men of an inferior
stamp, not one of these was appointed by Lord Spencer. (_Cheers._) But
supposing they were, the statement of the right honorable gentleman was
absolutely and ludicrously irrelevant. What I was speaking of was not
the discharge by the resident magistrates of their ordinary and
traditionary duties, but the extraordinary duties which the right
honorable gentleman and the Government have insisted in putting upon
them. The right honorable gentleman was especially indignant with me,
because at a given date in the recess, or before the termination of the
session, I telegraphed to some correspondent the words, "Remember
Mitchelstown," and that in a speech at Nottingham I had developed my
meaning of that phrase with all the force I could. The right honorable
gentleman thought fit to point at me the reproach that I was not
disposed to maintain here what I have said elsewhere.

Now I have referred to my own statement at Nottingham about
Mitchelstown, and I can only say I not only adhere to it, but I
strengthen it. I never in my life uttered words, or sent words by letter
or telegram, which I more rejoice to have used, and am better content to
have used, than the words, "Remember Mitchelstown." (_Loud Opposition
cheers._) It was not done inconsiderately. It was done considerately,
for the sake of Ireland and the country, and for the sake of preventing
the enormous mischiefs, probable sufferings, probable bloodshed, and the
consequent resistance to the law that might arise in Ireland in
consequence of what had occurred at Mitchelstown, and of its adoption
and appropriation by the right honorable gentleman. (_Cheers._) What was
it? It was this: A legal meeting ("_Hear, hear_") of 4,000 men
assembled; the police, under the plea of the common practice of having
an official reporter at the meeting, instead of prior communication with
those who held it, instead of going to the platform at a point where it
was open and accessible, formed a wedge of twenty men, and endeavored by
force to drive that wedge into the middle of the crowd. I am here to say
that a public meeting is an orderly assembly; that to observe order in a
public meeting is part of the law of the land ("_Hear, hear_"); that the
driving a wedge into the meeting was an illegality on the part of the
police; and that the police who drove it into the crowd were themselves
guilty of illegality, and ought to have been given into custody.
(_Cheers._)

On this deplorable occasion the agents of the law were the breakers of
the law, and those breakers of the law, acting in the first instance
under subordinate authority, were adopted and sanctioned by the right
honorable gentleman, with the full authority of the Government.
(_Cheers._) What was the second act of the police? Their wedge was not
strong enough; they were pressed back out of the crowd, and it seems to
me with perfect propriety and legality, whereupon they brought a large
force of police and charged the crowd, because the crowd had not
concurred and co-operated in the former illegality. That was a fresh
illegality committed by the police. Then violence began; then began the
use of batons; then began the use of sticks and cudgels; then began the
sufferings of the men in the crowd, and of individual members of the
police, on which the right honorable gentleman is eloquent, and which I
regret as much as he does. But the police in these two illegalities of
attacking and batoning the crowd were defeated. The crowd did not pursue
them. (_Cheers._) According to all the information before us, the crowd
were recalled, and again took their places in the square. A mere
scattering and sprinkling of most probably boys, we know not how and to
what extent, were in the street where the police barracks are to be
found; and among them, those boys or others, succeeded in breaking three
windows of the police barracks. (_Laughter._) Those three windows were
exalted and uplifted by the right honorable gentleman into a general
attack on the barracks, compelling the police, in self-defence, to fire
on the people. In one sense I must say the police did not fire on the
people, for no mass of people was there to fire on. I said at
Nottingham, and it is the result of all the inquiry I have made, that
there was not more than twenty people in the street opposite the
barracks, and under these circumstances the police actually fired into
the windows of the opposite house, where there were peaceful people,
women, and children; and they fired deliberately at individuals, two old
men and one boy, whom they destroyed. That I do not hesitate here to
denounce--I think I did not use the words at Nottingham--as cruel,
wanton, and disgraceful bloodshed (_Loud cheers._) It recalls the period
of Lord Sidmouth, and was bloodshed which, so far as I know, has had no
example in its wantonness and causelessness since the memorable occasion
in Manchester, which is popularly known as the Massacre of Peterloo.
(_Cheers._)

Now, I have given the right honorable gentlemen my views about
Mitchelstown. (_Opposition cheers and derisive Ministerial cheers._) It
was time that I should say, "Remember Mitchelstown." Mitchelstown might
have become what in one particular class of language is termed a
"prerogative instance." The Mitchelstown police, commended by the right
honorable gentleman, were held up to the police in Ireland as the
pattern which they were to follow. (_Cheers._) They were told they had
acted only in self-defence, and the measure and meaning of self-defence,
as exhibited at Mitchelstown, I feared, and it was reasonable to fear,
would be the meaning and the measure of self-defence on every other
occasion, when, by legality or illegality, the police found an
opportunity of coming into collision with the people. (_Cheers._) I tell
the right honorable gentleman frankly that, in my opinion, he had
become, by clear implication, a breaker of the law. (_Cheers._) He had
given to the breaking of the law authoritative countenance and approval,
and not only so, but he had done it under circumstances where that
authoritative approval, conveyed to the mind of the police, would
naturally, justly, and excusably, almost necessarily, have pointed out
to them that that was to be the model and rule of their conduct in every
example of the kind. (_Cheers._) Sir, it was in the interests of law and
order that I denounced the conduct of the police. (_Opposition cheers
and derisive Ministerial cheers, in which Mr. Balfour joined._) It will
be a long time, I think, before he can discover an instance, either on
this bench or among any of those who are our friends, in which the law
and order of the country, and the security and the lives of the people,
had been treated with such recklessness as they then were by the right
honorable gentleman and his colleagues. (_Cheers._) I have done my best
to inform myself, and in conformity with, I believe, uncontradicted and
consentient statements, I contend that the inferences I have drawn from
these facts are just inferences, and that it was not only natural but
necessary to adopt precautions on the part, I will say, of England,
against the fatal imitations which Mitchelstown might have produced, and
to take securities for law and order in Ireland, first of all, as I
pointed out to the people of England, that these things ought to be
watched; and secondly, by making known to the Government, and to their
agents and their organs beyond the the Channel, that if such occurrences
did happen, they would not pass uncensured. (_Cheers._) I believe I
never spoke more useful--I will go further, and say more fruitful--words
than when I telegraphed, "Remember Mitchelstown." (_Loud Opposition
cheers and derisive Ministerial cheers._) I now come to the statistics
of the right honorable gentleman, with reference to boycotting. The
Government are particularly stingy in their statistics, but they have
given some figures as to boycotting. I do not recollect that boycotting
was ever made a portion of Government statistics before.

Mr. BALFOUR. We have made statistics before on boycotting.

Mr. GLADSTONE. Yes; but I am speaking of the ancient and traditional
practice which this Conservative Government are always so indisposed to
follow. (_Opposition cheers and laughter._) Statistics of crime deal
with facts and matter of record; statistics of boycotting, as far as I
understand, are matter of opinion. ("_Hear, hear._") What amounts to
boycotting,--what is the test of it? There must be, and will be, cases
of harsh and unreasonable persecution under the name of boycotting. It
is never to be forgotten, though it is very common to forget it, that
when you have a state of things that prevails in Ireland,--old and sore
relations of friction between class and class, the sense of still
remaining suffering or grievance, and consequent instability of social
order,--the criminal elements that will always subsist in every
community (though I thank God to say that I believe they subsist in
Ireland more narrowly than almost anywhere else), I will find their way
into social questions, and undoubtedly you will have bad, and very bad,
cases exhibited in matters such as these. Therefore the exhibition of
particular instances is a very unsafe and insufficient test. They ought
to be quoted with great accuracy. The right honorable gentleman has been
defending to-night his chosen instruments of the present year. ("_Hear,
hear._") Yes, but he was met immediately with point blank contradictions
on matters of fact, and at present I shall enter no further into that
question, which evidently must be made the subject of further
examination. ("_Hear, hear._") But the right honorable gentleman gave us
last year a case of boycotting which was touching to the last
degree,--the case of the Galway midwife. (_Cheers and laughter._) Does
the right honorable gentleman say that the instance he selected last
year--the instance of the Galway midwife--was well founded? (_Cheers._)

Mr. BALFOUR. Absolutely correct in every particular. (_Ministerial
cheers._)

Mr. GLADSTONE. All I can say is, that here likewise the right honorable
gentleman has been met with a point blank contradiction. ("_Hear,
hear._") But what are we to say of boycotting statistics as a basis for
legislation or for congratulation on the rising felicity of a country,
when the right honorable gentleman, out of the thousands of cases he has
had before him, can only select for us two upon which he is at once met
by having his facts challenged, and his conclusions falsified?
(_Cheers._) Let me point out this. My right honorable friend, the member
for Newcastle, well remarked on a former occasion, that there is a
chapter of statistics which, if the right honorable gentleman had chosen
to enter it, would have been far more to the purpose on this occsion
than these he has laid before us, though they are not wholly without
value; and that is the statistics of evicted or derelict land. ("_Hear,
hear._") There could be no difficulty whatever for the right honorable
gentleman to have called for returns of the acreage on farms, which, in
different counties in Ireland, either all over Ireland or in selected
counties, had been derelict a year, two years, or three years ago, in
the time of Lord Spencer and down to the present date, and had shown us
how, under the recovered liberty of the Irish people, about which he
boasts, the acreage of these derelict farms had gradually been
diminished. The right honorable gentleman has not only avoided but
shirked that question (_cheers_), and he shirked it because he
substituted for any attempt at a rational answer to my right honorable
friend, a jeremiad upon the state of feeling which he thought might be
produced in Ireland when he found my right honorable friend using
language which, in his opinion, was capable of being interpreted into
sympathy with the operations of the Land League. ("_Hear, hear._") A
more unjust charge never was made. (_Opposition cheers_). But, just or
unjust, it has nothing to do with the question.

The right honorable gentleman found himself, and the Queen has been
instructed to found herself in her speech, and the organs of the
Government have based themselves in their articles, upon the assertion
that liberty, as they phrase it, is returning to the people of Ireland.
If that liberty were returning, it would be exhibited in a proportionate
diminution of derelect farms. (_"Hear, hear," from Mr. Balfour._) Then
why have you not shown it? (_Opposition cheers._) There is one part of
the statistics that we have read with increased satisfacfaction, that is
the diminution in the amount of crime, limited as that diminution is. I
thought when the right honorable gentleman constructed his artificial
return, he had some very special purpose in view. It is the first time
that I have known the month of January do such good service, and when I
look into the return, I find out the cause: The return of offences
reported to the constabulary are reported under three major
heads,--offences against the person, offences against property, and
offences against the public peace. With regard to the offences against
the person and property, I find that if I take the five months only of
last year, after the passing of the Coercion Act, and compare them with
the corresponding five months of the year before, there is no diminution
whatever. ("_Hear, hear._") But in the month of January there was in
offences against the person a sudden, a most well-timed, and fortunate,
and rapid decline, for they fell from ten to three. The right honorable
gentleman drew January into his service; by means of that declension, he
was able to show a diminution of six per cent of offences against person
and property. I am extremely glad of it, and wish there had been a great
deal more. The offences which have sensibly and really diminished are
those against the public peace, and I rejoice that they have diminished.
But why? The right honorable gentleman stands up and says that the cause
of the diminution is the Coercion Act, but I think I have shown that
whereas the diminution of crime proper, as directed against person and
property, is an exceedingly small diminution, the diminution of offences
against the public peace is much larger. I make it out to be that that
they fell in these six months from three hundred and twenty-four to two
hundred and thirty-eight, or a diminution of about twenty-five per cent.
These are exactly the offences that would diminish under the operation
of a conciliatory Land Act. (_Opposition cheers._)

The right honorable gentleman has the boldness to say that we, on this
side of the House, never gave any credit to the Land Act. Why, sir, the
Land Act, grossly imperfect as it was, culpably imperfect in the matter
of arrears (_cheers_), contained a great and important provision which
the member for Cork in vain had demanded in the September before, which,
if it had then been granted, you probably never might have heard of the
Plan of Campaign. (_Cheers._) It was denounced to the House by the
Government of that day as being a provision totally incompatible with
that morality, forsooth, on which right honorable gentlemen prided
themselves. (_Laughter._) I speak of the provision which, under a great
responsibility, her Majesty's Government, though far too late,
introduced as a most valuable gift. It was quite evident that, so far as
offences against the public peace were concerned, the reopening of the
judicial rents, and the concession made to leaseholders, could not but
operate in the most powerful manner in favor of that diminution.
(_Cheers._) There are two other questions to be considered, viz., how
the law has been administered, and how the administration of the law has
succeeded. Has the administration of the law been of a character to
reconcile, or has it been of a character to estrange, or has it been
calculated to teach respect for the Government, or to bring the
Government into increasing hatred or contempt? I am not going into
details of prison treatment, but I am going to touch the case of two
members of Parliament, with reference to a matter other than prison
treatment. I am not cognizant by direct and personal knowledge of the
facts, but I have received them from quarters thought to be thoroughly
informed. Unless I had so received them, I would not think of laying
them before the House.

Mr. Sheehy, a member of this House, has been arrested and remanded
without bail. It was a misfortune which might have been taken into
consideration at the time that his wife was ill of a disease known as
scarlatina, or scarlet fever. He was offered bail by the Government if
he would promise not to open his lips in public. By Government--that, I
presume, means the Executive Government. I want to know what title the
resident magistrate had to make such a condition as that. (_Opposition
cheers._) Most dangerous is this introduction of the new discretion of
resident magistrates,--a discretion of imposing new restrictions upon
prisoners. Why is it necessary to impose these conditions? If Mr.
Sheehy chose to commit an offence while he was under bail, he could be
taken up for that, and I want to hear from the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, or some member of the Government, a distinct account of the
new doctrine that those conditions may be imposed, which are written, I
believe, neither in law nor in custom, which have been set in action in
Ireland, but which in England, we know, are not heard of, and would not
be heard of or tolerated for a moment. (_Cheers._) Mr. Sheehy, I must
say, very properly entirely declined to accede to that condition, and he
was tried and sentenced to three months' imprisonment. He appealed, as
he was entitled to do, and bail was accepted for his appearance at
quarter sessions, so that he would have been able to obey the almost
sacred domestic form of tie which was at the time incumbent upon him.
But as he was going out of the door of the court he was arrested again
on another charge, and brought away immediately to a distant part of the
country, his wife being in the very crisis of her illness, and her life
seriously threatened. On the second charge he was sentenced, not to
three months, which would have enabled him to appeal, but to one months
imprisonment, (_Nationalist cheers_), depriving him of the power of
appeal.

Mr. CHANCE. Which had been promised by the right honorable gentleman to
the House.

Mr. GLADSTONE. The right honorable gentleman, the Chief Secretary, is
perfectly aware of that promise. He is perfectly aware that in the
debate last year he was charged by my right honorable friend near me
(Sir W. Harcourt) with breech of faith with regard to that promise, and
to that charge of breach he has remained, I must say, very patiently
silent. (_Opposition cheers._) Now, is that the sort of administration
of the act of last year which her Majesty's Government are prepared to
defend? (_Opposition cheers._) Is it thus that Ireland is to be
reconciled? (_Nationalist cheers._) Is it thus that the Irish nation is
to be converted? Is it in this House of Commons, the most ancient and
the noblest of all the temples of freedom, that such operations as this
are to be either passed over in silence or defended by those engaged in
them? (_Loud Opposition cheers._) I cannot understand the extreme
severity of treatment in certain particulars, if I am rightly informed,
meted out to this gentleman; but I wish to keep for the present to what
relates most distinctly to the administration of the law as apart from
prison discipline, and in that view alone I would mention the case of
Alderman Hooper and others. Alderman Hooper was sentenced for publishing
reports of the National League branches that had been suppressed,
although, as I understand, there are plenty of these reports published
within the cognizance of the Government, with respect to which those who
publish them have not been sentenced and have not been proceeded
against.

Well, Mr. Alderman Hooper was proceeded against, and was sentenced for
publishing these reports for a term of one month. He would have had
there no right of appeal, but was again simultaneously charged for
publishing another report; another sentence of one month was pronounced
upon him. These sentences, though cumulative with regard to him, were
not cumulative with regard to the right to appeal. (_Cheers._)
Therefore, while the right honorable gentleman professed to give the
right of appeal for all sentences above a month, by this clever device
he has contrived to inflict upon Alderman Hooper, a member of this
House, an imprisonment of two months, and yet that Alderman Hooper
should have no right of appeal. And there again, sir, I say I am sorry
to use strong words, but I am tempted to do so outside this House, and I
will do so in this House. (_Opposition cheers_) This was explained to be
not only a constitutional violence, not only a clear evasion of the
spirit of the law, but an incredible meanness (_loud Opposition
cheers_), a meanness in the method of administering the Crimes Act, and
a spirit is displayed which, if the Irish people had only a hundredth
part of the courage, the pluck, and perseverance which they had shown
through seven centuries, could only tend to alienate and estrange them
from those who attempt so to govern them. (_Opposition cheers._) The
word that I have thus used I am going to use again. (_Ministerial
laughter._) I am very desirous to invite the concurrence of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer in the propriety of my application of it, or
whether he considers that nobleness would be a better description of the
circumstances which I am about to describe. Without knowing what I am
going to say, the right honorable gentleman accepts my challenge, and,
therefore, I am justified in exhibiting a specimen of the nobleness with
which this administration of Ireland is conceived and executed.

I have before me a list of six people prosecuted, not for publishing
reports of suppressed branches, but for selling them. Their names are:
Macnamara, at Tralee; Mahony, Tralee; Molloy, Tralee; Brosman,
Killarney; Green, at Killarney, also; and at Ennis, another Macnamara.
(_Irish honorable members: "This same man twice."_) Two of the cases
were dismissed, but four of them were sent to prison,--one for a month
with hard labor, another for a month with hard labor, another for two
months with hard labor, and another released on a promise not to do it
again. Again this method of interfering with private freedom by
arbitrary restriction, governed by no law, justified by no usage,
devised by this spirit of Irish administration (_cheers_), and with
respect to which I want to know how far this importation into the law
and jurisprudence of the country is to be carried under the auspices of
her Majesty's Government. Well, now, sir, I want to know from the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he is to speak to-night, does he see
nobleness in the prosecution of these men? ("_Hear, hear._") Does he
think it rational to prosecute these men? (_Cheers._) Does he think it
right to require of the vender of a newspaper that he should read its
contents? Does he think it right to require that he should have formed
his judgment of those contents, that he should have made up his mind
whether the proceedings described in the newspaper were legal or
illegal? and is that the responsibility which he thinks ought to be
imposed on the vender of a newspaper under pain of being condemned to
one month or two months' imprisonment? This administration of the Crimes
Act, to which I must advisedly apply, until I am better instructed, the
term "meanness," has yet, at any rate, had no defence offered in the
course of this debate. (_Cheers._) The remaining point of the
administration of the law on which I will comment is of a different
character. It is with respect to exclusive dealing.

It will be remembered that we, in our charges against the bill last
year, did not say that it justified the proceedings of exclusive
dealing. I do not believe the act does justify them; but this I am bound
to say, that the interpretation of the act appears to be deliberately
applied in a variety of instances for the punishment of simple exclusive
dealing. The right honorable gentleman ought to know, if he does not,
for I delivered the speech in his hearing, that when I spoke of the
dismissal of curates by rectors and the deprivation of their daily
bread, that men with wives and children were to be turned out upon the
world, I was not, as the right honorable gentlemen charged me, comparing
them with cases of conspiracy, but I was comparing them with cases of
exclusive dealing, which, while they are practised freely both in
Ireland by the opponents of the Nationalists, and in England by the
party of the right honorable gentleman (_Opposition cheers_), unpunished
by the law, I believe it is stretching and straining even the deplorable
and shameful act of last session to make it include such cases. Now,
sir, I wish to mention eight cases, but first I find I was quite wrong
in saying that two of the cases for selling newspapers had been
dismissed. They were not. The defendants were released upon promise, and
the other four punished. I have now before me eight cases of exclusive
dealing, two of which were dismissed, but in all of which the Government
proceeded. In one of these cases a man was punished with a month's hard
labor for refusing to shoe a horse for a boycotted person; another, for
refusing to sell groceries to a boycotted person; a third, for refusing
to shoe a horse; and a fourth, for declining to deal with emergency men.
Those are all cases of exclusive dealing. They are not cases of
conspiracy. In fact, these men have been punished for doing in Ireland
that which would be perfectly lawful in England, and which, I believe,
is perfectly lawful even in Ireland, under any fair interpretation of
the act. Now, has the act succeeded, or it has failed? I do not think
gentlemen will object to the proposition that its real object was to put
down the National League and the Plan of Campaign.

Now I come again to the speech of the honorable member for East Cork
(Mr. W. O'Brien) which, I venture to say, was a memorable speech.
(_Cheers_). To him, as I have never had the privilege of private or
personal communication, I will say publicly in this House that though,
as he says, imprisonment under the condition he describes is a hard and
severe thing, which drives the iron into the soul of a man and leaves
him such that he hardly can be again what he was before, yet I trust
that the right honorable gentleman has derived some consolation and
encouragement to persevere, at least, in lawful and patriotic efforts
for setting right the wrongs of his country. I hope he has derived it
from the enthusiastic reception that he encountered in this House and
out of it, and, I will add, for the credit of honorable gentlemen
opposite, from the respectful, and, to some extent, I think, the
symathetic silence with which they also accorded him a kindly reception.
(_Cheers._) The speech of the honorable member was of an importance
which has not in the smallest degree been appreciated by the Chief
Secretary. The right honorable gentleman has argued the case in his old
manner; and whereas the honorable gentleman charged him with having said
that he pleaded ill-health against the prison dress, what appears is
that the Chief Secretary says that the honorable member had sheltered
himself by ill-health against the demand to wear prison dress. For that
statement of the right honorable gentleman, as amended and admitted,
there is not a shadow of foundation. (_Irish cheers._) That you cannot
contradict, although you have plenty of myrmidons, and, perhaps, some
minions. You cannot show that either by word or act, the honorable
member entered this ignominious plea. Why has the right honorable
gentleman passed by in silence another personal statement of the
honorable member, which I tell him he had no right to pass by, and with
respect to which I will now put it to him and the House, that after he
has had an opportunity of making Lord Salisbury's defence, he has
utterly failed to tender any defence at all? (_Cheers._)

Mr. BALFOUR. He did not require any.

Mr. GLADSTONE. That is just the matter I am going to argue, and we will
see how it stands. The statement of the member for Cork was to this
effect, that Lord Salisbury in one of his speeches, after some jocose
references which exhibit the tase of the Prime Minister (_Opposition
cheers_), and which are a great deal too common in speeches proceeding
from such quarters, held up to British indignation the illegality of the
conduct of the member for East Cork, and stated that it had led to
disturbances, to attacks upon persons which even placed life in danger,
and to gross outrages. In reply, the honorable gentleman stated that his
intervention at Mitchelstown produced no act of violence whatever, but
on the contrary averted it. The Chief Secretary has not been able to
controvert that statement. (_Cheers._) Not being able to controvert it,
he has passed it by. He has neither the courage to prosecute, nor the
generosity to withdraw. (_Cheers._) Lord Salisbury made an allegation of
a gross and grievous character, which his nephew in this House cannot
say a word in support of.

Now, however, he says that that allegation of Lord Salisbury, injurious
as it is, and remaining without a shadow of defence, needs no apology.
(_Cheers._) I hold that until Lord Salisbury can show that he was
justified in the broad and most important statement that he made, a
personal apology from him is due to the member for East Cork.
(_Opposition cheers._) This is a personal matter, but it is no slight
thing that charges of this kind should be made by the Prime Minister,
and that then, forsooth, we should have a shuffling and a shrinking from
any attempt to deal with them. With regard to the act for which the
member for East Cork was put in prison, the honorable gentleman, has
pointed out the attendant circumstances and the consequences of his act;
but the right honorable gentleman instead of admitting the virtue of
those pleas, generalized his charge, and said it was the habitual and
settled practice of the Irish members to do these things. Why, then, did
they select for prosecution this instance, in which the member for Cork
is able to state, without contradiction, that his intervention, whatever
judgment may be given on the naked question of its legality, not only
saved tenants from distress, but the public peace from disorder and
outrage? (_Cheers._)

Now I wish to call attention to the most important part of the statement
that I am presuming to make. When I heard the address read from the
chair, I said that the heart of it was the challenging paragraph; and
when I heard the speech of the member for East Cork last night, I said
to myself, "Never did I hear so challenging a speech." The assertions of
the member for East Cork opened up the whole question, and gave to the
Government the opportunity by contradiction, by grappling with those
assertions, of establishing their case and of showing that their designs
against the National League and the Plan of Campaign were, at least, in
process of accomplisment. Here I must say a word about the Plan of
Campaign. It is an interference with the law. It has, no doubt,
substituted its authority for the law. Far be it from me to assert that
necessarily such a plan in the abstract is an evil. But it is something
more. It is a sign that the law does not do its work. It is a sign that
the conditions of legality do not exist. It is a warning to set about
restoring them. This is not the only place where extra legal
combinations and anti-legal combinations have been brought into
existence for the purpose of mitigating social disorder. Having cited
several of such organizations, such as the Swing organization, the
Camorra society in Italy, and Lynch law in America, the right honorable
gentleman said, these, all of them, are in their nature evils, but such
is the imperfection of man and the imperfection of his institutions,
that sometimes things that are evils in themselves are the cure of
greater evils, and in respect of the Plan of Campaign, what has to be
shown, is that without it Ireland would have been happier and more
tranquil than it is at present.

Having recapitulated Mr. O'Brien's six statements as to the beneficial
effects of the plan, Mr. Gladstone continued: Now, whereas we now appear
to know that there are about forty cases settled under the Plan of
Campaign, there is no case in which payments made under the plan have
been censured as rapacious or unreasonable by a single Land Commission.
Now, be it recollected that I am not arguing upon the propriety of the
plan. I am arguing upon its success. I have shown that there is not the
smallest shred of contradiction against any one of those allegations,
and that, taken as they stand, they show that at this moment,
notwithstanding the boasts of the administration, the Plan of Campaign
stands in Ireland entire, successful, and triumphant. Since it has been
under the proscription of the right honorable gentleman for a certain
time, it appears, according to the facts before us, to weigh
considerably heavier than it did before he had anything to do with it,
and well this illustrates the success of the right honorable gentleman's
policy. (_Home Rule cheers._)

There is one still more important point. The right honorable gentleman
made no attempt to connect the National League or the Plan of Campaign
with the commission of crime and outrage. The Attorney-General did make
an attempt, and what was the narrow basis of that attempt? Why, it was
one upon which a tight-rope dancer might perhaps have found a footing,
but from which men with only ordinary means of locomotion must have
fallen. (_Laughter._) He got hold of two crimes,--one of the Plan of
Campaign, and one of the National League, and how did he establish the
connection? Intuitively, out of his inner consciousness, for as he could
not see the causes of the crimes, he thought it reasonable to put them
down to these institutions, and, to prevent jealousy, he gave one crime
to each. (_Laughter._) What course was open to the honorable and learned
gentleman? What course remains open to the Government if they intend, as
they ought deliberately and seriously, to show a connection between
crime and outrage, and these considerable powers which they are laboring
to put down? There are two courses they might pursue. If there were
grounds for this imputation, the Attorney-General ought to have searched
the evidence in all the numerous prosecutions the Government have
instituted, and to have shown from that evidence that witnesses
testified, and that judicial authority acknowledged, facts which tended
to show that a connection existed between crime and the National League,
and crime and the Plan of Campaign.

Not the smallest attempt was made by the honorable and learned gentleman
or by the Government to do anything of the kind. The reason was that
they could find no such evidence, and I give no credit to the Plan of
Campaign or to the National League for the absence of such evidence,
because to encourage crime on the part of either, or to tolerate it,
would be suicidal to them. (_Cheers._) The right honorable gentleman
might have pursued the course which I took in 1881, when arguing the
unhappy bill of that year (unhappy as to the nature of its provisions),
which was designed to meet what was at the time a most threatening
evil. I argued that the Land League, as i operated at that time, was an
organization imparting danger to the country. I showed, or tried to
show, that wherever you traced the footsteps of the League, you traced
the increase of crime. The Attorney-General did not pursue that course,
because he knew it would result in total failure. Therefore I think we
have evidence before us, so far as it goes, and it goes pretty far, to
show that as regards these great objects which the Government have had
in view, of putting down the National League and the Plan of Campaign,
their efforts have resulted in total failure.

Whether it be the Land Act, with its beneficial or imperfect provisions,
or whether it be that dawning of the rays of hope, that beginning of the
knitting together of the heart of one nation to the heart of the other,
the diminution of crime is a matter of rejoicing, and we wish it were
greater, we congratulate the Government, and we heartily hope that in
the hands of beneficial and benign causes it may continue to decrease.
Well, such is the retrospect. What is the prospect? What is to come?
Will the Government continue still to deal with signs, and never to look
at the substance, to legislate against symptoms and manifestations and
never to touch the disease, to try and prune off from the rankly
luxurious vegetation, here a twig and there a leaf, and never to ask
themselves whether the proper purpose and design is not to bring it out
by the roots? There are many things which are said by the Government in
debate, but there is one thing which they and their supporters most
rarely say. I think, as far as my recollection and experience goes, I
may almost venture to go further, and assert they never say,--I never
had heard them express a confidence that they will be able to establish
a permanent resistance to the policy of Home Rule. (_Opposition
cheers._)

I am glad not to be met with adverse challenges when I say this. If this
be a question of time at all, then it is most important to consider what
is the right time. I don't disguise any more than the honorable member
for East Cork the strength of the combinations that are opposed to us.
They are very strong indeed; they have nearly the whole wealth of the
country; they have nearly the whole of the high station of the country;
they have most of the elements of social strength which abound in them;
they have with these all the things which belong to wealth, to rank, and
to station in this country, which is vast in its amount, they are very
strong, and by their strength they may secure delay, but delay in a
subject of this kind, a controversy of nations, is not an unmixed good.
It has its dangers and its inconveniences. You are happily free at this
moment from the slighest shadow of foreign complications. You have at
this moment the constitutional assent of Ireland, pledged in the most
solemn form, for the efficacy of the policy which I am considering. But
the day may come when your condition may not be so happy. I do not
expect, any more than I desire, these foreign complications, but still
it is not wise wholly to shut them out.

What I fear is rather this, that if resistance to the national voice of
Ireland be pushed too far, those who now guide the mind of that nation
may gradually lose their power, and may be supplanted and displaced by
ruder and more dangerous spirits. These very institutions, the National
League and the Plan of Campaign, which would vanish into thin air upon a
rational settlement of the Irish difficulty, might with their power
drive such deep roots into the soil, they might acquire such a mastery,
if not over the understandings, over the passions of the people, for
passions in these cases will always be let loose, they might acquire a
strength which may enable them hereafter to offer serious hindrances to
government which is good. I venture to express a hope that there will be
deeper reflection upon these matters. In the present administration of
Ireland, it is too plain you are endeavoring to do what the language of
Lord Salisbury shows is too clearly your intention, what has long been
endeavored, but under circumstances wholly different. For seven hundred
years, with Ireland practically unrepresented, with Ireland prostrate,
with the forces of this great and powerful island absolutely united, you
tried and failed to do that which you are now trying to do with Ireland
fully represented in your Parliament, with Ireland herself raised to a
position which is erect and strong, and with the mind of the people so
devoted that if you look to the elections of the last twelve months you
find that the majority of the people have voted in favor of the
concession of Home Rule.

If this is to continue, I would venture to ask gentlemen opposite under
such circumstances as these, and with the experience you have, is your
persistence in this system of administration, I will not say just, but
is it wise, is it politic, is it hopeful, is it conservative?
(_Cheers._) Now, at length, bethink yourselves of a change, and consent
to administer, and consent finally to legislate for Ireland and for
Scotland in conformity with the constitutionally expressed wishes and
the profound and permanent convictions of the people; and ask yourselves
whether you will at last consent to present to the world the spectacle
of a truly and not a nominally United Empire. (_Loud Opposition
cheers._)



MR. O'BRIEN'S SPEECH.


Mr. W. O'BRIEN rose amid loud and prolonged cheers from the Irish
members, and speaking for the first time in this House since his release
from Tullamore Jail, said: All the speeches which have been made in
support of the Government have seemed to follow the keynote struck by
the Chief Secretary. They all appeared to be more or less artfully
designed to draw angry retorts from these benches. It is one of our
national faults to be very ready to resent injustice, and a most
generous use our opponents have made of that characteristic. ("_Hear,
hear._") The whole policy of our opponents towards Ireland, and the
whole object of the powerful London newspapers, seems to be to get at
the worst side of Irish and of English character, and to sting and goad
us into doing things which will put new life into national prejudices
that are expiring in spite of you. (_Opposition cheers._) Irishmen and
Englishmen are becoming only too united for your purpose. Yours is a
noble ambition! But you have failed in Ireland, and you will fail, I
promise you, in this House also. There was a time when we came here with
our hand against every man's, and every man's hand against us. We
expected no quarter, and to the best of our ability we gave none. It
seemed to no purpose to struggle against the tremendous and cruel forces
arrayed against us; but that is all at an end forever, thanks to the
right honorable member for Mid-Lothian. (_Cheers._)

We have come to this House no longer as enemies among enemies. We count
ourselves Ishmaelites no longer in this House, nor in this land of
England. We are now among allies and friends who were not ashamed nor
afraid to stand by our side and by the side of our people in many a
bitter hour of trial and calumny last year. (_Opposition cheers._) We
come here now among a people whose consciences, I believe, have been
deeply stirred by the sufferings of our unfortunate people; and though
we are confronted by a hostile majority, callous to those sufferings, we
know that that majority does not represent Scotland and Wales.
(_Opposition cheers._) We believe that it does not even represent
England. (_Renewed Opposition cheers, and counter Ministerial cheers._)
It is a majority obtained by foul means and upon representations which
have turned out to be utterly false. We know that it is a majority who,
two years ago, were not ashamed to receive their offices at the hands of
the men whom they are now libelling in England and torturing in Ireland.
(_Loud Opposition cheers._) We have no respect for that majority. I
doubt whether in their secret hearts many of them have much respect for
themselves. ("_Hear, hear._") I know very well that they are extremely
ill at ease. We believe, as I say, that we are winning. (_Cheers._) The
right honorable gentleman opposite (the Chief Secretary) has failed in
Ireland. (_Home Rule cheers._) He has failed to smash our organization.
He has failed to break the spirit of our people. He has failed to
degrade us, I won't say in the eyes of our countrymen, for that would be
absurd, but in the eyes of every honest man within these three realms.
He has failed in every one of those calculations in which he indulged so
confidently last autumn.

I shall prove before I sit down that failure is written on every clause
and upon every provision of this act, abject failure, discomfiture, and
disgrace. I shall be able to prove that sorely as our people have been
tried and wronged, that they have managed to survive one of the most
horrible Coercion Acts that has ever been directed against human
liberty: that they have been able to crush and baffle it at every point,
and that without one deed that they look upon with shame, but by sheer
force of an incomparable national feeling. (_Cheers._) Now, in the first
place, I shall try to deal very shortly with my own case; and if I refer
to it at all, it is, not in order to notice the coarse sneers of the
honorable member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell),--I do not think
it would be as parliamentary as it is true to say malignant sneers
("_Hear, hear_"),--I think it possible that before very long those
sneers may be answered in the only way they deserve, by the electors of
South Tyrone,--it is because I recognize that I am the very worst
parliamentary criminal under this act. I am the only one who could have
been proceeded against under the ordinary common law, with the shadow of
a chance of conviction. Every colleague of mine who has been punished is
being punished for new and statutable offences for which no jury in the
world would convict under the ordinary law. The point I press upon the
House is that if I can justify my offence, then I say, with a thousand
times more force, the conviction of every one of my colleagues is an
outrage upon justice, and their treatment in prison is an indelible
disgrace to the man who planned it. I find that foul misrepresentation
has been resorted to to mislead and to deceive the English public as to
the offence for which I was sentenced.

Within the last week I have been reading the papers, and I am sorry to
find that Lord Salisbury was not above stooping to encourage and to lead
this attempt most unfairly and untruly to poison the English mind
against me. He made a speech at Oxford, in which he indulged in flouts
and gibes at my own humble expense. I do not complain of that. It is not
the first time that he has been accused of making flouts and gibes at
the expense of persons with whom he was more intimately allied than he
is with me. (_Opposition cheers and laughter._) But here is how this
great nobleman describes my case to an English audience. He says, "What
is there in the case of Mr. O'Brien to make him a martyr?" And then he
goes on with his creditable witticisms. He says, "I do not refer to his
small clothes. (_Laughter._) Their vicissitudes would furnish a theme
for an epic (_rewewed laughter_), and I hope an Irish bard will arise
worthy of the subject. (_Continued laughter._) But taking the man apart
from his clothes." (_Roars of laughter; Ministerial cheers._) I notice
that your cheers do not rise to a roar. (_Opposition cheers._) I do not
answer these remarks. The noble lord went on, "What is there to excite
the sympathy of the loyal subjects of England? He broke the law; he
incited others to break the law, and recommended that the men who were
endeavoring to collect just debts should be met with violence. In
consequence of his recommendation, they were met with violence. They
were scalded with hot water, and some of them were brought next to
death's door. What is there to excite the sympathy of the loyal
subjects of England?" (_Cries of "Nothing."_)

Now I shall tell you briefly the circumstances under which my advice was
given, and the results of that advice. I will ask any candid man in
England, after he has heard me, whether that speech of Lord Salisbury is
not calculated to convey to the average Englishman an impression, so
false, so misleading, that I am afraid I should be obliged to travel
beyond the region of parliamentary epithets to characterize it. Now, on
the 2d of August, this House had, practically speaking, passed the Land
Bill, enabling over a thousand people of Mitchelstown, who were
leaseholders, to have their rents revised. On the 8th of August, word
reached me that the police and the military were gathering in
Mitchelstown to carry out an eviction campaign. The effect of that
campaign would have been to forestall all the operations of the Land
Bill, and, practically speaking, to defeat the intentions of Parliament,
and to fling these poor people naked upon the world before the relief,
which was actually entering the door, could reach them. (_Opposition
cheers._) That was technically legal for the landlord for a few days
longer, but I hold that if ever there was a crime committed against
society, it was that which was being attempted the day I went down to
Mitchelstown. Well, but what was to be done? If the right honorable
baronet, the late member for West Bristol (Sir M. Hicks-Beach), were
still Chief Secretary, at all events, in his early manner, we might have
had some hope that the Queen's troops would not have been made
accomplices in such an act.

On the day I reached Mitchelstown, on the appeal of these poor people, I
found that evictions had already been carried out on the non-residential
holdings, where there was no possibility of resistance. Ah! It is an old
story in Ireland. No mercy for the weak who can make no resistance, no
scruple about perpetrating a wrong when it can be done in the dark.
(_Home Rule cheers._) That was the bitter thought which passed through
my mind that day, when these poor people, my own constituents, came to
me in helplessness and despair, to know what was to be done to save them
from the ruin that was impending. There was just one hope for these
people in all the world, and it was this. The Northwich election was
pending (_Opposition cheers_), and the Irish evictions were an awkward
topic for a Tory candidate. The stories of Glenbeigh and Bodyke were
beginning to horrify the English mind. I knew that Tory statesmen would
not scruple to lend troops if it could be done without commotion, but I
thought they might hesitate, lest they should lose the Northwich
election. I had not a moment to consult anybody, and absolutely on my
own responsibility, and on the spur of the moment, I did there and then,
in the open square of Mitchelstown, and in the hearing of a number of
policemen, tell the people if, under these special circumstances, the
evictions were carried out before the Land Bill, which was almost law,
did become law, it would be no outrage of the law, and that they would
be justified before God and man in defending their homes by every honest
means. (_Cheers._)

I might have been right, or I might have been wrong. I have no doubt
that technically it was illegal for me to save the people, as it was
legal for the landlords in a few days to ruin them. Technically
speaking, I dare say, it would be an evasion of the law to hold the arm
of an executioner if the executioner and I knew that a reprieve was
actually arriving. That was precisely the case with these poor people.
The reprieve was coming, and the reprieve has come. (_Cheers._) Whether
I was right or wrong in law, the result proved that I did not
miscalculate the statesmanship and the morality of the Tory Government.
What happened? The moment that it became evident that those eviction
scenes would ring throughout England, the eviction campaign was
abandoned. The very day I made that speech in Mitchelstown, all was
peace with the tenants. Not another eviction took place, and Captain
Plunkett, who came down to superintend the eviction campaign, remained,
I am glad to say, and proud to say, only to turn his energies to getting
up a prosecution against me. Not a single eviction has taken place there
from that day to this; not an act of violence has been committed; not a
blow has been struck; not a single hair has been injured of any police
officer or bailiff in consequence of that speech of mine. Not one; and
yet Lord Salisbury is not ashamed to say what he did.

What was the result? That those poor tenants, who but for our
action--but for the action of John Mandeville and myself--would have
been beggared and homeless men, were able to take advantage of the Land
Act, such as it was, while we were in prison. A Land Sub-Commission,
carefully chosen, was sent down to the Mitchelstown estate to prophesy
against us, and to prove the guilt and the dishonesty of the Plan of
Campaign. But they could not do it. These picked Tory officials, two of
them convicted rack-renters, were obliged to declare that these poor
tenants were entitled to remain in their homes, and on lower terms and
at a lower rent than had been demanded. (_Loud cheers._) What has
happened since? The landlord has actually taken refuge from the judgment
of even a Tory Land Commission in the moderation of the Plan of
Campaign. Three days ago my honorable friend and collegue, the member
for South Tipperary, signed, sealed, and delivered a treaty which
secures these poor people safely to their homes. This is the transaction
as to which Lord Salisbury is not ashamed to say that I "recommended
that the men who were employed by the Crown in the recovery of just
debts should be met with violence, and that in consequence, some were
maltreated and scalded and brought to death's door." (_Opposition, cries
of "Shame."_) The fact is, that not a single act of violence took place
in any way on the estate after my speech. But justice was secured to
those people and their children in their homes. (_Cheers._)

If there is anybody who has reason to blush at the name of Mitchelstown,
and to remember Mitchelstown apart from the blood that was shed there, I
should think it is not I, but her Majesty's Government. They had neither
the humanity to forbid these evictions, nor the courage to persevere
with them. They superintended and sanctioned them as long as there was
any prospect of resistance; they had the cowardice to abandou them the
moment they threatened to become inconvenient to a Tory candidate, and
they had the incredible meanness, while my hands were bound in prison,
to present a story to the English people, in a false and untruthful
guise, in order to reconcile Englishmen to having me treated worse than
a thief or a cutthroat, for saving my own constituents from the fate
which now the Land Commissioners and everybody on this earth acknowledge
would have been a most unmerited and a most awful calamity. I won't
weary the House by going into all the miserable circumstances, all the
foul play, and the violence and the indecencies that were resorted to
against us. Unfortunately they are common-place and every-day
occurrences in Ireland, through the infamous tribunals you have set up.
I certainly am not going to enter into any recital of the miserable
little prison torments and iniquities that were employed to give us pain
and humiliation, and to besmirch the character of the Irish
representatives in the eyes of the people of England and Ireland. I
think we can afford to pass these things by. I believe that our
opponents are not all so lost to generous and manly sentiments as not to
feel ashamed rather than exultant about the Chief Secretary's exploits.

There is another class of opponents. I am sorry to think that men who
are capable of inflicting pain of this description are quite capable of
deriving a still keener pleasure in knowing that the torments have told,
and that their victims smart under their wounds. I cannot gratify them,
for the simple reason that I do not feel wounded. I do not feel in the
least degraded. I rather suspect that the right honorable gentleman,
under his jaunty bearing, has his conscience not quite so easy as mine.
I confess that I did feel keenly when in prison a letter which the right
honorable gentleman published to a Mr. Armitage, not making any honest
charge against me, but conveying a stealthy and loathsome insinuation
that I sheltered myself under the plea of illness from being forced to
wear prison dress. I challenge the right honorable gentleman to refer to
any one of the three official doctors who examined me, for one tittle, I
will not say of foundation, but even of countenance, for such an
assertion. (_Loud cheers._) Here we are now face to face. (_Great
cheering from the Opposition._) I challenge him in defence of his own
character, for it is his own character that is at stake (_cheers_), to
appeal to any one of those three officials to give him the slightest
countenance. ("_Hear, hear._")

I have said I was angry about it when in prison, but since reading the
letter over fully, I am angry no longer; I confess it would be an ample
vengeance, if I were a much more vindictive man than I am, for a
statesman who had any reputation to lose, to pen such a letter.
(_Cheers._) The letter conveyed a hideous and cowardly imputation
against a man whose mouth was shut. (_Cheers._) That letter breathed in
every sentence of it the temper of a beaten and an angry man
(_cheers_),--I was going to say, of an angry woman (_laughter and
cheers_), but I don't want to say it, because it would be a gross libel
on a gentle and tender sex. ("_Hear, hear._") From all I have been able
to learn in England since, I feel that it is no longer necessary for us
to defend ourselves to the English people. (_Cheers._) I feel there is
not a Tory of the fifth or sixth magnitude, who really in his heart
believes for one instant that Irish members are such poor creatures as
to cry out against the appearance of a prison. (_Cheers._)

The honorable member for Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) said that we
attempted to set up a distinction between members of Parliament and the
peasants, our comrades and friends who are convicted under the act.
There is not a shadow or a tittle of foundation for that statement.
("_Hear, hear._") We have claimed nothing for ourselves as members of
Parliament that we don't claim equally for every man convicted under the
summary clauses of the act; for if he is a criminal, there is no reason
why he should not be tried before the ordinary tribunal. ("_Hear,
hear._") We do not ask poor men to make a hard fight harder by
resistance to prison rules; but if we win, they shall win as well as
ourselves. ("_Hear, hear._") Our position simply this: You are perfectly
welcome to treat us to all the punishments that your courts of law
prescribe for the very vilest miscreant in society,--the plank bed, or
bread-and-water diet-solitary chnfinement, or deprivation of books and
writing materials; you are perfectly welcome to heap every physical
degradation on us, if that is your generous and chivalrous treatment of
political prisoners, and you will never hear a word of complaint from us
if you stick to that; but if you not only do that, but go further, and
try and subject us to moral torture, from which criminals are altogether
exempt, when you ask us to make a voluntary acknowledgement of our
equality with criminals, then we say, "No; we will die first (_cheers
from Irish members_), and you will have to learn the distinction between
your criminal classes and Irish political prisoners, even if it should
take a coroner's jury and their verdict to make the distinction."
(_Loud cheers._) I can only say that if any one has reason to blush, it
is not we. ("_Hear, hear._") I hope I am not detaining the House.
(_Cheers._)

The only thing I can plead is, that I shall not have an opportunity very
soon of claiming your attention; but I should like to ask, "Where is all
this to end?" What object has it accomplished? and if it is to go on for
ever and for ever, what object can it ever possibly accomplish, except
misery to a weak people and eternal worry and shame to yourselves?
(_Cheers._) Is it the object of the right honorable gentleman to convert
the Irish people, or to dragoon them out of the aspirations which are as
deeply lodged in the breasts of millions of men as the blood in their
hearts? Does the right honorable gentleman in his wildest hour imagine
that he has made one single genuine convert through the length and
breadth of Ireland? (_Cheers._) Even to take it on the lower and meaner
sphere of brute force, I ask the right honorable gentleman to name one
single village club that he has effectually stamped out. (_Cheers._) Can
he produce a single man from our ranks that he has really frightened, as
the result of all the terrific power that he has been wielding in
Ireland?

I ask honorable gentlemen opposite to remember with what a shout of
exultation they passed the Crimes Act last session, and how they
triumphed over us. I can well remember the shouts and peals of delight
with which they welcomed the declaration of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, I think, when he said this was to be a duel to the death
between the National League and the Government, and that they accepted
the challenge. Well, are they satisfied with the results? (_Cheers and
laughter._) I ask honorable gentlemen whether they would have yelled so
loudly last autumn if they could have foreseen the results of the most
terrible Coercion Act ever passsd, giving the most unchecked powers that
ever a despot was armed with, would be so miserable and ignominious and
mean? (_Cheers._) Did you or did you not expect that the act would crush
the National League? Honorable gentlemen are silent. (_Cheers._) I
remember the shout of derision which came from the other side of the
House when I ventnred to intimate a doubt whether the act, terrific as
it looked, would succeed in crushing the Plan of Campaign. Has it been
crushed, or even crippled? (_Cheers._) Ask the deputation of Irish
landlords (_laughter and cheers_) who waited on Lord Salisbury the other
day with a begging letter,--ask them how many of them would be willing
to try a fall with the Plan of Campaign in the morning. (_Cheers and
laughter._) It has never had so uniform and unbroken a course of
victories as it has had this winter.

The greater number of the important struggles in which we were engaged
when this act was passed has been brought to a victorious conclusion
under the mouths of the right honorable gentleman's guns. (_Cheers._)
And upon what terms? I could speak for an hour, giving you instances of
the results; but the one thing that applies to them all is, that in
every single instance at least the original demands of the tenants have
been acceded to. ("_Hear, hear._") Every evicted tenant has been
reinstated (_cheers_), and every shilling of law costs incurred in the
struggle has been borne as an indemnity by the landlords. (_Cheers, and
"No."_) You could have got as good a result as that without the act. On
Lord de Freyne's estate, when the act was passing, the agent, Mr.
M'Dougal, wrote this letter: "Spot the men in your district who are able
to pay and won't; we will see, now that the Coercion Act is about to
become law, whether we won't make them honest men." It turned out that
the dishonest men beat Mr. M'Dougal and his master. They had confidence
in the Crimes Bill and the right honorable gentleman last autumn. Where
is Mr. M'Dougal to-day? He is gone, dismissed, and everything that the
tenants were then demanding has been conceded.

The very day after I came out of prison, I learned that the new agent
had had an interview with two of the most prominent of the campaigners
on the estate, and he not only agreed to the tenants' terms, but he
agreed to refund the sum of over £1,700, which Mr. M'Dougal had
dishonestly extorted from the tenants before the Plan of Campaign.
(_Cheers._) This money was wrung from the tenants by terror, by serving
one hundred and fifty writs of ejectment before they had the protection
of the Plan of Campaign.

Then as to the estate of Bodyke, where the proceedings last summer
horrified England, and for which her Majesty's Government could provide
no remedy; what is the result? Last year, Mr. O'Callaghan, one of the
hardest rack-renters, refused an offer of £907 for a year and a half's
rent of fifty-seven tenants; he has now accepted £1,000 to wipe off two
years' rent of seventy-two tenants. (_Cheers and laughter._) That is to
say, after losing all his money, and after costing the British taxpayer
£40,000 for the expenses of his evictions (_cheers_), he has now come to
the conclusion, and he is one of the most desperate of rack-renters,
that the Crimes Act is no go, and he has struck his flag to the Plan of
Campaign upon worse terms for him by far than he would have got before
the passing of the Crimes Act. (_Cheers._) Only this very day a letter
came to my honorable friend, the member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), from
the principal man who stood almost between the living and the dead on
that estate,--the Rev. Peter Murphy,--in which the writer said: "A
thousand thanks for check. You have acted nobly by us, and we have every
reason to thank and be grateful to you. What pleases me most of all is,
that our victory over Colonel O'Callaghan is complete, and approved by
all who understand the matter fully. He did his utmost to get the
tenants to purchase. He would have sold on any terms rather than yield
to the plan, but we absolutely refused to purchase as long as the rope
remained round our necks. (_Cheers._) We would not entertain the idea of
purchasing at all, until restored to our holdings and free as the
mountain air to meet him on equal terms." (_Cheers._)

"The next gale," the writer says, "is not to be asked until the end of
June. Reductions suited to the different degrees of poverty, of fifteen
per cent upwards to twenty-five and thirty per cent are secured."
(_Cheers._) That is the way the right honorable gentleman is abating the
power of the Plan of Campaign. (_Renewed cheers._) And remember that
these poor tenants have won in spite of him, not merely by adhering to
the Plan of Campaign, but also because every man of them who was evicted
retook possession of his holding in defiance of the Crimes Act, and has
held possession of his holding for the last six months. (_Cheers._) And
the lesson the right honorable gentleman, this triumphant Cromwell
(_laughter_), has taught them is that, thanks to their own pluck, and
not to his mercy, they are more secure in their homes to-day,--well,
than the right honorable gentleman was in his tenancy of the Treasury
Bench. (_Cheers and laughter._)

I am at this moment officially aware of several estates where the
struggle is still proceeding. The landlords are placing their hopes, and
are opening their negotiations, not with the right honorable gentleman,
or with Dublin Castle, but with the man who sits there, my honorable
friend, the honorable member for East Mayo (_loud cheers_), and with
other members of this criminal and illegal conspiracy; a conspiracy as
to whose dishonesty we have heard so many homilies from honorable
gentlemen opposite. Why, I sometimes wonder that the homilies they
address to us and to our suffering people upon the violations of the ten
commandments do not blister the lips that utter them. ("_Hear, hear._")
This dishonest conspiracy. No land court that has ever revised their
demands has been able to pronounce them to be other than most just and
moderate. ("_Hear, hear._")

My honorable friend, the member for Cork, mentioned the other night that
there were only three really great estates in Ireland on which the
landlords are offering any resistance. One of them is the Brooke estate,
in the county of Wexford, where the agent, Captain Hamilton, is an
emergency man by profession. ("_Hear, hear._") The second is Lord
Massareene's property, in the county of Louth, where the agents also are
emergency men by profession; and the third is the estate of Lord
Clanricarde. It must be a proud thing for Englishmen to know that the
right honorable gentleman on that estate was exercising one of the most
abominable systems of petty persecution that ever was practised, in
order to strike down the defenders of those poor people, to smother
their voices, and to tie their hands in their struggle with a man who in
the Queen's own law courts has been branded as a monster of cruelty and
avarice! (_Loud cheers._) I wish her Majesty's Government joy of all the
credit that they will get out of their holy alliance with Lord
Clanricarde (_"Hear, hear," and laughter_), and I wish him joy of all
the rent he will get out of them. (_Cheers and laughter._)

The fact is, and there is no use in blinking it, that, instead of
overthrowing the Plan of Campaign, the right honorable gentleman has
only made it more secure and more irrestible, by driving us to do our
business with less publicity. ("_Hear, hear._") The machinery of the
plan has been now perfected to such a degree that we find that one
single campaign on an estate is sufficient to keep the peace of a whole
county. (_Cheers._) Aye, and to settle the rents of a whole county more
satisfactorily and more honestly than an army of land commissioners.
("_Hear, hear._") I will tell you why. It is a very simple reason.
Because the penalties of such a struggle are so heavy as to intimidate
any tenantry from putting forward an unjust demand, and they are also
sufficiently great to terrify a landlord from resisting a just demand.
("_Hear, hear._") It may be a rough-and-ready method; no doubt it is;
but what is the result? That in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred
last winter it succeeded without any struggle at all.

I challenge honorable gentlemen who speak of the immorality and
dishonesty of the Plan of Campaign,--I challenge the right honorable
gentleman to name any single deed of outrage or of crime that is
traceable to the Plan of Campaign, from end to end of Ireland.
(_Cheers._) I challenge him to name any one case in which the demands we
have put forward have been declared by any land commissioner or judical
tribunal in the country to be dishonest or exorbitant. I challenge him
more than all to adduce to the House to-night one solitary case in which
he has succeeded, with all his powers and his terrors, in breaking up a
combination that was once formed on an estate. (_Cheers._) And remember
always that this Plan of Campaign is the merest segment of the Irish
difficulty. It is a mere rough-and-ready way, which has been found
effective to cure the blunders of your legislation, and to cure your
folly in not closing with the bill of my honorable friend, the member
for Cork. (_Cheers._) My honorable friend and myself and others are the
mere Uhlans and cadets to the army of millions of Irishmen who stand
ranked under the standard of my honorable friend, the member for Cork.
(_Cheers._)

Now, as to the National League, I want to examine the right honorable
gentleman. (_Laughter._) We have heard it stated over and over again in
most portentious accents in this House, that the authority of the
National League and of her Majesty's Government could not co-exist in
Ireland; that either one or the other must pack up and go. What has all
this tall talk come to? ("_Hear, hear._") Is the Leage gone, or does it
show the slightest sign of going? There are eighteen hundred branches of
the National League in Ireland; rather more, I believe now, because the
right honorable gentleman's act has added some more. (_Cheers._) Not
more than two hundred and fifty of those branches have been nominally
grappled with. There are about fifteen hundred branches, or over five
sixths of the whole organization, on which not a finger has been laid.
Why? Is it that the right honorable gentleman has conceived a sudden
affection for the National League? (_Laughter._) Is it that these
branches are declining in power, or is it that they have abated their
principles one jot in terror? No; but because the Government has made
such a disastrous and grotesque mess of their attempt to suppress a
couple of hundred branches that they dared not face the ridicule, the
colossal collapse, that would attend any attempt to grapple with the
whole of this organization. (_Cheers._)

Everybody who knows the so-called suppressed counties of Kerry and Clare
knows that the suppressed branches hold their meetings just as usual,
under the noses of the police. We know it by the figures and by the cash
which comes that the subscriptions, instead of falling off, are
increasing. The resolutions are passed in the usual way, and I can tell
you they are regarded with more sacredness and more efficacy than usual
by the whole community. I will read an extract from a branch report in
_United Ireland_ the week before last ("_Hear, hear_"), one of these
suppressed branches which have, according to the local policeman,
disappeared from view. It says: "A large representative meeting was held
on Monday, Mr. George Pomeroy in the chair." No concealment of names.
"Balloting for officers and committee took place with the following
result, after a most vigorous competition for offices (_Nationalist
cheers_), the only emolument for which will probably be a couple of
months in jail: J. O'Callan, 60 votes; G. Pomeroy, 58; S. O'Keefe, 56;
D. Hanlon, 50; O'Leary, 60; Power, 44; Fitzpatrick, 47"; and so on. "The
first five are elected." (_Nationalist cheers._)

There is no disguising the fact that your whole suppressive machinery,
the whole machinery for effectually suppressing the League, has totally
broken down, and for a very simple reason, because the act was conceived
upon the theory that you were dealing with a people who were only pining
to be delivered from the terrorism of the National League (_cheers_),
whereas you find to your cost you are dealing with a people who are the
League themselves, ready to guard it with their lives, and to undergo
any amount of torture rather than betray it. (_Nationalist cheers._) Why
do you not put the Secret Inquiry clauses in force for the purpose of
suppressing branches of the National League? Why! Because you know you
would have to send thousands of people to jail who would rather go there
than let you wring one tittle of information out of them. Your only
other source is informers, and it is our proudest boast that with an
organization numbering upwards of 500,000 men, up to this time you have
not been able to bring a single informer into the market, though no
doubt the market price of the article was never higher. (_Cheers._)

I want the right honorable gentleman to tell us here to-night what he
has got by all his wild and vicious lunges against the Irish people. I
have no patience with talking of "crime in Ireland," outside Kerry. The
Moonlighters and the Government have had Kerry to themselves for the
last five or six years. Between them be it, and let them divide the
honors. (_Loud Nationalist cheers._) They tell us of a number of persons
partially boycotted. I do not know what the local policeman may be
pleased to call "persons partially boycotted"; but I am pretty sure the
list would go up or down, according to the requirements of the
Government. Let the right honorable gentleman give us a list of new
land-grabbers who have taken farms (_cheers_), or let him give us a
list, and I only wish he would, of the land-grabbers who, since this act
has been put in force, have accepted their neighbors' farms. As to
legitimate boycotting, I shall always hold with the perfect right of the
community to exercise legitimate influence on men who for their own base
and greedy purposes are the pests of society.

I admit that there are two classes of victims at the mercy of the Chief
Secretary,--public speakers and public newspapers Public speeches are
the merest appendages of our organization. And why are public speakers
at his mercy? Simply and solely because we do not choose to be driven
away from our free right of public meeting, but choose to assert it, as
Mr. Blunt chose to assert it in the light of day. (_Cheers._) If we
choose to give our speeches in private, we could run a coach and four
through the provisions of this act with absolute impunity. My friends
here were for months engaged on the Plan of Campaign. We have no secrets
we are afraid to acknowledge. ("_Oh, oh._") None. I only hope the
honorable gentleman who says "Oh"--(_an honorable member: "Rochester"._)
Certainly. They have actually been for months and months on the business
of the Plan of Campaign, even with warrants over their heads.

Talk of me in connection with Mitchelstown. I may be giving the right
honorable gentleman a tip, but I do not object to say that my honorable
friend, the member for South Tipperary (Mr. J. O'Connor), was far and
away a more formidable person than I was in the Plan of Campaign; but
because he happens to be a man of few words, he will be walking in this
lobby to-morrow night instead of reposing on a plank bed, as he would if
he had spoken. (_Cheers._) I do not mind telling it, and he will not
mind it either, for his work, and he is victorious. I might say a good
deal about the meanness of this policy of subjecting journalists to
milk-and-water diet, for the simple fact that they recorded the right
honorable gentleman's failure ("_Hear, hear_"), because that is the
sting of their offence,--because the meetings are held, and held in
spite of the Government. (_Loud Nationalist cheers._) You might as well
issue a proclamation suppressing the sun in the heavens, and then go
about smashing the faces of the sun-dials for recording that the sun is
moving on its way in spite of you. (_Laughter and cheers._) Worse still
is it to attack the humble news venders, and intimidate their wives and
their little children. ("_Hear, hear._")

The Chief Secretary might have remembered that the right honorable
gentleman who sits next him (Mr. W. H. Smith) is a person who in former
years might easily have come under the same category. (_Nationalist
cheers._) The right honorable gentlemen sold _United Ireland_ in his
day. ("_Hear, hear._") I mention it not as a reproach to him, for he was
an extremely good customer; but if he had not parted with his Irish
business as he did, under the subsequent legislation of this Government,
the right honorable gentleman would have been liable at this moment to
three months on a plank bed for having for six months sold the paper.
(_Cheers._) I hope that chivalry on that side of the House has not died
out, and that they will not resent in the case of a miserable shopkeeper
at Killarney what they will condone in a Misister of England. I can
speak of my own knowledge of that policy, and its absolute and downright
failure, even against so vulnerable and perishable a property as we know
a newspaper is. But the right honorable gentleman has not succeeded in
suppressing a single newspaper, and he never will, although he has
proceeded from the editors to the printers, and from the printers to the
printer's devils. (_Cheers._)

There is only one redeeming feature in the right honorable gentleman's
policy, and that is its colossal and monumental failure. That fact
actually softens in the hearts of the Irish people the memory of the
atrocities he has committed against them. We feel that we have taken his
measure now, and that we are a match for him. (_Irish cheers._) We feel
that he has failed, and that he will go on failing as long as grass
grows and water runs. We are almost grateful to him for what he has done
to advance the Irish cause by awakening the consciences of Englishmen
(_Opposition cheers_), by knitting the two peoples together in common
human sympathy, and common abhorrence of the brutal and cruel system of
terrorism which he is exhibiting in full working order in Ireland. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer claimed at Hastings that at all events the
Chief Secretary had held his own. This was rather a meek and unassuming
claim, after the high and swelling boasts that we heard from the same
lips in the palmy days of last session. (_Cheers._) But has he even held
his own? He has demoralized every department of his own Irish
government, and every class of his own officials. There is not an office
in Dublin Castle that is not at this moment subjected to as much
espionage and as many precations against betrayal as if it were the
palace of the Czar. ("_Hear hear._") He has the distinction of having
developed an entirely new phase of the Irish difficulty among her
Majesty's soldiers.

My friend Mandeville and myself were whirled away by special train in
the middle of the night to Tullamore, and I confess I felt considerably
consoled when I heard that the next use the right honorable gentleman
had to make of a special train was to take her Majesty's soldiers away
from Tullamore for cheering Mandeville and myself. (_Laughter and
cheers._) Don't let him ride off on the statement that these were mere
Irish soldiers. Some of them were, no doubt; but there were also his own
countrymen, the Scottish Fusileers. (_Cheers._) By some unhappy accident
they too had to be hurried off by special train for some awkward
manifestations at Mitchelstown. The right honorable gentleman had to
employ police patrols to watch the prison officials. He cannot even
count on the Royal Irish Constabulary, for to my own knowledge he had to
employ policemen to watch the police. (_Laughter and cheers._) That is
what is called "holding his own in Ireland." He succeeded only in
kicking out a few of the bonfires that were lighted on the occasion of
our release; but the spirit of nationality that lighted them is beyond
his power. It will burn when the memory of his unhappy time in Ireland
will be a mere speck among the dark clouds of misgovernment, which are
passing away into a forgotten and forgiven past.

The right honorable gentleman and his friends plead for a little more
time. There are in this House many members who can remember Mr.
Forster's triumphant account of his experience at Tullamore; that he was
winning; that the people were with him; that the followers of my
honorable friend (Mr. Parnell) were a mere back of broken men and
reckless boys, and that you had only to give him (Mr. Forster) a little
more time to make his victory appear to all the world. That was seven
years ago; but the triumph has not appeared. Does the wildest man in
this House imagine that the second Tullamore experience will be more
successful? Does the Chief Secretary's best friend claim that he is a
cleverer man or a more profound statesman than Mr. Forster? He is no
doubt in a position to inflict untold suffering on our poor people. I do
not deny that it is no child's play for us. No man's health is exactly
the same after imprisonment of the sort that some of my poor friends are
enduring to-night; but the sufferings in the prison cell are only small
compared with those that the Chief Secretary is bringing on many a
humble family ("_Hear, hear_"), to say nothing of the petty persecution
that is going on at the hands of every village constable who has a
quarrel with the people, and of the confusion, uncertainty, and ruin
into which the right honorable gentleman is plunging the whole business
of the country. It is a burning shame that such an ordeal should be
inflicted on a people whose only desire is to live in peace, and to rule
in peace in their own land. ("_Hear, hear._") It is sometimes almost
unbearable, but the Irish people will bear it. We are not cowed. We are
not even embittered.

The right honorable member for Mid-Lothian has accomplished in two years
what seven hundred years of coercion had not accomplished previously
(_Irish cheers_), and what seven hundred more would leave unaccomplished
still. He has united the hearts of the two peoples by a more sacred and
enduring bond than that of terror and brute force; and our quarrel with
England, our bitterness toward England, is gone. (_Cheers._) And it will
be your fault and your crime if it ever returns,--a crime for which
history will stigmatize you forever. We, at all events, are not
disruptionists. (_Cheers and counter cheers._) It is you who are the
disruptionists and the exasperationists and the separatists. We have
never made a disguise of our feelings. We say what we mean.

The right honorable gentleman, the member for Newcastle, and many
another good friend beside him, have been over in Ireland this winter,
and they can tell you that when the name of England is uttered now in an
Irish crowd, it is no longer uttered with hatred, but with hope and with
gratitude to those awakening British hearts which have never authorized
this policy of the Government in Ireland. You are the Separatists. We
are for peace and for happiness, and for the brotherhood of the two
nations. You are for eternal repression and eternal discord and eternal
misery for yourselves, as well as for us. We are for appeasing the dark
passions of the past. You are for inflaming them, whether for purposes
of a political character I do not know, but for purposes in the
interests of that wretched class of Mamelukes whom you support in
Ireland, who are neither good Englishmen nor good Irishmen, and who are
being your evil genius in Ireland, just as they have been the scourge
of our unhappy people.

That is the state of things; and in such a cause and between such
forces, I believe the end is not far off, and to the God of justice and
of liberty and of mercy, we leave the issue. So far as we ourselves are
concerned, we shall be amply compensated, whatever we have suffered and
may have to suffer in our grand old cause, if we can be sure that we are
the last of that long and mournful line of men who have suffered for it.
And, believe me, upon the day of our victory, we will grant an easy
amnesty to the right honorable gentleman opposite for our little
troubles in Tullamore, and we will bless his policy yet as one of the
most powerful, though unconscious, instruments in the deliverance of
Ireland. (_Loud Opposition cheers._)

Mr. FINLAY (_who arose amid loud cries of "Balfour" from the Opposition
and Home Rule benches_) said that the honorable member who had just
spoken had charged the Unionist party with inflaming passions and
animosity in Ireland that were in a fair way of dying out. He was not
aware of any section of the party against which that charge could be
made. It had always been the mission of the Unionist party to see that
equal justice should be done in Ireland, and to appease those
animosities which were the relics of past misgovernment and past
misfortunes. They believed that in a country so divided as Ireland was,
equal justice might best be done in an Imperial Parliament, and not by
handing over one part of the country to the domination of another. The
honorable member had said that there was no bitterness on the part of
the Irish members towards England. But the party had three voices. One
was the voice that spoke in the House of Commons, the second the voice
that spoke in Ireland; but to get at the real springs of the movement,
they must hear it on an American platform. (_Ministerial cheers._) He
objected to that House being turned into a court of appeal from judicial
sentences in Ireland, and he regretted to have heard the cheers which
came from the Opposition side of the House when the honorable member for
West Cork had said that he recommended the tenants at Mitchelstown to
resist the law by force. (_Mr. Gladstone expressed dissent._)



Errata

The first line indicates the original, the second how it should read:

  p. 2:

  notwithstanding a similiar observation
  notwithstanding a similar observation

  think it right hriefly
  think it right briefly

  p. 4:

  bound to make kown
  bound to make known

  Lord Sailsbury continued
  Lord Salisbury continued

  p. 6:

  He declared that "if Parliament passed ant act for granting
  He declared that "if Parliament passed an act for granting

  p. 7:

  comments on tne
  comments on the

  p. 11:

  beyond the the Channel
  beyond the Channel

  p. 12:

  narrowly than almost anywhere else), I will find their way
  narrowly than almost anywhere else), will find their way

  p. 13:

  the purpose on this occsion
  the purpose on this occasion

  in a proportionate diminution of derelect farms.
  in a proportionate diminution of derelict farms.

  p. 14:

  we have read with increased satisfacfaction
  we have read with increased satisfaction

  p. 20:

  I think, the symathetic silence
  I think, the sympathetic silence

  exhibit the tase of the Prime Minister
  exhibit the taste of the Prime Minister

  p. 22:

  in process of accomplisment
  in process of accomplishment

  p. 24:

  I argued that the Land League, as i operated at that time
  I argued that the Land League, as it operated at that time

  p. 25:

  at this moment from the slighest shadow
  at this moment from the slightest shadow

  p. 29:

  has been resorted to to mislead
  has been resorted to mislead

  Their vicissitudes would furnish a theme for an epic (_rewewed
  laughter_)
  Their vicissitudes would furnish a theme for an epic (_renewed
  laughter_)

  p. 32:

  Three days ago my honorable friend and collegue
  Three days ago my honorable friend and colleague

  they had the cowardice to abandou
  they had the cowardice to abandon

  p. 34:

  the plank bed, or bread-and-water diet-solitary chnfinement
  the plank bed, or bread-and-water diet, solitary confinement

  p. 35:

  the most terrible Coercion Act ever passsd
  the most terrible Coercion Act ever passed

  the other side of the House when I ventnred
  the other side of the House when I ventured

  p. 39:

  has only made it more secure and more irrestible,
  has only made it more secure and more irresistible,

  by any land commissioner or judical tribunal
  by any land commissioner or judicial tribunal

  over and over again in most portentious accents
  over and over again in most portentous accents

  p. 40:

  Is the Leage gone
  Is the League gone

  p. 41:

  the Chief Secretary,--public speakers and public newspapers Public
  speeches are the merest appendages of our organization.

  the Chief Secretary,--public speakers and public newspapers. Public
  speeches are the merest appendages of our organization.

  p. 43:

  what they will condone in a Misister of England.
  what they will condone in a Minister of England.

  and as many precations against betrayal
  and as many precautions against betrayal

  p. 44:

  were a mere back of broken men and reckless boys
  were a mere pack of broken men and reckless boys





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Speeches (In Full) of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., and William O'Brien, M.P., on Home Rule, Delivered in Parliament, Feb. 16 and 17, 1888." ***

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