Latest / Historic Speeches of the UK House of Commons, Vol. 1 / 010 - Speech on Irish Home Rule 1886

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010 - Speech on Irish Home Rule 1886 · Historic Speeches of the UK House of Commons, Vol. 1

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  Speaker 1: Speech by William Gladstone. This is a LibriVox recording. All
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
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  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Speech given
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  Speaker 1: to the House of Commons on seven June eighteen eighty six.
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  Speaker 1: This speech is abridged. I wish now to refer to
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  Speaker 1: another matter. I here constantly use the terms unionists and separatists,
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  Speaker 1: But what I want to know is who are the unionists?
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  Speaker 1: I want to know who are the separatists. I see
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  Speaker 1: this bill described in newspapers of great circulation and elsewhere
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  Speaker 1: as a separation bill. Several gentlemen opposite adopt and make
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  Speaker 1: that style of description their own. Speaking of that description,
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  Speaker 1: I say that it is the merest slang of vulgar controversy.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think this bill will tend to separation? Well,
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  Speaker 1: your arguments and even your prejudices are worthy of all
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  Speaker 1: consideration and respect. But is it a fair and rational
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  Speaker 1: mode of conducting a controversy to attach these hard names
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  Speaker 1: to measures on which you wish to argue and on
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  Speaker 1: which I suppose you desire to convince by argument? Let
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  Speaker 1: me illustrate. I go back to the reform Act of
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  Speaker 1: Lord Gray. When that reform Bill was introduced, it was
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  Speaker 1: conscientiously and honestly believed by great masses of men, and
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  Speaker 1: intelligent men too, that the bill absolutely involved the destruction
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  Speaker 1: of the monarchy. The Duke of Wellington propounded a doctrine
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  Speaker 1: very much to this effect. But I do not think
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  Speaker 1: that any of those gentlemen, nor the newspapers that supported them,
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  Speaker 1: ever descended so low in their choice of weapons as
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  Speaker 1: to call the measure the monarchy destruction bill. Such language
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  Speaker 1: is a mere begging of the question. Now, I must
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  Speaker 1: make a large demand on your patients and your indulgence.
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  Speaker 1: We conscientiously believe that there are unionists and disunionists, but
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  Speaker 1: that it is our policy that leads to union and
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  Speaker 1: yours to separation. This involves a very large and deep
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  Speaker 1: histe dorical question. Let us try for a few moments
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  Speaker 1: to look at it historically. The arguments used on the
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  Speaker 1: other side of the House appear to me to rest,
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  Speaker 1: in principle and in the main, upon one of two suppositions.
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  Speaker 1: One of them, which I will not now discuss, is
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  Speaker 1: the profound incompetency of the Irish people. But there is another,
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  Speaker 1: and it is this. It is I believe the conscientious
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  Speaker 1: conviction of honorable gentlemen opposite that when two or more
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  Speaker 1: countries associated but not incorporated together are in disturbed relations
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  Speaker 1: with each other, the remedy is to create an absolute
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  Speaker 1: legislative incorporation. On the other hand, they believe that the
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  Speaker 1: dissolution of such an incorporation is clearly the mode to
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  Speaker 1: bring about that a solution of the political relations of
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  Speaker 1: those countries. I do not deny that there may be
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  Speaker 1: cases in which legislative incorporation may have been the means
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  Speaker 1: of constituting a great country, as in the case of France.
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  Speaker 1: But we believe, as proved by history, that where there
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  Speaker 1: are those disturbs between countries associated but not incorporated, the
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  Speaker 1: true principle is to make ample provision for local independence
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  Speaker 1: subject to imperial unity. These are propositions of the greatest
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  Speaker 1: interest and importance. Gentlemen speak of tightening the ties between
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  Speaker 1: England and Ireland as if tightening the tie were always
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  Speaker 1: the means to be adopted. Tightening the tie is frequently
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  Speaker 1: the means of making it burst, whilst relaxing the tie
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  Speaker 1: is very frequently the way to provide for its durability
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  Speaker 1: and to enable it to stand a stronger strain, so
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  Speaker 1: that it is true, as was said by the Honorable
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  Speaker 1: Member for Newcastle, that the separation of legislatures is often
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  Speaker 1: the union of countries, and the union of legislatures is
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  Speaker 1: often the severance of countries. Can you give me a
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  Speaker 1: single instance from all your historical inquiries where the acknowledgment
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  Speaker 1: of local independence has been followed by the severance of countries.
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  Speaker 1: I was just going to refer to those countries and
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  Speaker 1: to make this admission that what I have said does
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  Speaker 1: not apply where a third power has intervened and has
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  Speaker 1: given liberty in defiance of the sovereign power to the
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  Speaker 1: subject state. But do you purpose to wait until some
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  Speaker 1: third power shall intervene in the case of Ireland, as
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  Speaker 1: it intervened in the case of America. I never asked
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  Speaker 1: the honorable gentleman whether he was afraid. It does not
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  Speaker 1: matter much whether he is afraid or not, but I
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  Speaker 1: would inculcate in him that early and provident fear, which,
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  Speaker 1: in the language of mister Burke, is the mother of safety.
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  Speaker 1: I admit that where some third power interferes, as France
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  Speaker 1: interfered in the case of America, you can expect nothing
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  Speaker 1: to result with severance, with hostile feeling on both sides.
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  Speaker 1: But I am not speaking of such cases. That is
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  Speaker 1: not the case before us. But I ask you to
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  Speaker 1: give me a single instance where, apart from the intervention
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  Speaker 1: of a third power, the independence of the legislatures was
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  Speaker 1: followed by the severance of nations. I can give you
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  Speaker 1: several instances where total severance of countries has been the
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  Speaker 1: consequence of an attempt to tighten the bond, in the
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  Speaker 1: case of England and America. In the case of Belgium
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  Speaker 1: and Holland, the attempt to make Belgians conform to the
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  Speaker 1: ways and ideas and institutions of Holland led to the
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  Speaker 1: severance of the two countries. I can understand then, the
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  Speaker 1: disinclination which honorable gentlemen opposite have to go into history
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  Speaker 1: as to these cases. But it will be unfolded more
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  Speaker 1: and more as these dates proceed. If the controversy be prolonged,
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  Speaker 1: it will more and more appear. How strong is the
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  Speaker 1: foundation upon which we stand now and upon which mister
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  Speaker 1: Grattan stood over eighty six years ago when he contended
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  Speaker 1: that a union of the legislatures was the way to
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  Speaker 1: a moral and a real separation between the two countries.
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  Speaker 1: It has been asked in this debate, why have we
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  Speaker 1: put aside all the other business of Parliament, and why
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  Speaker 1: have we thrown the question into all this agitation for
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  Speaker 1: the sake of the Irish question. Here, here that cheer
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  Speaker 1: is the echo that I wanted, well, sir. The first
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  Speaker 1: reason is this because in Ireland the primary purposes of
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  Speaker 1: government are not attained. What said the Honorable Member for
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  Speaker 1: Newcastle in his eloquent speech that in a considerable part
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  Speaker 1: of Ireland, distress was chronic, disaffection was perpetual, and insurrection
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  Speaker 1: was smoldering. What is implied by those who speak of
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  Speaker 1: the dreadful murder that lately took place in Carrie, and
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  Speaker 1: I must quote the Belfast outrage along with it, not
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  Speaker 1: as being precisely of the same character, but as a
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  Speaker 1: significant proof of the weakness of the tie which binds
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  Speaker 1: the people to the law. Sir. It is that you
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  Speaker 1: have not got that respect for the law, that sympathy
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  Speaker 1: with the law on the part of the people, without
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  Speaker 1: which real civilization cannot exist. That is our first reason.
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  Speaker 1: I will not go back at this time on the
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  Speaker 1: dreadful story of the Union, but that too must be
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  Speaker 1: unfolded in all its hideous features, if this controversy is
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  Speaker 1: to be prolonged. That union, of which I ought to say,
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  Speaker 1: without qualifying in the least any epithet I have used,
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  Speaker 1: I do not believe that that union can or ought
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  Speaker 1: to be repealed, for it has made marks upon history
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  Speaker 1: that cannot be effaced. But I go on to another
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  Speaker 1: pious belief which prevails on the other side of the house,
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  Speaker 1: or which is often professed in controversies on the Irish question.
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  Speaker 1: It is supposed that all the abuses of English power
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  Speaker 1: in Ireland relate to a remote period of history, and
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  Speaker 1: that from the year eighteen hundred onwards, from the time
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  Speaker 1: of the Union, there has been a period of steady
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  Speaker 1: redress of grievances. Sir, I am sorry to say that
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  Speaker 1: there has been nothing of the kind. There has been
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  Speaker 1: a period when grievances have been redressed under compulsion, as
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty nine, when Catholic emancipation was granted to
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  Speaker 1: avoid civil war. There have been grievances mixed up with
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  Speaker 1: the most terrible evidence of the general failure of government,
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  Speaker 1: as was exhibited by the Devon Commission in the year
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  Speaker 1: eighteen forty three on a former night, I made a
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  Speaker 1: quotation from the report which spoke of the laborer. Now
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  Speaker 1: I have a corresponding quotation, which is more important, and
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  Speaker 1: which speaks of the coatier. What was the proportion of
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  Speaker 1: the population, which, more than forty years after the Union,
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  Speaker 1: was described by the Devon Report as being in a
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  Speaker 1: condition worse and more disgraceful than any population in Europe.
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  Speaker 1: Mister O'Connell has estimated it in this House at five
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  Speaker 1: million out of seven million, and Sir James Graham, in
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  Speaker 1: debate with him, declined to admit that it was five million,
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  Speaker 1: but did admit that it was three million, five hundred thousand. Well, Sir.
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  Speaker 1: In eighteen fifteen Parliament passed an Act of Irish Legislation.
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  Speaker 1: What was the purpose of that Act? The Act declared
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  Speaker 1: that from the state of the law in Ireland, the
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  Speaker 1: old intertangled usages and provisions containing effectual protection for the
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  Speaker 1: tenant against the landlord could not avail. These intertangled usages,
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  Speaker 1: which had replaced in an imperfect manner, the tribal usages
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  Speaker 1: on which the tenure of land in Ireland was founded.
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  Speaker 1: Parliament swept them away and did everything to expose the
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  Speaker 1: tenants to the action of the landlord, but nothing to
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  Speaker 1: relieve or deal with by any amendment of the law.
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  Speaker 1: The terrible distress, which was finally disclosed by the Devon Commission. Again,
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  Speaker 1: what was the state of Ireland with regard to freedom?
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  Speaker 1: In the year eighteen twenty the Sheriff of Dublin and
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  Speaker 1: the gentry of that county and capital determined to have
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  Speaker 1: a county meeting to make compliments to George the Fourth,
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  Speaker 1: the trial of Queen Caroline being just over, they held
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  Speaker 1: their county meeting. The people went to the county meeting
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  Speaker 1: and a counter address was moved, warm in professions of loyalty,
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  Speaker 1: but setting out the grievances of the country and condemning
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  Speaker 1: the trial and proceedings against the Queen. The sheriff refused
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  Speaker 1: to bear it. He put his own motion, but refused
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  Speaker 1: to put the other motion. He left the meeting, which
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  Speaker 1: continued the debate, and he sent in the military to
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  Speaker 1: the meeting, which was broken up by force. That was
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  Speaker 1: the state of Ireland as to freedom of petition and
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  Speaker 1: remonstrance twenty years after the Union. Do you suppose that
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  Speaker 1: would have been the case if Ireland had retained her
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  Speaker 1: own Parliament. No, Sir, other cases I will not dwell
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  Speaker 1: upon at this late hour, simply on account of the
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  Speaker 1: lateness of the hour. From eighteen fifty seven, when we
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  Speaker 1: passed an act which enabled the landlords of Ireland to
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  Speaker 1: sell improvements on their tenants holdings over their heads, down
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  Speaker 1: to eighteen eighty when a most limited and carefully framed bill,
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  Speaker 1: the product of mister Forster's benevolence, was passed by this
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  Speaker 1: House and rejected by an enormous majority in the House
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  Speaker 1: of Lords, thereby precipitating the Land Act of eighteen eighty one.
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  Speaker 1: It is impossible to stand by the legislation of this
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  Speaker 1: House as a whole since the Union. I have sometimes
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  Speaker 1: heard it said you have had all kinds of a
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  Speaker 1: medial legislation. The two chief items are the disestablishment of
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  Speaker 1: the church and the reform of the land laws. But
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  Speaker 1: what did you say of these? Why said the change
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  Speaker 1: in the land laws was confiscation and the disestablishment of
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  Speaker 1: the church was sacrilege. You cannot at one and the
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  Speaker 1: same time condemn these measures as confiscation and sacrilege, and
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  Speaker 1: at the same time quote them as proofs of the
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  Speaker 1: justice with which you have acted to Ireland. I must
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  Speaker 1: further say that we have proposed this measure because Ireland
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  Speaker 1: wants to make her own laws. It is not enough
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  Speaker 1: to say you are prepared to make good laws. You
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  Speaker 1: were prepared to make good laws for the colonies. You
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  Speaker 1: did make good laws for the colonies according to the
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  Speaker 1: best of your life. The colonists were totally dissatisfied with them.
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  Speaker 1: You accepted their claim to make their own laws. Ireland,
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  Speaker 1: in our opinion, has a claim not less urgent. Now, Sir,
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  Speaker 1: what is before us? What is before us in the
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  Speaker 1: event of the rejection of this bill? What alternatives have
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  Speaker 1: been proposed? Here? I must, for a moment comment on
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  Speaker 1: the fertile imagination of my right honorable friend, the Member
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  Speaker 1: for West Birmingham. He has proposed alternatives, and plenty of them.
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  Speaker 1: My right honorable friend says that a dissolution has no
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  Speaker 1: terrors for him. I do not wonder at it. I
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  Speaker 1: do not see how a dissolution can have any terrors
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  Speaker 1: for him. That in whichever direction the winds of heaven
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  Speaker 1: may blow, they must fill his sales. Let me illustrate
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  Speaker 1: my meaning. I will suppose different cases, supposing at the election.
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  Speaker 1: I mean that an election is a thing like Christmas,
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  Speaker 1: it is always coming. Supposing that at an election public
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  Speaker 1: opinion should be very strong in favor of the bill,
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  Speaker 1: my right honorable friend would then be perfectly prepared to
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  Speaker 1: meet that public opinion and tell it I declared strongly
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  Speaker 1: that I adopted the principle of the bill. On the
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  Speaker 1: other hand, if public opinion was very adverse to the bill,
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  Speaker 1: my right honorable friend again is in complete armor, because
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  Speaker 1: he says, yes, I voted against the bill. Supposing again,
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  Speaker 1: public opinion is in favor of a very large plan
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  Speaker 1: for Ireland, my right honorable friend is perfectly provided for
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  Speaker 1: that case. Also, the government plan and was not large
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  Speaker 1: enough for him, and he proposed in his speech on
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  Speaker 1: the introduction of the bill that we should have a
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  Speaker 1: measure on the basis of federation which goes beyond this bill. Lastly,
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  Speaker 1: and now I have very nearly boxed the compass, supposing
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  Speaker 1: that public opinions should take quite a different turn, and
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  Speaker 1: instead of wanting very large measures for Ireland, should demand
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  Speaker 1: very small measures for Ireland. Still, the resources of my
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  Speaker 1: right honorable friend are not exhausted, because then he is
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  Speaker 1: able to point out that the last of his plans
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  Speaker 1: was four provincial counsels controlled from London. Under other circumstances,
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  Speaker 1: I should perhaps have been tempted to ask the secret
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  Speaker 1: of my right Honorable Friend's recipe, as it is, I
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  Speaker 1: am afraid I am too old to learn it. But
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  Speaker 1: I do not wonder that a dissolution has no terrors
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  Speaker 1: for him, because he is prepared in such a way,
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  Speaker 1: and with such a series of expedients, to meet all
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  Speaker 1: the possible contingencies of the case. Well, Sir, when I
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  Speaker 1: come to look at these practical alternatives and provisions, I
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  Speaker 1: find that they are visibly creations of the vivid imagination
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  Speaker 1: born of the hour and perishing with the hour, totally
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  Speaker 1: and absolutely unavailable for the solution of a great and
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  Speaker 1: difficult problem, the weight of which and the urgency of
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  Speaker 1: which my Right Honorable Friend himself in other days has
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  Speaker 1: seemed to feel. But I should not say now that
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  Speaker 1: our plan has possession of the field without arrival. Lord
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  Speaker 1: Salisbury has given us arrival plan. My first remark is
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  Speaker 1: that Lord Salisbury's policy has not been disavowed. It is
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  Speaker 1: therefore adopted. What is it? Another laugh? It has been disavowed?
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  Speaker 1: What is it? Great complaints are made because it has
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  Speaker 1: been called a policy of coercion. And Lord Salisbury is
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  Speaker 1: stated to have explained in another place that he is
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  Speaker 1: not favorable to coercion, but only to legislative provisions for
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  Speaker 1: preventing interference by one man with the liberty of another,
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  Speaker 1: and for ensuring the regular execution of the law. And
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  Speaker 1: that you say not corrosion? Was that your view? Six
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  Speaker 1: months ago? What did the Liberal government propose when they
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  Speaker 1: went out of office? They proposed to enact clauses against
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  Speaker 1: the No no, no no. They never made any proposal.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps not, but it was publicly stated. It was stated
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  Speaker 1: to me in a letter by the right Honorable Gentleman
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  Speaker 1: in October. Certainly, but it was stated in order to
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  Speaker 1: correct a rather gross error of the right Honorable Gentleman.
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  Speaker 1: It was stated as what we had intended when we
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  Speaker 1: were going out of office. Unless I am greatly mistaken,
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  Speaker 1: it was publicly stated in this House long before. However,
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  Speaker 1: it is not very important. What were the proposals that
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  Speaker 1: we were about to make, or that we were supposed
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: to be about to make. Well, a proposal about boycotting
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: to prevent one man interfering with the liberty of another,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: and a proposal about a change of venue to insure
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the execution of the ordinary Law. And how were these
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  Speaker 1: proposals viewed? Did not Thewes go into the election putting
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  Speaker 1: upon their placards vote for the Tories and no coercion? No, no,
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  Speaker 1: I do not say that every Toy did it. The
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  Speaker 1: Honorable and gallant Baronet cries no, no doubt he did
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  Speaker 1: not do it, but he had no Irish voters. If
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  Speaker 1: I had, I would have done it. Then it means
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  Speaker 1: this that these proposals which we are about to make
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: were defined as coercion by the Tories at the election,
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  Speaker 1: and Lord Salisbury now denies them to be coercion. And
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: it is resented with the loudest manifestations of displeasure when
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  Speaker 1: any one on this side of the House states that
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  Speaker 1: Lord Salisbury has recommended twenty years of coercion. Lord Salisbury recommended,
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  Speaker 1: as he says himself, twenty years of those measures which
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: last year were denounced by the Tories. But what did
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Lord Salisbury call them himself? What were his own words?
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: His words were My alternative policy is that Parliament should
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: enable the Government of England to govern Ireland. What is
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: the meaning of those words? Their meaning in the first
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: instance is this the Government does not want the aid
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: of Parliament to exercise their executive power. It wants the
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: aid of Parliament for fresh legislation. The demand that the
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Parliament should enable the Government of England to govern Ireland
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: is a demand for fresh legislative power. This fresh legislative power,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: how are they to use? Apply that recipe honestly, consistently
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  Speaker 1: and resolutely for twenty years, and at the end of
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: that time you will find Ireland will be fit to
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  Speaker 1: accept any gift in the way of local government or
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  Speaker 1: repeal of coercion laws that you may wish to give.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: And yet objections and complaints of misrepresentation team from that
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  Speaker 1: side of the House when any one on this side
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  Speaker 1: says that Lord Salisbury recommended coercion, when he himself applies
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  Speaker 1: that same term in his own words. A question was
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: put to me by my honorable friend, the Member for Bermondsey,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Mister Thorold Rogers, in the course of his most instructive speech.
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  Speaker 1: My honorable friend had a serious misgiving as to the
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: point of time were we right in introducing this measure?
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  Speaker 1: Now he did not object to the principle, he intimated
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  Speaker 1: a doubt as to the moment, I may ask my
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  Speaker 1: honorable friend to consider what would have happened had we
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: hesitated as to the duty before us, had we used
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  Speaker 1: the constant efforts that would have been necessary to keep
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  Speaker 1: the late government in office, and allowed them to persevere
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  Speaker 1: in their intentions. On the twenty sixth of January, they
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: proposed what we termed a measure of coercion, and I
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: think we were justified in so terming it, because anything
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: attempting to put down a political association can hardly have
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: another name. Can it be denied that that legislation must
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: have been accompanied by legislation against the press, legislation against
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: public meetings, and other legislation, without which it would have
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: been totally ineffective. Would it have been better if a
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: great controversy cannot be avoided? And I am sonciple of
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  Speaker 1: the evil of this great controversy? I say it is
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: better that parties should be matched in conflict upon a
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: question of giving a great boon to Ireland, rather than
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: as we should have been if the policy of January
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: twenty sixth had proceeded, that we should have been matched
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: and brought into conflict, and the whole country torn with
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: dispute and discussion upon the policy of a great measure
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: of corrosion. That is my first reason. My second reason
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: is this, let my honorable friend recollect that this is
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: the earliest moment in our parliamentary history when we have
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: the voice of Ireland authentically expressed in our hearing majorities
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: of home rulers. There may have been upon other occasions,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: a practical majority of Irish members has never been brought
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: together for such a purpose. Now, first we can understand her.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Now first we are able to deal with her. We
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: are able to learn authentically what she wants and wishes,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: what she offers and will do. And as we ourselves
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: enter into the strongest moral and honorable obligations by the
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: steps which we take in this house, so we have
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: before us practically an Ireland under the representative system able
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: to give us equally authentic information, able morally to convey
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to us an assurance the breach and rupture of which
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: would cover Ireland with disgrace. There is another reason, but
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: not a very important one. It is this, I feel
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: that any attempt to palter with the demands of Ireland
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: so conveyed in forms known to the Constitution, and any
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: rejection of the conciliatory policy might have an effect that
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: none of us could wish in strengthening that party of disorder,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: which is behind the back of the Irish representatives, which
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: skulks in America, which skulks in Ireland, which I trust,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: is losing ground and is losing force, and will lose
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: ground and will lose force in proposition as our policy
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: is carried out, and which I cannot altogether dismiss from
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: consideration when I take into view the consequences that might
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: follow upon its rejection. What is the case of Ireland
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: at this moment? Have honorable gentlemen considered that they are
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: coming into conflict with the nation? Can anything stop a
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: nation's demand except its being proved to be immoderate and unsafe.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: But here are multitudes, and I believe millions upon millions
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: out of doors, who feel this demand to be neither
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: immoderate nor unsafe. In our opinion, there is but one
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: question before us about this demand. It is as to
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: the time and the circumstance of granting it. There is
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: no question in our minds that it will be granted.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: We wish it to be granted in the mode prescribed
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: by mister Burke. Mister Burke said in his first speech
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: at Bristol, I was true to my old standing, invariable
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: principles that all things which came from Great Britain should
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: issue as a gift of her bounty and beneficence, rather
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: than as claims recovered against struggling litigants, or at least
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: if your beneficence obtained no credit in your concessions, yet
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: they should appear the salute provisions of your wisdom and foresight,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: not as things wrung from you with your blood by
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: the cruel grip of a rigid necessity. The difference between
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: giving with freedom and dignity on the one side, with
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: acknowledgment and gratitude on the other, and giving under compulsion,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: giving with disgrace, giving with resentment, dogging you at every
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: step of your path. This difference is, in our eyes, fundamental,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: and this is the main reason not only why we
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: have acted, but why we have acted now. This, if
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I understand it, is one of the golden moments of
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: our history, one of those opportunities which may come and
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: may go, but which rarely return, or if they return,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: return at long intervals and under circumstances which no man
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: can forecast. There have been such golden moments even in
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the tragic history of Ireland. As her poet says, one
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: time the harp of ni Fall was tuned to notes
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: of gladness, And then he goes on to say, but
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: yet did Oftener tell a tale of more prevailing sadness.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: But there was such a golden moment. It was in
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: seventeen ninety five. It was on the mission of Lord Fitzwilliam.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: At that moment it is historically clear that the Parliament
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: of Groton was on the point of solving the Irish problem.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: The two great knots of that problem were, in the
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: first place, Roman Catholic emancipation, and in the second place,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the reform of Parliament. The cup was at her lips,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: and she was ready to drink it when the hand
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: of England rudely and ruthlessly dashed it to the ground
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: in obedience to the wild and dangerous intimations of an
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: Irish faction ex illofleura aqueretro sublopsa refiri spestanum. From then onwards,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: the tide of fortune left the shores of Troy and
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: ebbed faster than it flowed earlier. There has been no
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: great day of hope for Ireland, no day when you
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: might hope completely indefinitely to end the controversy to till
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: now more than ninety years, the long periodic time has
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: at last run out, and the star has again mounted
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: into the heavens. What Ireland was doing for herself in
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: seventeen ninety five, we at length have done. The Roman
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Catholics have been emancipated, emancipated after a woeful disregard of
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: solemn promises through twenty nine years, emancipated slowly, sullenly, not
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: from good will but from abject terror, with all the
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: fruits and consequences which will always follow that method of legislation.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: The second problem has been also solved, and the representative
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: of Ireland has been thoroughly reformed. And I am thankful
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: to say that the franchise was given to Ireland on
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: the readjustment of last year with a free heart, with
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: an open hand, and the gift of that franchise was
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the last act required to make the success of Ireland
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: in her final effort. Absolutely sure, we have given Ireland
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: a voice. We must listen for a moment to what
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: she said. We must all listen both sides both parties,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, as they are divided on this question. Divided,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I am afraid by an almost immeasurable gap. We do
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: not undervalue or despise the forces opposed to us. I
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: have described them as the forces of class and its dependence,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and that as a general description, as a slight and
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: rude outline of a description, is I believe perfectly true.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: I do not deny that many are against us whom
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: we should have expected to be before us. I do
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: not deny that some whom we see against us have
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: caused us, by their conscientious action the bitterest disappointment. You
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: have power, you have wealth, you have rank, you have station,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: you have organization. What have we? We think that we
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: have the people's heart. We believe and we know we
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: have the promise of the harvest of the future. As
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: to the people's heart, you may dispute it, and dispute
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: it with perfect sincerity. Let that matter make its own proof.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: As to the heart fest of the future, I doubt
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: if you have so much confidence, And I believe that
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: there is in the breast of many a man who
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: means to vote against us. To night a profound misgiving
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: approaching even to a deep conviction that the end will
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: be as we foresee and not as you do, that
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the ebbing tide is with you, and the flowing tide
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: is with us. Ireland stands at your bar, expectant, hopeful,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: almost suppliant. Her words are the words of truth and soberness.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: She asks a blessed oblivion of the past, and in
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that oblivion our interest is deeper than even hers. My
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: right honorable friend, the Member for East Edinburgh, mister Gushen,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: asks us to night, to abide by the traditions of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: which we are the heirs. What traditions, by the Irish traditions,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: go into the length and breadth of the world, ransack
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the literature of all countries. Find if you can a
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: single voice, a single book, find I would almost say
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: as much as a single newspaper article. Unless the product
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of the day in which the conduct of England towards
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Ireland is anywhere treated except with profound and bitter condemnation.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Are these the traditions by which we are exhorted to stand. No,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: they are a sad exception to the glory of our country.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: They are a broad and black blot upon the pages
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: of its history, and what we want to do is
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: to stand by the traditions of which we are the
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: heirs in all matters except our relations with Ireland, and
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: to make our relations with Ireland to conform to the
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: other traditions of our country. So we treat our traditions,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: so we hail the demand of Ireland for what I
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: call a blessed oblivion of the past. She asks also
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: a boon for the future, and that boon for the future,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: unless we are much mistaken, will be a boon to
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: us in respective honor, no less than a boon to
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: her in respect of happiness, prosperity and peace. Such Sir,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: is her prayer. Think I beseech you think well, Think wisely,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Think not for the moment, but for the years that
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: are to come, before you reject this bill. End of speech.