Part 3

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.