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._)