NAVY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE. (Hansard, 21 March 1881)

§ MR. PARNELL
said, he was one of the small minority of Members who, in the last Parliament, had protested against the annexation of the Transvaal, and also against the Act for the Confederation of the South African Colonies. Those two measures were intimately connected and bound up together, and he believed but for them we should not have had any South African War. For, had there been no determination to annex the Transvaal there would have been no Confederation Bill; and had there been no Confederation Bill there would have been no annexation of the Transvaal. Therefore, there would have been no South African War but for these two measures. In 1877, a minority of some 18 or 20 Members opposed themselves to the measures which were supported by hon. Gentlemen of the day and by the Opposition. They were supported by a vast majority of the Members of the House—probably of 10 or 12 or 20 to 1, and yet the result of what had happened since then had most conclusively shown that the very small majority of Members who used all the Forms of the House against the annexation of the Transvaal were in the right, and that the great majority of both political Parties, who used every exertion in favour of those measures, were in the wrong. He believed there was no one in that House who did not now regret the annexation of the Transvaal, and who did not look upon the proposal for South African Confederation as one of those ideas that could never be realized, and which, in the attempt to carry out, had effected a vast deal of evil. It was not, he thought, desirable at that moment to go into the question of the war, which he hoped had been permanently interrupted. As 1555 an Irishman, he wished to express his strong sympathy with the gallant people who were struggling for their independence, and who had so truly shown by their courage and devotion that they deserved their independence. He trusted that the result of the negotiations which were then proceeding would be to prove to the world that the present Ministry was not afraid to do what was right, even if they had for a while done what was wrong. He thought it right to take a division against the Vote, as a protest against the application of the present money to the annexation of the Transvaal.

§ MR. H. H. FOWLER
said, although on that occasion he was not about to oppose the Vote, the money having been spent, he did not wish it to be understood that in voting the money he was expressing any sanction of what he considered to be the most unwise, unstatesmanlike, and disastrous proceedings in connection with the annexation of the Transvaal.

§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH
said, at a future time he should be ready to defend the policy of the late Government with respect to the Transvaal; but as he did not think the present a fitting occasion for so doing, he merely rose for the purpose of saying that he entirely disagreed with the opinions which had been expressed by the two hon. Members who had last addressed the Committee.