HC Deb 22 February 1884 vol 284 cc1734-59

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Main Question [5th February].—[See page 52.]

And which Amendment was, In line 62, after the word "us," to insert the words "hut humbly to assure Her Majesty that the recent policy and conduct of the Executive in Ireland have not tended to the interests of tranquillity or contentment among the Irish people, and particularly to deplore the wanton prohibition of legal and constitutional public meeting's throughout Ireland, whereby the exercise of the right of free speech has been practically extinguished in that Country; also, to condemn the Irish Executive for having permitted bodies of magistrates to make with impunity public declarations applauding the conduct of Lord Rossmore (an ex-magistrate superseded for disturbing order, and for provoking ill-will and strife between different classes of Her Majesty's subjects in Ireland), which public declarations have directly incited Her Majesty's subjects in Ireland to illegal acts, disorder, and violence."—(Mr. Parnell.)

Question again proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

Debate resumed.

MR. DAWSON

said, although he had addressed the House before, he felt bound to trouble it with some further remarks on account of the personal allusions to him that had been made in some quarters of the House, and the references to the part he was compelled to fulfil in connection with his engagement in the North of Ireland. He wished to address the House, if for no other reason, in order to repudiate the insinuation made by the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Lewis), that either he or any Member of the Party to which he belonged was desirous of entering into an alliance with the Conservative Party. If it were possible, he would far rather follow the Party with which the Mover and Seconder of the Address were identified, provided they practically carried out the beneficial policy of which they were supposed to be the especial advocates. The statement of the hon. Member for London- derry was one tissue of inaccuracy, so far as his description of what took place in Derry was concerned. The hon. Gentleman commenced by saying that he (Mr. Dawson) would not lecture in the Land League rooms in Derry. In that he was perfectly correct, inasmuch as it was impossible to be in a place that had no existence. He followed up that ridiculous assertion by the statement that he was sent to Londonderry by the National League. He wished to state to the House that he had never been sent anywhere by the National League. Whatever adhesion he had given to that League had been a willing, an unbidden, and an unforced adhesion. He had never been asked for any pledge by the Leader of the Party to which he was proud to belong; but he had made a pledge to himself which he hoped to keep so long as he was in that House—to act and to vote with his Party. He hoped also that at the coming General Election, which was not far distant, instead of exacting specific promises from Members, the general cry upon the hustings in Ireland would be, not that they should support this or that measure, but that they should give a general, unqualified, and universal adhesion to the policy and action of the Party which represented the people of Ireland. The noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Lord Claud Hamilton), who was driven out from the City of Derry, which he formerly represented, said that be (Mr. Dawson) used language that was unbecoming his position, and the high office which he filled. The theme did not need language of that kind, and if it did, he was not the person, nor had he ever been the person, to use language of an outrageous or "high falutin'" character. He felt that as the advocate of Constitutional weapons for the removal of the evils of his country, and as the holder of the high office of Lord Mayor of Dublin, it became him to be excessively careful in what he should say; and he challenged the noble Lord, or any other promoter of disunion and disorder, to point to a single utterance of his that savoured of disloyalty, or that in any way compromised the cause or the position with which be was associated. The burden of his remarks was an appeal to the Catholics of Derry to join hands with their Protestant fellow-workmen, and he could tell hon. Members that the day of that union was not so far off as they thought, in proof of which he pointed to the cordial reception given by the Catholic traders of Cork to the ship carpenters of Belfast last year. But the real grievance of the hon. Member for Derry was the franchise, the extension of which would mean his own extinction. The borough of Aylesbury, with a population of 28,000, bad an electorate of 4,436; Derry, with a population of 29,000, an electorate of 1,940. There was a miserable, base, and ignorant residuum of 2,536 according to the hon. Member in Derry, to which be would refuse to extend the franchise, because that would relegate him to the position of obscurity he deserved to occupy. The taunts of disloyalty made by the hon. Member and his friends came with a very ill grace from them, seeing that their speeches to the Protestants of Ulster were strewn with incitements to disorder, tumult, and violence. The debate, however, had served a useful purpose. It bad exposed the fallacy of the argument of the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool. He spoke as though his friends comprised five-sixths or seven-eighths of the population of Ulster. All the combined sects barely exceeded by a few thousands the Catholics there; while in all the boroughs of Ulster, except Belfast, Carrickfergus, and Coleraine, the Catholics were in the majority. It was part of the stupidity and inconsistency of that Party to call attention to these questions; for if they only let them alone the world would not trouble to inquire into the facts. Again, they were told that the inhabitants of Ulster were so wealthy, so rich, and overwhelmingly gifted above the other Provinces that they were expected to bow down before them. But what were the facts, and what did the cool statistics of Her Majesty's Government show? He would give them an illustration of the wealth of Ulster as compared with that of the rest of Ireland. The Income Tax per bead of the population in Ulster was £5 4s. 5d.; in Leinster it was £10 6s. 9d.; Belfast, with a population of 271,000, was assessed to Income Tax at £2,842,000, the amount yielded by the tax being£40,736. Dublin, with only 73,000 more people, was assessed to Income Tax at £5,368,000, and paid in Income Tax £102,000. Ulster had not the population, it had not the wealth, but it had the brass. The reason why there were manufacturers in Ulster was that special laws exempted the linen trade, and ruined the woollen industries of the rest of Ireland. The banking system of the North, too, had much to do with its development, for it was more encouraging to struggling commerce than was the banking system of the South. It had been said that the popular Party was making no progress in the North; but how could it when no landlord or manufacturer there would give an inch of ground on which to build schools or public institutions? Take the town of Strabane, which was at the gates of the estate of the father of the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Lord Claud Hamilton). That noble Duke had given no free library to the town, had endowed no schools, had promoted no public institutions, but spent the revenues he derived from Irish sources in a foreign capital. Then the Orangemen did all in their power to prevent peace and forgetfulness of the past. The followers of the noble Lord had their celebrations in August, on the 12th July, and almost every month in the calendar, in order to make attacks and stir up outrage against their fellow-countrymen. It would be well for the House to know that there had been another siege in Ireland as illustrions as that of Derry. That was the siege of Limerick—which city held out for days against the powerful invading army, and in the end made an honourable capitulation, and obtained a Treaty which was broken almost as soon as made by England, and the stone on which the Treaty was signed still remained as a proof of the lasting stigma upon the honour of England. This siege took place on the 4th of October, 1691; and if the Catholics, who were 40,000 strong in that city, rose against the Protestants, who numbered only 4,000, on every anniversary of that violated Treaty, with the same desire to provoke hatred and animosity, the result would be the complete annihilation of the latter. They had not any desire to engender strife, however, and did not do so, not wishing to perpetuate, as did the small minority in the North in their stronghold, scenes of outrage and bloodshed. The Solicitor General for Ireland had been altogether mistaken in his remarks about Judge O'Brien—that Judge with the "lantern jaws," who threw light upon Irish laws. Upon the occasion of the opening of the Commission, when he (Mr. Dawson) sat as Chief Magistrate of the City of Dublin, that Judge had given utterance to sentiments which he knew must be offensive to him (Mr. Dawson). He could, had he desired, have retaliated by also addressing the Court, as was his full privilege; but he did not wish to create a sensation by departing from the usual custom. But there were no grounds for the statements contained in the Charge of the Judge. Taking the political crimes out of the calendar on that occasion, there was not one crime to be tried in that vast City of Dublin. Then, as to the plaintive complaint of the Judge about the houses of the great being empty, he, as a member of the Corporation, could tell the House, on the other hand, that the City was spreading outside, and that for one of the great houses shut up there were miles of new streets to meet the increasing demands of the middle-class people. It was very different when Judge O'Brien was a candidate for the representation of Ennis in Parliament. He did not then talk only of empty houses and decayed trade, but he said—"Give us Home Rule. Give us an Irish Parliament; that is the only remedy." He could tell the learned Judge that, false as had been the predictor, true should be the prediction, and that a National Parliament should still redress the wrongs of the country. He could say of the city, as a greater man than he once said of the country— Beauty's ensign still is on her check, And Death's pale flag is not advanced there. The Solicitor General for Ireland made a very poor defence last night, the only thing he could say in palliation of Judge Morris's extra-judicial remarks being that he was "independent;" but, as a matter of fact, the Irish Judges were not what the English Constitution said Judges ought to be—"Without fear, favour, or affection." A Judge lived in Ireland upon the breath of favour. From the time he set his foot upon the lowest rung of the legal ladder he knew he could be promoted from the humblest position, no matter how small his ability or obscure his merits, to a high position. These things were dangled before the eyes of the Irish Judges, and if they could not all be made Chief Justices there were Commissionerships of £2,000 and £3,000 a-year to add to their salaries of £3,000 a-year. The machinery was most complete, and the Judges had every inducement to favour the side of the Government. With regard to the speech of the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power), he would observe that it was very easy in the old time to win popular applause by reference to Home Rule, whilst doing nothing to further that end. But the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), who united the enthusiasm of the Celt with the coolness and determination of his American ancestors, had changed all that. His endeavours, and those of the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), had achieved more for the Irish people than all the elegant platitudes and rounded periods of Mr. Butt or the hon. Member for Mayo could ever have accomplished. He would, however, return to the Amendment before the House, and would remark that the charges which the Irish Party brought against the Government had not been in any degree answered. With regard to the meeting at Derry which he (Mr. Dawson) addressed, the Chief Secretary had not explained how it was that 500 Orangemen were permitted to break open the Town Hall, and, having obtained possession of it, to fire from the windows on the crowd, or why Nationalist bands were prohibited after sunset, while Orange bands were allowed; and why all this was permitted under the protection of the troops of the Crown. Another point as to which the Government had given no adequate explanation was the working of the Crimes Act, for while the people in the South and West were heavily taxed to pay compensation, all assistance of the kind was denied to the poor mechanic of Derry, who nearly lost his life, and entirely lost his eyesight in the disturbances there. The Government said the reason why they did not give any compensation was because the outrage was not agrarian. Yet the noble Lord (Lord Claud Hamilton) admitted that it was not his (Mr. Dawson's) lecture on the franchise which was objected to, but his views on the Land Question. In conclusion, he would observe that the Government were trying, as England always had tried, to govern the majority by the minority in Ireland. Such a state of things could not last for half-an-hour in England; and how long did the Chief Secretary, a historian and relative of a great historian, think it would endure in Ireland? The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) had admitted that the hon. Member for the City of Cork had a following of three-fourths of the Irish people; seven-eighths would be nearer the mark. It was the attempt to force the will of the one-eighth upon the other seven-eighths that was the perennial cause of disorder in Ireland, and so long as the system continued Ireland would never have peace. There had been a good deal of poetry quoted during the course of the present Session, and he thought a few lines found in the Memories of Captain Rock, well known to former British Governments, put the case of Ireland in a nutshell— So long as Ireland doth pretend Like sugar-loaf turned upside down, To stand upon its narrow end, So long shall last old Rock's renown. He would only add that the Government gave very small support to measures for the benefit of the country. The hon. Member for Mayo said that the Government was ready to meet them "half-way." Well, they had been doing so for centuries, and he only wished that once for all they would go the whole way.

COLONEL COLTHUPST

said, he should not have interposed but for his anxiety to say a few words on a subject already touched by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket)—namely, the necessity of amending the Land Act in certain particulars, notably the giving of more facilities to occupying tenants to purchase their farms. He was perfectly prepared to endorse what the right hon. and learned Member had said as to the hardships now endured by a certain class of landowners, especially those who had small estates and large charges, and portions of estates which were apportioned among several. He thought this case was one which required the consideration of the Government. But he would rather put it on a broader issue than that. He believed the extension of those purchase clauses was imperatively called for in the interests, not alone of a particular class of landowners, but in the interests of every class in Ireland—owners, occupiers, and traders. He hoped the Government, and especially the Prime Mi- nister, would not approach this subject with the idea that it implied any censure on the Land Act—on the contrary, it was the greatest praise they could give the Land Act that the occupying tenants had received so great advantages as a whole from the Act that they were now not so desirous of becoming owners as they were before the Act was passed. There was such a consensus of opinion in Ireland in favour of extending those clauses that he was confident the Government would not turn a deaf ear. The late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. J. Lowther) was almost the only Member of the House whom he had heard express dissent from the necessity of increasing the owners of property in Ireland. But there was a preliminary step which must be taken—namely, the completing of the operations of the Land Courts, for until that was done and rents were settled they could not expect the Purchase Clauses to work satisfactorily. He believed that in some of the Courts great progress had been made. It would be a great misfortune if the rumour turned out to be true that there was to be a reduction in the Sub-Commissioners' Courts. He was disappointed that no promise had been given to alter the constitution of the Land Courts. He did not think there would be the slightest difficulty in passing a measure empowering two Commissioners to sit as a Court, at any rate for a limited time, so that there might be two Courts sitting in the country to hear appeals, and another Court sitting in Dublin to perform the routine work of the Commission. If that was done, they might expect in 12 or 18 months the whole of the operations of the Land Courts would be finished. There was another class who needed attention—the leaseholders. They were only one-eighth of the occupying tenants of Ireland, but they held much more than that proportion of the land; and although the question might not be an acute one in certain parts of Ireland, it was most acute in Munster, and especially in County Cork, where the leaseholders were one in three of the occupying tenants, and were unjustly excluded from the benefit of the Land Act. He knew there was a provision in the Act of 1881 whereby agreements might be broken if they contained undue or unfair conditions, but the unfortunate provision was added that they must be occupying tenants from year to year; and as many hundreds of tenants had been forced, through the land-hunger, to take out leases at higher rents, they could not now get the benefit of the Act. The fact was that the proportion of leases which had been declared void on the ground that they contained oppressive covenants was infinitesimal; and many leaseholders were now paying rents not merely higher than the judicial rents of their neighbours, but higher than any rents ever paid by their neighbours. The question was one which could only be effectively dealt with by the Government, and he trusted that the Prime Minister or one of his Colleagues would give an assurance on the subject. He was glad that the Government had made up their minds to confer upon Ireland the franchise which they proposed to confer upon the people of this country. He had always advocated an assimilation of the laws for England and Ireland, and he trusted that Ireland would not be deprived of any useful legislation.

MR. EWART

did not desire to go into the general question raised by the Amendment of the hon. Member for the City of Cork, and rose only for the purpose of correcting some statements made regarding the loyal portion of the Irish population. It had been remarked that the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had appeared in a now capacity. For years past he had been the guiding spirit of the Land League, and the author of an agitation which had been well described by the Prime Minister and others as one of robbery, and which had been accompanied by outrage and murder. He need not enlarge upon that. It was admitted; and yet during all the time that Ireland was being deluged with blood, and the character of Ireland being immensely injured, the hon. Member for the City of Cork, and those who supported him, stood callously by and never uttered a word of sympathy for those who suffered, or a word of condemnation of the atrocities that were committed. And now the hon. Gentleman appeared as the apostle of law and order, and of Constitutional government. He (Mr. Ewart) would have been very glad, indeed, if they could have seen any sign of the real conversion of the hon. Member for the City of Cork; but they could not forget the speech that he made in Dublin not long ago, in which he uttered the very greatest defiance of Great Britain. Indeed, in his speech in moving the Amendment, he wound up by the statement that Ireland would not be content till the laws of Ireland were made on Irish soil. The speech of the hon. Member for the City of Cork, as well as those of other hon. Members who complained of what took place in Ulster, were very much on the lines of the book they had all received in an Orange cover. That production, and the speeches based upon it, were like the work of a penny-a-liner—they were full of the greatest exaggerations. The movement in Ulster was not correctly described as an Orange movement—it was a loyal movement. The hon. Member for the City of Cork seemed absolutely horrified at what had taken place. But what were the facts? So far as the Loyalists were concerned, there had been no bones broken at the demonstrations. Assuredly there was not as much injury done as there would have been at a faction fight 50 years ago. As an instance of the exaggeration, he might refer to the case of the nun in Belfast, who died during the visit of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford North-cote). It had been stated that she was killed by the Orangemen. He gave that statement the most unqualified denial. The nun had been ill for many preceding days. Some stones were thrown, but not by the processionists, and not at the portion of the building in which the nun was ill. He was prepared before any inquiry to show that the nun was not disturbed by the proceedings. He stated that on the authority of the lady who was at the time in charge of the nun. The story had been greatly magnified, and none the less from the association with it of the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon, and he supposed this was one of those atrocities which had been referred to by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade. Reference had also been made to a case of roasting alive by some Orangemen. That, also, was a great exaggeration. The fact was, as he (Mr. Ewart) understood it, that Mr. Mathews was animated by excess of zeal. It was only a small case. He and two others had been convicted of setting fire to the outside of a building, and it was the easiest thing in the world for those inside to have escaped. Everybody knew that the accused was a man of the greatest good nature. They had been taken back by the hon. Member for Westmeath as far as 1815, by the reading of a statement by Judge Fletcher, containing a good deal of reflection upon Orangemen. He (Mr. Ewart) was not there to justify all that Orangemen did in those days. The Society at that time was one whose character depended much on the state of things then existing. It was a secret Society, and the habits of those days were such that secret meetings were held not only of Orangemen and Orange Lodges, but of others throughout the country. Even if there were these secret Societies, they must view them, in a great measure, in the light of the days in which they existed. It was a long time since 1815. It was, too, it should be remembered, only about 17 years after the French Revolution, to which the origin of so many evils were to be traced. He was not sure, indeed, whether the Inquisition had been abolished. [Mr. HARRINGTON: Not in Ireland.] The events of 1815 were referred to, but they must judge of those events in the light of contemporary history. It was only 17 years after the Rebellion in Ireland of 1798, and society was very much disorganized. They should bear in mind the state of things in Ireland, and the state of things in other countries where Protestants were in the minority. What privileges did Protestants enjoy in Spain, in Portugal, in Austria, and other countries? The hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Dawson) talked of meeting half way. Why, the Catholics of Ireland were met more than half way. They were now the favoured religion of the country.

MR. DAWSON

I spoke of the Government meeting us half way.

MR. EWART

said, that did not alter his argument, for, as a matter of fact, the Roman Catholics were the favoured religion of Ireland. With regard to the Orange Society, he had read over the debates in Parliament in 1836, and there was not a scintilla of evidence to support the statement that they once behaved disloyally, and wanted to change the succession to the Throne. It was perfectly incredible and unintelligible that such a charge should be preferred against them, as loyalty to the Crown was the very basis of their existence. In 1836 great hopes were entertained that we were going to have everything quiet and orderly in Ireland, because the penal laws had been repealed, the Emancipation Act had been passed, reforms had taken place, the tithe question had been virtually settled, and the Millennium was even hoped for in Irish affairs. In compliance with the request of William IV. that Orange Societies in Ireland should be dissolved, the Societies, much to their credit, agreed to dissolve. Before long, however, the country was again embroiled in rebellion and disorder, and the Orange Societies were reconstituted. In the reconstitution they did everything to make it a legal and Constitutional Society. There were no oaths, no signs or passwords. The constitution was drawn and approved by the late Sir Joseph Napier. The Orange Society did not prove rebel in 1848, when the late Smith O'Brien distinguished himself. It was a well-known fact that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Clarendon, called in the aid of Orangemen, and supplied them with money to procure arms. The Society had always been a peaceful organization, and had stood up in defence of the rights and lives of the people; it was not opposed to Roman Catholics so far as their religion was concerned. There was no body of men in the world who more strictly held the doctrine of civil and religious liberty than the Orangemen. Unfortunately, however, there was in existence in Ireland a great deal of what was disloyal and rebellious, and it was the exhibition of this disloyalty and this rebellious spirit that aroused, and was arousing, the feelings of the loyal people of Ireland. It was well known how O'Connell had tried to get into the good graces of the Orangemen when his great object was the Repeal of the Union, and how he had declared that if he could only carry the Orangemen with him his objects would soon be gained. But they knew better; it was found to be of no use and no avail; they stood firm, as they would continue to stand, never consenting to any separation or disintegration of the Empire. He regretted very much the necessity for these counter-demonstrations; but he believed they served a good purpose. They had shown Great Britain, and they had shown hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, that Home Rule would never be obtained in Ireland without a civil war. The Orangemen were a very numerous body; but, in addition to them, there was a large proportion of Roman Catholics who were loyal. It might be taken that one-third of the population of Ireland was loyal, and that one-third represented a vast proportion of the intelligence and wealth of the country. The Loyalists of Ulster were a bond of union between Great Britain and Ireland, and he was sorry to hear any hon. Gentleman speak disparagingly of them. He regretted that the Solicitor General for Ireland went out of his way to describe what had taken place in Ulster as arising out of a Party question. It was nothing of a Party question, for Conservatives and Liberals alike joined in the action that was taken; and the Solicitor General, therefore, in speaking of them as he did, in his opinion, did them a great injustice. The noble Lord the Member for Liverpool had described the proceedings which took place in County Donegal, when what he supposed he might call a mock funeral was conducted in honour of the memory of the murderer of Carey. The demeanour of the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway caused him great sorrow, for he and his compatriots seemed to thoroughly identify themselves with those people who gloried in murder. Then, too, the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Dawson) had given them some curious ideas as to the way in which bankers managed their business in Ireland. That hon. Gentleman had told the House that the bankers took the money of the South and lent it to the North. Well, as to that, he might lay it clown as a general principle that bankers were always glad to lend money for which they could get security; and if the money was lent in the North of Ireland, it was because they could get better security there than in the South. That was a fact as to which there could be no doubt. Money could not be lent with the same security in the South as it was in the North.

MR. DAWSON

I said they lost it in the North.

MR. EWART

remarked, that before the bankers lost the money they must lend it in the first place. At any rate, they were afraid to lend money in the South of Ireland. It was, he thought, the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. P. J. Smyth), who some years ago brought forward a Motion having reference to the Repeal of the Union. He (Mr. Ewart) made a speech in the debate that took place on the Motion, and he remembered that in consequence he was very severely taken to task by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, who said he knew nothing about the aspirations of the Irish nation, and twitted him with his knowledge on that subject being confined to bales of goods and such like. He, however, thought that, as it had been said that the patriot was he who had made two blades of grow where only one had grown before, so the man who tried to encourage and develop the industries of his country, and to improve the condition of the people, was the true patriot. That apparently was not the view taken by some who claimed to be patriots, and to be influenced by the desire to benefit their country, and it was a fact that patriotism was the most paying business in Ireland.

THE O'DONOGHUE

said, he was unwilling to give a silent vote on this occasion. It appeared to him that one of the most remarkable circumstances connected with this debate was the almost imperceptible connection between the speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite and the Amendment which their collective wisdom had submitted to the judgment of the House. This was, perhaps, the most noteworthy feature in the speech of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). The hon. Member for nearly two hours made observations and read documents, the character of which were barely within the Rules of the House. The speech of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) was a somewhat condensed narrative of events with which they had all become previously acquainted through the medium of the public Press. The same might be said of the remarks of the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), whose coarse jibes and jokes must have been disgusting to the House. When he (the O'Donoghue) looked at the hon. Member with his spectacles and his prayer book, and listened to his peculiar method of intoning, he was reminded of those gentlemen who never failed to be present at Mr. Bradlaugh's park meetings, and who gave a becoming solemnity to those meetings by the recital of mock litanies. He did not pretend to be a physiognomist; but he ventured to hazard the conjecture that, while Art had made the hon. Gentleman a Member of that House, Nature intended him for such an occupation as that to which he had referred. An hon. Member had described him (the O'Donoghue) as a deserter from the Irish Party. [Mr. HARRINGTON: The only deserter.] If the hon. Member meant to insinuate, or to say that he had ever abandoned any political opinion which he had held, he gave that statement the most emphatic denial. He would be able to demonstrate to the House, when the proper time came, that the statement was altogether without foundation. It was not he who had changed his political opinions; but it was that contaminating, debasing, and anti-Irish principle and practice which had been introduced into the political life of Ireland. With regard to this general charge of want of patriotism which was brought by hon. Members opposite against all those who had the honesty and the courage to differ from them, he had not language adequate enough to express the utter contempt with which he regarded the pretensions of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), and those who acted with him, to be in any sense truer Irishmen than he was. He would give the reason why he could not support the Amendment of the hon. Member for the City of Cork. It was for this all-sufficient reason—that it consisted in the main of a charge against the Government, for which there was no foundation whatever. No graver accusation could have been made against the Government; but neither the hon. Member for the City of Cork nor any of his Friends had been able to sustain their serious indictment by anything worthy of the name of proof. The actual fact was that many hon. Members opposite had during the Recess addressed meetings in Ireland, when they had been so disposed. He had seen the speeches of the hon. Members for Sligo, the Borough of Mallow, Carlow, Cavan, Longford, County Westmeath, the City of Water-ford, and many others. He had also seen that the hon. Member for the City of Cork, who knew perfectly well that he enjoyed freedom of speech, notwithstanding what be might say in that House, made many engagements to ad- dress his constituents at Cork; but for some profound reason he had not been able to get there. He did not remember to have read anything from Gentlemen in their position equal to the unqualified humbug to which they treated their audiences, or anything to equal the true Barnum ring in the announcements they gave with reference to the prodigies that they were going to perform. The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) said that owing to the conduct of himself and his Friends things had come to such a pass that the game was completely in their own hands; and the question was not now that Home Rule would be conceded, but what kind of Home Rule they would condescend to take. Quite recently the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien) assured a political gathering that the hon. Member for the City of Cork had become a greater force in politics than the House of Lords, including the Bench of Bishops. Then they had the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) coming forward from time to time, and declaring that nothing could satisfy his patriotic soul but National independence. Then he denounced the landlords as a pack of thieves, and did all he could to propagate and keep alive that vile slander. How, then, in the presence of such an uninterrupted flow of gammon and bunkum and defamation could the House be asked deliberately to stultify itself by committing itself to the statement that the Irish Government had practically extinguished freedom of speech? It was his firm conviction that throughout the most trying times the Irish Government had done nothing but what conscience and imperative duty required. It was almost unavoidable that there should be cases of hardship; but that risk had to be faced, because the alternative was to give murder and violence uninterrupted sway throughout Ireland. He thought it was impossible to imagine anything more difficult and embarrassing than the position in which the Irish Government was placed by the discreditable contrivances of the Orange and Tory Party, whose evident and avowed object was to compel the Government to prohibit the holding of meetings with which they knew perfectly well the Government had no thought of interfering. Beyond all question, they left the Government no alternative between prohibiting them and allowing them to be held with the imminent risk of a bloody collision. If the meetings had been permitted, the Government must have found itself in the position of being responsible for an indiscriminate slaughter of the Queen's subjects, while endeavouring to put an end to an internecine conflict. In any case, blood would have been shed which would have shocked the public mind. The sound judgment, therefore, of Lord Spencer and the Chief Secretary in resolving to prohibit the meetings and to run no risks must command the unqualified approval of the vast majority of the people of the United Kingdom. While he was far from whining with the hon. Member for the City of Cork and his Friends against the Government because it would not supersede a large portion of the Irish magistracy, he could not deny that the magistrates in Ulster and in some other parts of Ireland had made a sorry exhibition of themselves. The Ulster magistrates had proved themselves the merest partizans, and by their defiant attitude they had brought things to such a pass that the Queen's authority was insufficient there to protect peaceful subjects in the exercise of their most cherished political rights. To do that and then to talk of their loyalty was a mere transparent device. As to the so-called "invasion of Ulster," not more than two dozen persons from the other Provinces visited Ulster, and to describe such little trips by a term of such grave import as "invasion" was a straining, if not an actual perversion of things. The visit of the right hon. Baronet the Leader of the Opposition to Ulster had been referred to, and it was very unlike him that he should countenance proceedings such as those which had recently taken place in Ulster. It was quite true that the right hon. Baronet was under obligation to his Irish friends. They were always ready to support him in resisting popular measures, whether in England, Scotland, or Ireland; but he could not imagine that the right hon. Baronet could sanction, far less counsel, violence of any kind. There had been an attempt by the Orange Party in their speeches and Press to propagate the delusion that they were a power in Ireland. He did not know what they were not going to do if their views were not acceded to and their temper ruffled. There was even a talk of civil war. Great men! The truth was that even in Ulster the Orange Party were a discredited and impotent faction, and they could no more get up a civil war and impose their will on the Irish people than they could get up a tornado. He was aware that they were still able to get up riots in certain parts of Ulster, and there was a time when they could domineer in Ireland; but that was when they were backed up by the power of England, and those days were now gone, never to return. During the last 80 years the Orange Party had so established its character as the enemy of popular liberty in England, Scotland, and Ireland, that its position must be one of complete isolation. In 1836, Sir William Molesworth, a Liberal statesman, speaking of that Party, said— Let them strike off the Bench every Magistrate who is an Orangeman; let them dismiss from their employment every functionary who belongs to those societies. … in short, let them consider the muster-roll of that society as the list of their bitterest foes; as the catalogue of those implacable enemies of the people's rights, to whom it would be madness for their own sake—to whom it would be disgraceful for the people's sake—to confide any public trust."—(3 Hansard, [31] 319–20.) He believed that those words would equally apply to the Orange Party now. Their efforts against the extension of the franchise would be perfectly futile. In opposing it they were only acting in accordance with their well-known traditions. He had no doubt it was the intention of the Government to do all that legislation could do for the happiness of the people of the United Kingdom; and he would not sit down without expressing his thorough conviction that throughout the most trying times the Irish Government had exorcised the great powers with which they were entrusted with perfect moderation, and for the protection of the best interests of the people. He should vote against the Amendment of the hon. Member for the City of Cork, because he believed it was utterly indefensible in argument, and, in fact, thoroughly ridiculous.

MR. HARRINGTON

said, he could not help contrasting the thinness of the audience which listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Tralee to-night with the numbers that rushed to hear him denounce the former Leader of the Irish Party, Mr. Isaac Butt. The fact was, however, that the hon. Gentleman had undergone so many political conversions and taken so many rebounds that now there were few "so low as to do him reverence." That hon. Member's speech was a second edition of the one delivered yesterday by the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power), but without the talent possessed by the latter hon. Gentleman. The speech of the hon. Member for Tralee showed, however, that the spirit of his ancestor, Biddy Moriarty, still lived. The hon. Member, who had broken his pledges to his constituents, had been faithful to his unfaithfulness in vilifying his countrymen. When did he discover that the hon. Member for the City of Cork did not represent the Irish people? Did he forget the humble way in which he crept into the ranks of the Homo Rule Party and read his recantation?

THE O'DONOGHUE

Yes; I do perfectly.

MR. HARRINGTON

Did the hon. Member forget, when he wished to address a meeting at his own door at Killarney, that he would not be received or listened to because of his denunciations of the Land League?

THE O'DONOGHUE

The hon. Member is thoroughly misrepresenting mo. I never denounced the Land League.

MR. HARRINGTON

Or the National League?

THE O'DONOGHUE

Nor the National League either.

MR. HARRINGTON

Did the hon. Gentleman forget that when he wanted to address his fellow-countrymen he took a car in the middle of the night from his own home, and, having travelled 40 miles, brought back by special train the hon. Member for the City of Cork in order to have his patronage?

THE O'DONOGHUE

I never did so. You are thoroughly misrepresenting mo.

MR. HARRINGTON

That is a matter of opinion.

THE O'DONOGHUE

It is a matter of fact.

MR. KENNY

I rise to Order, Sir. I wish to know whether it is in Order for the hon. Member for Tralee to constantly interrupt my hon. Friend who is in possession of the House?

MR. HARRINGTON

said, he did not require the ruling of the Speaker. He did not care about the hon. Gentleman's denial of his statements and facts. His constituents would decide between the hon. Member and himself. They all knew that he did rise in the middle of the night and took a car to Mallow, 40 miles, in order to secure the presence of the hon. Member for the City of Cork at the meeting.

THE O'DONOGHUE

I deny it. There is not a word of truth in the statement. [Cries of "Order, order!"]

MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Member is in possession of the House, and is entitled, according to the Rules of the House, to continue his speech without interruptions. If at the end of the debate the hon. Member for Tralee desires to make any observations he may be allowed to do so by the indulgence of the House.

MR. HARRINGTON

said, that, however much he was prepared to expect that the hon. Member for Tralee would go back from his engagements and pledges to his constituents, and prepared as he was for any course that the hon. Member might take to support any Ministry—whether Whig or Tory—from whom he could expect anything, he was by no means prepared to find that he would give a positive denial to a matter of fact well known to thousands of his countrymen. The hon. Member said he had not changed his opinions since his election. Possibly he had not; but he (Mr. Harrington) could assure the House that the hon. Member had changed the expression of those opinions, for at one time he was loudest amongst the denouncers of the landlords of Kerry, and repeatedly called them thieves and robbers, the names which he now condemned.

THE O'DONOGHUE

Never, never.

MR. HARRINGTON

And to-night, while he chose to throw his vote in support of the Government, he changed his tactics, and denounced those with whom he used to work. The hon. Member engaged to prove, when the proper time came, that there was no change in his opinions, and that he had not broken his pledges to his constituents. He (Mr. Harrington) invited him to bring about that at the proper time. He was one of his constituents, and it was greatly by his influence that when the hon. Member had turned his back upon the Party——

THE O'DONOGHUE

Never, never.

MR. HARRINGTON

It was by his influence that the hon. Member was returned again. Could he deny that?

THE O'DONOGHUE

I do deny it.

MR. HARRINGTON

Then he invited the hon. Gentleman to apply to Her Majesty's Government for the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds—the only position which any Ministry would think the hon. Member worthy of. He (Mr. Harrington) would also do the same, and leave the issue in the hands of the people of Tralee. He passed from the speech of the hon. Member, which had had very little effect upon the House, and would have still less effect outside it. It struck humiliation into the breast of every Irishman to see his miserable, wretched performance of tonight in his desire to support a Ministry whom he formerly was loudest in denouncing.

THE O'DONOGHUE

Never, never. All untrue.

MR. HARRINGTON

, continuing, said, the hon. Member for Belfast (Mr. Ewart), in his extraordinary speech, though he had not added much to the success of his Party in that debate, had at least enabled the House to judge in a proper light the motives which actuated him and those who were with him in the recent agitation which they had carried on in the North of Ireland. Speaking of the burning of a Land League hut, he had called it a small act of over-zeal; and that, apparently, was the view taken of the matter by the Irish Government and the learned Judge who tried the case, and probably that was why so light a sentence was passed. The Solicitor General for Ireland, in the speech which he made in defence of the Government in Ireland, had taken exception to the observations of the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) calling attention to the manner in which the trial had been conducted at Dublin; but they should remember that two years' ago a young man who was discovered taking a sword out of a house in Kerry had received a sentence of 15 years' penal servitude, while the man who had burnt the hut got nine months. Lord Spencer himself was responsible for the fire; he had taken every opportunity of demolishing these Land League huts. That man who had, in his "over-zeal," taken the rash step of getting on to the roof of the hut and setting fire to it, had received a sentence of nine months. But Lord Spencer had quite a different way. The Lord Lieu tenant had written a letter about another hut, in which he declared that so long as it remained erected it would not be safe to withdraw the police. Was not that an incentive to people groaning under the burden of the extra police tax to destroy it? The inhabitants of the locality actually did demolish two such huts erected for the shelter of two miserable evicted families. But the persecution of the Lord Lieutenant did not cease there. He went so far as to declare that he would not remove the extra police from the district until the families had left the locality. This was the firm and gentle policy of Lord Spencer. Why, the Orange-men had only to make sufficient bluster to induce him to suppress a Nationalist meeting at once. The Lord Lieutenant took no notice of Mathews's placard headed "Invasion of Tyrone by Members of the Fenian and Murder League." Had that proclamation been issued in the South instead of the North of Ireland the case would have been very different. The Chief Secretary for Ireland said the other night that he did not wish to take any part in the recriminations of hon. Members on the opposite Benches, but to stand rather in the position of a Judge; but when a little boy took a tiny slip of printed paper from the office of The Kerry Sentinel, and afterwards acknowledged that no one but himself was responsible for its printing, did the right hon. Gentleman act as a Judge? No; he acted as a policeman and a bum-bailiff, for he directed the seizure of the type and machinery of the paper and the imprisonment of the editor. The Irish people were still in doubt as to whether the Leader of the Opposition or Lord Spencer had inspired the policy of the Irish Government last autumn. The rule of the present Government in Ireland had been spoken of as firm and gentle, and it had been rightly so described; but all the "firmness" had been applied to the Nationalists, and all the "gentleness" to the Orangemen. The hon. Member proceeded to read lengthy extracts from placards and other documents connected with the Nationalist invasion of Ulster, and he argued that the Orange meetings had simply been arranged to give a pretext for the suppression of the Nationalist meetings. The hon. Member went on to refer to the meetings which had been held in the North of Ireland in order to show that members of the Nationalist Party in Ire- land had been punished—himself among the number—by imprisonment for expressions of opinion much less pronounced than those which had been allowed to pass unchallenged by the authorities when uttered by speakers taking part in Orange meetings. In circulars calling Orange meetings men were invited in one instance to bring "Copies of Sankey's Hymns" with them, thereby meaning revolvers, and in another instance "their sweethearts and plenty of stuff," thereby also meaning revolvers, with plenty of powder and shot. At one Orange demonstration the denunciation of a woman in the immediate neighbourhood, who had let to the National Party a field on which to hold a meeting, was responded to by groans and revolver shots. What would the Executive have said if such things had occurred at Nationalist meetings? The Nationalists were imprisoned, whilst Orangemen guilty of more heinous offences against law and order were allowed to go scot free. The Crimes Act had been called into play to punish the most petty offences with which the Common Law was amply sufficient to deal, and so the Government shut out the accused from the advantage of having his case tried by a jury, and from taking his case before a Court of Appeal. Before the Government attempted to give a Government to the Soudan or to Egypt, let them rule Ireland on something like principles of justice. He made no complaint against the Orangemen, whose counter-agitation had increased rather than diminished the influence of the Nationalists in Ulster. His complaint was against the Government, who had by every means they could use encouraged the opposition to the Nationalist demonstrations. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary said there were outrages connected with those meetings. Outrages were always the stock-in-trade of an Irish Chief Secretary, and seemed to go up and down in a most singular manner in conformity with Ministerial exigencies. The Chief Secretary had also stated that he had not sufficient military force at his command to prevent a collision between Nationalists and the Orangemen if all the meetings were allowed; but when a year or two ago an eviction was to be carried out the same right hon. Gentleman found no difficulty in sending down Infantry and Cavalry for the purpose.

MR. WARTON

said, he had listened with great sorrow and pain, during the progress of the debate, to Gentlemen of different religions and politics from the Sister Country attacking each other with such bitterness, and indulging in so much recrimination—he might say vituperation. He thought the Orangemen, while holding their own views, ought to have refrained from insulting people of a different faith. He should, on the one hand, like to see the Orangemen sinking some of their religious bigotry, while the Nationalists, on the other, gave up arrogating to themselves alone a desire for the welfare of Ireland. He heartily wished the time might come when in Ireland there might be found a band of men, not all of the same religion, but united in their attachment to the Constitution and the connexion between the two countries. He had little sympathy with either Party, and still less with Her Majesty's Government, whose vacillating conduct had, in a great measure, led to the present state of affairs. It would have been far better if the Government had all through acted with consistency and prohibited all meetings in Ireland until the country was in a state of tranquillity, and until law and order could be maintained without the aid of a stringent Coercion Act. Ten years without any political meetings in Ireland and without any legislation would do more good for Ireland than all the schemes of the Nationalists or of the Government. He warned the Government of the impolicy of offering a premium to agitation by promises of new legislation and the amendment of the Land Act.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 30; Noes 81: Majority 51.

AYES.
Barry, J. O'Brien, W.
Biggar, J. G. O'Connor, T. P.
Commins, A. O'Donnell, F. H.
Corbet, W. J. O'Gorman Mahon, Col. The
Dawson, C.
Gray, E. D. O'Shea, W. H.
Harrington, T. O'Sullivan, W. H.
Kenny, M. J. Parnell, C S.
Leahy, J. Power, R.
Macfarlane, D. H Sexton, T.
M'Carthy, J. Small, J. F.
M'Kenna, Sir J. N. Smithwick, J. F.
M'Mahon, E. Sullivan, T. D.
Marum, E. M. Synan, E. J.
Mayne, T. TELLERS.
Molloy, B. C. Leamy, E.
Nolan, Colonel J. P Sheil, E.
NOES.
Agnew, W. James, Sir H.
Ashley, hon. E. M. James, W. H.
Balfour, Sir G. Jenkins, Sir J. J.
Balfour, rt. hon. J. B. Johnson, E.
Bourke, right hon. R. Jones-Parry, L.
Brassey, Sir T. Kinnear, J.
Briggs, W. E. Lawrence, W.
Bright, right hon. J. Lubbock, Sir J.
Broadhurst, H. Lyons, R. D.
Buxton, S. C. M'Clure, Sir T.
Caine, W. S. M'Intyre, Æneas J.
Cavendish, Lord E. M'Lagan, P.
Cheetham, J. F. Marjoribanks, E.
Childers, rt. hn. H. C. E. Mundella, rt. hn. A. J
Clark, S. O'Donoghue, The
Cohen, A. Otway, rt. hn. Sir A.
Corbett, J. Paget, T. T.
Cotes, C. C. Peddie, J. D.
Courtauld, G. Powell, W. R. H.
Cropper, J. Price, Sir R. G.
Cross, J. K. Ralli, P.
Currie, Sir D. Roe, T.
Davies, W. Samuelson, H.
Duckham, T. Sheridan, H. B.
Duff, R. W. Smith, Lieut.-Col. G.
Earp, T. Smith, S.
Elliot, hon. A. R. D. Stanhope, hon. E.
Fairbairn, Sir A. Stanton, W. J.
Fay, C. J. Tillett, J. H.
Ferguson, R. Trevelyan, rt. hn. G. O.
Fitzmaurice, Lord E. Waddy, S. D.
Fitzwilliam, hn. C. W. Walker, S.
Gabbett, D. F. Warton, C. N.
Gladstone, H. J. Waugh, E.
Grant, A. Webster, J.
Grant, D. West, H. W.
Harcourt, rt. hn. Sir W. G. V. V. Whitbread, S.
Whitworth, B.
Hayter, Sir A. D.
Herschell, Sir F. TELLERS.
Holden, I. Grosvenor, right hon.
Holland, S. Lord R.
Illingworth, A. Kensington, rt. hn. Lord
Inderwick, F. A.

Main Question again proposed.

MR. WARTON

begged to call attention to the fact that no notice was taken in the Queen's Speech or in the Address of what was promised to be one of the leading Government measures of the Session—namely, that with regard to Local Government. He also wished to refer to the absence of any allusion to the traffic in intoxicating liquors. The result of this was that the House was already flooded with a number of drink Bills, containing varying provisions and dealing with different parts of the Kingdom, and in several cases different counties. If these Bills were passed the subject would be thrown into inextricable confusion.

Main Question put, and agreed to. Committee appointed, to draw up an Address to be presented to Her Majesty upon the said Resolution:—Mr. ELLIOT, Mr. SAMUEL SMITH, Mr. GLADSTONE, The Marquess of HARTINGTON, Secretary Sir William HARCOURT, Mr. DODSON, Sir CHARLES DILKE, Mr. TREVELYAN, Mr. CHAMBERLAIN, THE LORD ADVOCATE, Mr. EVELYN ASHLEY, Lord RICHARD GROSVENOR, and Lord KENSINGTON:—Five to be the quorum:—To withdraw immediately:—Queen's Speech referred.