AMENDMENT (LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL)—THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE.

HC Deb 30 October 1884 vol 293 cc543-647

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

, in rising to move the following Amendment to the Address:— And humbly to assure Her Majesty that this House regrets to find in recent speeches and actions of one of Her Majesty's Ministers, holding the high office of President of the Board of Trade, an incitement to interference with the freedom of political discussion, and a justification of riot and disorder, said: Perhaps the House will allow me to express my thanks to the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. W. Redmond) for his courtesy in kindly allowing me to bring forward this Motion. Such courtesies are not so very common among Members of Parliament, and when they occur they merit the warmest acknowledgment. I saw in one of the newspapers this morning one of those extraordinary paragraphs which always profess to know beforehand exactly what every Member of the Government is going to say on every important matter, to the effect that the Prime Minister intended to take the earliest opportunity of protesting in the most emphatic manner against the conduct of a Minister of the Crown being impugned on the occasion of the debate on the Address. I do not know whether that is so or not; I should think it was not so, because I believe the House will admit that if any charge is to be brought against a Minister of the Crown, particularly one of the first rank, the debate on the Address is the most Constitutional method that can be selected for bringing it forward. My apologies for bringing this matter before the House are these. In the first place, the riots at Aston excited an enormous amount of public attention, almost more attention than any other event since Parliament rose. I am only talking of the excitement as shown by the fact that this riot was discussed and commented on throughout the whole of the Press of the country, for several days, and has excited, if possible, more attention than the remarkable progress of the Prime Minister in Scotland, though, of course, its origin and nature has always been the subject of great controversy. My next apology is, that if I had not taken this opportunity no other opportunity would have been likely to have occurred for a very considerable time, because it is well known that the House will soon occupy the whole of its time with the Franchise Bill. Sir, in bringing forward the Amendment, it occurred to me that it would not have been right for me to bring a direct charge, which I feel is one of great gravity, against a Minister without giving the House the opportunity of pronouncing by a Division on the merits of the charge, and that, I imagine, can only be done by moving an Amendment to the Address. But my principle reason for bringing this Motion forward is found in the words which fell from the Prime Minister himself on the first night of the Session—words of a most remarkable character, which I will now read to the House. But before doing so, I may, perhaps, be allowed to express the hope that a Parliamentary discussion of these events at Aston may have the good effect of preventing a repetition of anything of the kind in the course of the political controversy which is now agitating the country. The Prime Miuister's words were these— I wish to record in the strongest manner my disapproval, my grief, I may say my grave condemnation of all breaches of order in connection with this question, even under circumstances of temptation or even incitement. The line between order and disorder is a definite one. The question of what is incitement or provocation is open to dispute. I should condemn any disorder in point of policy, and I should condemn it on principle even if I did not believe it to be inexpedient. On this subject I feel certain I speak the sentiments of all my Colleagues. When I heard these words fall from the Prime Minister, I felt that nothing that has ever fallen from him ever gave me such a graphic and forcible representation of the enormous amount of labour in connection with the government of a country which falls on the shoulders of the Prime Minister, because it was at once clear and conclusive to me that, when he said he spoke the sentiments of all his Colleagues, he had never had time to read a single speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chamberlain), for I shall be able to show the House that, as far as that expression "all my Colleagues" is concerned, the Prime Minister was, of course, unintentionally, entirely inaccurate, and that he did not speak the sentiments of his Colleague the President of the Board of Trade. This question raises the doctrine—I believe a comparatively modern doctrine, but which is now a Constitutional doctrine, and which for the last two or three years has been very much set aside—namely, the doctrine of collective Ministerial responsibility—whether it is open for the Head of the Government to lay down a certain course of conduct which shall be followed by himself and his Colleagues, and whether that course of conduct is to be deliberately set aside on many occasions by one of his Colleagues acting as the spokesman of the Government. Now, I think I shall be able to prove to the House, by extracts from the speeches of the President of the Board of Trade, a deliberate, systematic attempt, commencing immediately after Parliament rose, and pursued, I regret to say, up to the last point of the Recess, to incite the people of this country to riot and disorder. ["Oh, oh!" and cheers.] I ask the House, before they reply positively, to wait till I lay before them what I rely upon. I think I shall be able to prove that he is morally guilty, morally responsible, for whatever riots have taken place, or may take place in the immediate future. There is a term in the French law, not, I think, existing in the English law, under which an indictment can be framed founded upon moral complicity. That is to say, that a person who writes and publishes an incendiary article, or delivers an inflammatory speech, pointing to certain results, if followed by those results, can be charged with moral complicity; and that is one of the charges I bring against the President of the Board of Trade—such moral complicity with those riots. I will go further, and charge the President of the Board of Trade with direct responsibility. The strength of the case I wish to lay before the House I base principally upon the speeches of the President of the Board of Trade during the last few months. That is the point on which I most wish to insist, so that, even apart from those Aston riots, apart from any evidence I may bring before the House to show connection between the President of the Board of Trade and such riots, I still contend that I should have been justified in moving this Amendment. As I shall not have the right of reply to the President of the Board of Trade, and as he was undoubtedly very anxious that I should not have it, I will endeavour to anticipate the line of answer he will take. In the first place, I will venture to say this much—that to the matter I shall bring under the notice of the House it is no answer for the President of the Board of Trade to adopt what may be called the tu quoque argument. The kind of argument which is summed up in the expression "You're another," may be very effective and very amusing for the purposes of Parimentary debate, but I do not think it will be sufficient to clear the character of a Minister of the Crown. Everyone will recognize the difference between the position occupied by the President of the Board of Trade and that of a private Member of Parliament. The difference is enormous as regards the responsibility attaching to each. In case the tu quoque line of argument should be followed by the right hon. Gentleman, perhaps the House will permit me to say that, even if it be considered by some hon. Members applicable for the purposes of debate, for myself I should claim the indulgence of the House to this extent, that I challenge hon. Gentlemen to find in any single speech of mine made in the country a single word or expression which would not have passed the criticism of the Chair. [Cries of "Oh!"] Well, I make that challenge to the House, I am not aware of ever having used a single expression which would call for rebuke or comment from the highest censor of Parliamentary language. I also think that it will not do for the President of the Board of Trade to assert that the extracts which I am going to quote from his speeches do not possess any serious meaning. That may be a line of argument most undignified for a Minister of the Crown to adopt, and one very damaging to him, for his audiences, wherever they may be, or whoever they may be, would know in future that all the declarations which be might make, and all the political harangues which he might make, would be nothing but froth and flummery, and possess no serious meaning. Nor do I think it would do for the President of the Board of Trade to say that his expressions were in the nature of a warning; for if that is the line, the unanswerable criticism I would pass on that would be that these warnings were couched in such language, and these prophecies were supported by such recollections and metaphors, that they had an irresistible and inevitable tendency to fulfil themselves. Now, Sir, shortly before Parliament rose there was a great demonstration of the Liberal Party at Birmingham, to which I will attach as much importance as any hon. Member opposite likes to attach. [Cries of "Bank Holiday!"] Well, on Bank Holiday—[Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The 4th of August]—it was just about the time Parliament rose. The President of the Board of Trade was in attendance at that demonstration and made a long speech, in which find the following paragraph:— The opinion of the streets has had a mighty force in our political history. It has shaken Monarchs on their thrones. [A Voice: 'And knocked them off.' Laughter.] It has overturned Ministers. ['Hear, hear!'] In 1832 it carried the Reform Bill in the teeth of the House of Lords—[A Voice; 'And will again']—more powerful than that with which we have to deal, after a conflict which had brought the country almost to the verge of revolution. We read that at that time there were 100,000 men in Birmingham and the surrounding districts who were sworn to march on London, if need were, in defence of their liberties. [Cries of 'We will again if required.'] The peace was broken in many parts of the country, and there were at Derby, Nottingham, and Bristol fierce outbreaks of popular passion, accompanied by a great destruction of property. We had hoped that we had left those days of disorder far behind; but there are still evil counsellors"— [Cheers.] Might I throw out with the greatest possible respect to hon. Members opposite, that the brevity of these proceedings will be best attained—and what I wish most of all, the brevity of my own remarks—if they will allow their expressions of approval to be taken for granted? The right hon. Gentleman went on— But there are still evil counsellors—[Cheers]—provoking and slandering the people—[Cheers]—who are straining their privileges to the utmost, and who obstinately resist the extension of the popular liberties. Let them take heed. If we are commencing this great conflict with temper and moderation, it would be a mistake to suppose that we are less earnest or resolute than our forefathers. I believe the right hon. Gentleman will not contest the accuracy of that report, and on that I will make this remarkl It seems to me that, as far as the style of rhetoric is concerned, it is rather poor stuff. When compared with the oratory of the Prime Minister, to which we are accustomed, it seems to me to be rather like the clanging of a cracked tin pot compared with the harmony of a great orchestra. But this is a mere criticism en passant. Whatever importance the passage quoted possesses is derived entirely from the Ministerial position which the speaker occupies. I would like to ask hon. Members opposite, with little hope, however, of a favourable answer, whether they think it altogether in accordance with Ministerial tradition for a Minister of the Crown—a servant of a Monarch—to state that "the opinion of the streets had shaken Monarchs on the Throne?" For my own part, I am inclined to think the taste was questionable. I wish to ask the attention of the House to the interjections of the audience. I remember that one of the gravest accusations against the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) and his Colleagues in this House from the Ministerial Bench, and which accusation, when brought, was always cheered to the echo by hon. Members opposite, was the grave impropriety of their conduct in not rebuking the audience for the interjections they made. I find that after the sentence of the President of the Board of Trade about shaking Monarchs on their Thrones, there was a voice—"And knocked them off." The President of the Board of Trade passed that interjection by, apparently thinking that it was a very natural one under the circumstances. I find, also, that when he reminded his audience that 100,000 men in Birmingham and districts were sworn to march on London in defence of their liberties, that was met with the cries of—"And we will again if required." Again the President of the Board of the Board of Trade did not think it necessary to remark on the interjections of his audience. What I want to know is, why it is wrong for the hon. Member for the City of Cork and his Colleagues to provoke, and not rebuke, excited interjaculatory observations from their audiences in Ireland, and why it is right of the President of the Board of Trade to provoke similar observations, and not to take the smallest notice of them? I see no reason why a different standard should be applied to the Irish Party to that applied to Members of the Government. If anything, I think the more rigorous standard should be applied to Ministers of the Crown than to private Members. Well, when the President of the Board of Trade gets up, will he tell the House what would happen to an Irish Member who, in discussing the question of self- government in Ireland, for instance, reminded his audience with the same amount of detail and vigour of the incidents of the Rebellion of 1798? When the President of the Board of Trade says that there are evil counsellors who are provoking and slandering the people, and that they should take heed, I want to know what those expressions mean in the mouth of a Minister of the Crown? Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to say that it would be a great mistake to suppose that he, as a Minister of the Crown, thought that the audience listening to him were not as determined as the people who, in 1832, marched upon London in defence of their liberties. [Cries of "No!" and "Hear, hear!"] I defy any hon. Member to put any other construction upon the words. "Our forefathers"—what did our forefathers do? Our forefathers were prepared to march on London in defence of their liberties, and to break the peace in many parts of the country, and to accomplish a great destruction of property. Of course, if the President of the Board of Trade is going to take up the line that all this means nothing, I shall have nothing further to say; but I shall be surprised if the right hon. Gentleman makes such a reply. Well, that was the speech made on Bank Holiday at Birmingham by the right hon. Gentleman, and I contend that that was the first incitement to the people to pass the bounds of fair and peaceable political discussion, and to have recourse to other modes of agitation. After that speech the utterances of the right hon. Gentleman ceased for a time. I think he went on a little tour in Europe, in company with the hon. Member for Ipswich. When he came back, in the last days of September or at the beginning of October, he was, I think I can see, in the speech he made at Hanley, greatly surprised and much disappointed to find that no disturbance of the peace had taken place. In his speech at Hanley I discover not only a further incitement to public tumult, but as it were a rebuke to his audience for not having acted on his previous advice. At Hanley the right hon. Gentleman used these words— Our opponents have not dared to hold one free and open meeting except one at Darlington, where they were defeated by a largo majority, and one at Bournemouth, when they attempted a procession which was incontinently broken up.' Why do not hon. Members opposite cheer that? [Radical cheers.] Here we have the President of the Board of Trade stating with great satisfaction and delight that the Conservative Party had not dared to hold one free and open meeting. Well, what is the construction to be put upon that? The advice to the audience was that, if the Conservatives in Hanley or anywhere else were to try to hold a free and open meeting, the Radicals ought to break it up. Then to show that I am not mistaken the right hon. Gentleman said with still more satisfaction and delight that the Conservatives at Bournemouth had attempted a procession, which had been broken up to his immense gratification. [Cries of "Oh!" and "Hear, hear!"] [Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I did not say that.] Well, then, why did not the right hon. Gentleman express one single word of regret for what had occurred? Why did he not use language like that of the Prime Minister, when he said that the line between order and disorder was a definite one? Why could not the President of the Board of Trade spare one word of regret for the fact that free and open political discussion had been interfered with at Bournemouth? I do contend that that expression of the right hon. Gentleman at Hanley was a distinct intimation as to the line his audience were to adopt whenever the Conservatives held a free and open meeting. I will not waste the time of the House by contesting the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that we have not dared to hold free and open meetings, although I could, if I had time, contest it and make my contest good. The President of the Board of Trade then went on to say— How long is this state of effervescence and agitation, which is rapidly degenerating into irritation, to last? These great gatherings are only held at considerable inconvenience; they effect a great disturbance of ordinary business; they involve much personal sacrifice; and as the summer leaves us and winter draws on, they will involve still more inconvenience and annoyance. These expressions remind me of a speech delivered by Judge Keogh, when Mr. Keogh, in which he said that a good time was coming, when the nights would be long and the days short, and when his hearers would have a fine opportunity of showing their political sympathies. ["Oh, oh!"] I see an ominous parallel between the words of the President of the Board of Trade and the expressions used by Mr. Keogh. I would observe, with regard to the statement that the agitation was rapidly degenerating into irritation, that this view is quite peculiar to the President of the Board of Trade. It does not appear that any of his Colleagues discovered that the agitation was to degenerate into irritation; but if it was so to degenerate, was it not the right hon. Gentleman's duty to allay the irritation? The right hon. Gentleman, however, goes on to stimulate it to the utmost. He says— I can appreciate the views of those who dread what they call the democratic tendencies of the age, but I cannot appreciate or respect the course of men who, sharing these convictions and prejudices to the full, endeavour to conceal them by fulsome professions of regard for the men whom all the while they are endeavouring to defraud of their rights. That is a serious charge for a Minister of the Crown to bring against his opponents, particularly when he says that the agitation is rapidly degenerating into irritation. He charges the whole of his opponents practically with being political liars, engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the people of their rights. I leave it to the House and the public to say whether such a charge can be entertained by any reasonable man. Now I come to the gem of the speech. "These gentlemen," said the President of the Board of Trade, meaning those who are engaged in this conspiracy— These gentlemen presume on your love of order and hatred of violence. Unless this generation has lost other qualities which have made the name of Englishmen respected throughout the world, they will show a courage and resolution, a love of liberty and hatred of injustice, which will sweep away those puny obstacles which now for a time are barring the advancing tide. Now, there is no mental exercise more wholes me than endeavouring to see ourselves as others see us. [Ironical Ministerial cheers.] Those cheers encourage me to express my gratitude to hon. Members opposite for the invaluable assistance they always afford me in that respect. I will show the House the way in which the speech of the President of the Board of Trade is viewed in the Sister Isle. The journal called United Ireland places this passage side by side with another statement which was made in Ireland in 1883 by the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington). I have read to you the passage in the speech of the President of the Board of Trade, and I will now read the statement of the hon. Member for Westmeath, which is as follows:— I will ask the tenant farmers to come forward generously and give the labourers a fair day's wages for a fair day's work. If not, the agitation which has been carried on on their behalf will be turned against them. Perhaps hon. Members opposite think there is no analogy between the two speeches. Now, in order that hon. Members opposite may see themselves as others see them, I will ask the House for permission to read a few comments which have appeared in the journal which I have already mentioned in these two passages— For the above two sentences Mr. Harrington was degraded to the level of a convict in a common gaol, with a deal board for his bed, and nauseous draughts of poison cocoa for his food. Will the Cabinet of the 'Even Keel' deal out equal measure to the inventor of that pretty nickname? Will Mr. Chamberlain be invited to step down from his saloon carriage, pluck the orchid from his button-hole, and don the rough but serviceable habiliments of the Birmingham penitentiary? Will Mr. Trevelyan oblige by vindicating that step to the great British public, on the ground (all sufficient in Mr. Harrington's case) that Mr. Chamberlain is a 'formidable man?' For incendiary suggestiveness 'their Joe's' language outstrips beyond comparison our Tim's. Nobody ever contended that the harming of as much as a fly had resulted, or could reasonably be apprehended to result, from Mr. Harrington's threat to bring public opinion to bear against the farmers. Mr. Chamberlain's constituents, on the contrary, instantly made an honest English translation of his words into bludgeons and scaling ladders, and proceeded to (in Mr. Chamberlain's phrase) 'make their own application' of his apologue. The 'puny obstacle' which barred the way to the Tory meeting ground in Aston Gardens, on Monday night, was a stone wall, and the Liberal lambs 'swept it away'—broke a gap six feet wide in it—and went for the 'Tory parasites' with battering rams and legs of chairs. By 'violent pressure' of this kind Mr. Chamberlain's disciples routed Sir Stafford Northcote and Lord Randolph Churchill from their platform, exploded their fireworks, and beat their followers about the head, and then went away to peruse glowing accounts of their achievements in the next morning's Liberal papers. The police who were in attendance civilly looked on, and said it was good. Of course, Mr. Chamberlain's skin is safe; but the next time he feels inclined to lecture us on our lack of appreciation of the 'Even Keel' régime, let him contrast the sacred right of skull-cracking enjoyed by himself and his braves with what would happen to Mr. Harrington and his braves if perchance he hurled a speech containing half as many fiery epithets against the Tory demonstration next Monday night in the Rotundo, and if on the spur of his incitements a Nationalist mob burst into the Round Room, sent the audience flying helter-skelter, and employed the chairs and the reporters' table on the heads of the orators. I do not think anybody will venture to say that these comments of United Ireland I have quoted are, in the smallest degree, exaggerated or untrue. The result of that speech at Hanley, on the 10th of October, was clearly seen in the events at Birmingham on the 13th. On the 18th of October the right hon. Gentleman goes down to Wales, and makes a speech at Newtown, and in the course of that speech he says— These demonstrations have been carried through at great personal sacrifice. You cannot be continually demonstrating, especially as, in the case I have assumed, your demonstrations prove to be of no effect. If the Lords continue to sneer at orderly manifestations of opinion, if they continue to ignore the Constitutional methods for expressing opinion, what will you do? And then it appeared to have occurred to the right hon. Gentleman that he had gone a little too far, so he goes on in this way— I daresay that on Monday it will be said, as it has been said already, that, in thus trying to lay the situation plainly before you, I am inciting you to violence and disorder. That is false. Was it false? Remember there had been great violence, and that this was immediately after the Aston riots—only five days later—when the right hon. Gentleman solemnly asked his audience what they would do if they got tired of these peaceable demonstrations, and then said it was false to assert that that interrogatory of his was an incitement to violence and disorder. If the right hon. Gentleman was so anxious about violence and disorder, why did he not take the opportunity of expressing his regret at the events that had taken place on the Monday previous? I do not think it would be wrong or shameful for the right hon. Gentleman to do what the Prime Minister took the first opportunity of doing. The moment the House met, the Prime Minister, in his first speech, took the earliest opportunity of expressing his regret for what had occurred. In the absence of any expressions of regret on the part of the President of the Board of Trade after that very stimulating interrogatory to his audience, I say he did do that which constituted a direct incitement to continued violence and disorder. The President of the Board of Trade, without one word of allusion to the Birmingham riots, goes on to say— There are only two men in this country who throughout the quarrel have conspicuously incited the people to disorder and to violence. One of them was myself, and the other was Lord Salisbury. I will not detain the House with any defence of myself for the purpose of this discussion. I will put in any plea hon. Members opposite wish. It is not necessary for me to detain the House with any defence of myself; that can be done on another and more convenient occasion. But those are the three speeches of the President of the Board of Trade. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite have just reminded me, by their laughter, that I had forgotten something to which I attach a great deal of importance. I refer to the passage where the President of the Board of Trade said, referring to me— And, gentlemen, this is the man who is now so indignant because the workmen of Birmingham have taken him at his word and pulled off the coping of a wall in order to attend a meeting to which they had been invited and which the Tory managers were endeavouring by a transparent fraud to palm off as a misrepresentation of the opinion of Birmingham. That is his opinion of the Aston riots. Pulling off the coping of a wall! Now, I will ask the President of the Board of Trade only one question on that point. Suppose the workmen of Birmingham, indignant we will say at some of the proceedings of the Board of Trade, had assembled outside the grounds of the right hon. Gentleman's splendid mansion at Highbury, and had there pursued the same proceedings as they had done at Aston, I wish to know whether he would have described that as a few workmen of Birmingham pulling off the coping of a wall? I do not think it necessary to pursue that subject further; but those three speeches which I have laid before the House are undoubtedly what I principally rely on to justify my charges. I am quite content in this matter to make the Prime Minister the judge, because he has, without exception, had the longest political experience, the greatest knowledge of public life of any man in this country, and his position is so great that he can afford in judging this matter altogether to discard all Party proclivities, and to pronounce an historical opinion on it. Since 1815 this country has gone through many sharp political struggles, in which Ministers of the Crown have taken a loading and prominent part, and I ask the Prime Minister whether, in going through all the records of the speeches delivered by Ministers of the Crown up to the present day in moments of political excitement, he can or anyone can produce a single speech from any Minister of the Crown containing passages approaching in their nature to the sentences from the speeches of the President of the Board of Trade which I have read to the House? I put that question to the Prime Minister with much confidence. But, independent of these passages, which, I maintain, do constitute a deliberate attempt to incite the people of this country to other methods than that of Constitutional agitation, I will now, if the House will allow me, endeavour to confirm and corroborate the case by other evidence I have got of the direct responsibility of the President of the Board of Trade for the Birmingham riots. The first portion of the evidence is of a negative character, the second portion is of a positive character. My first point of negative evidence is this—that on the evening of those riots, immediately after they occurred, and even on the very spot, I made a speech to a few scattered and flying sheep who had been rescued from the disaster, in which I charged the President of the Board of Trade directly and plainly, and without the slightest circumlocution or qualification, with being the author of those riots. I was acquainted with what the President of the Board of Trade had said, and with other matters, and I made the charge then and there, and that charge has never been denied. [Laughter.] I do not know why hon. Members opposite should laugh at that. Surely the President of the Board of Trade, only as late as Monday last, did think proper to deny it; and I want to know why, if it was necessary to deny it on Monday last, it was not necessary to deny it when it was originally made? The right hon. Gentleman said it was a serious charge to make against a Minister of the Crown. I think I am not mistaken in supposing that he was obliged to make that denial by the Prime Minister himself. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No.] Well, then, I reiterate it, that the President of the Board of Trade said on that occasion that it was a most serious charge to make against a Minister of the Crown. Why was it a serious charge then, and not when it, was first made? The President of the Board of Trade had lots of opportunity for denying it. In the first place, there was a meeting the next night of the Liberal Association in the Town Hall, and it would have been quite possible for the President of the Board of Trade to have attended that meeting where all his Birmingham colleagues were assembled, and to have made a statement about the riots, either deprecating them or justifying them, or exonerating himself. It would have been perfectly competent for the President of the Board of Trade to have written to the local papers or to the London papers denying the charge. It would have been perfectly competent for the President of the Board of Trade, at his meeting on the Saturday following in Wales, to deny the charge; and yet he did not. He can, however, deny charges when he likes and when it suits him, because with reference to some charges which I made against the Birmingham Corporation being under the influence of the Caucus, and which are really of no interest except to Birmingham itself, and could not compare with charges affecting the character of a Minister of the Crown, the President of the Board of Trade thought fit to deny them. He said that what I stated was "a falsehood, a wanton falsehood." Well, I am sure hon. Gentlemen opposite do not think it necessary for Ministers to deny in language of that kind. I think in the House of Commons, under your rule, Sir, the President of the Board of Trade will hardly make use of such language. But he could deny the charge brought against the Birmingham Corporation in language of that offensive character, and yet did not deny the charge brought against him as a Minister of the Crown. Of course, with respect to the expressions "falsehood" and "wanton falsehood," I could have brought them under the notice of this House if I had liked, but I did not think it worth while to do so. I knew the President of the Board of Trade was used to that kind of expression. The right hon. Gentleman applied a somewhat similar expression to Lord Beaconsfield when he said that he always went down to Parliament prepared to fling at the House of Commons the first lie that came into his head. I know that he again applied almost the same expression to the Prime Minister when he characterized his election address of 1874—a great public State document—as The meanest public document that I ever in like circumstances heard proceed from a statesman of the first rank; and then he went on to say that the Premier's interest in such a great question as the county franchise was merely assumed in view of an election. Of course, when expressions of that kind are applied to men far above me, and they take no notice of them, I do not think it necessary to answer a charge of wanton falsehood made against me, and I shall content myself with assuring him that nothing which I have said is liable to that imputation. I find—on looking back to a Times article of August, 1879, immediately after the right hon. Gentleman made a speech in Gloucester, in which he compared the late Government to a gang of celebrated swindlers and criminals called a "long firm"—that The Times made the following comments:— Mr. Chamberlain's denunciation of the Government and of his opponents must be denounced as passing the bounds of decent political warfare. … We cannot let this kind of language pass without an indignant protest against it as an insult to the whole public life of England. … We feel for our part ashamed that any English politician who holds a respectable position should condescend to this kind of Billingsgate. I daresay that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite do not care very much about the opinions of The Times. ["Hear, hear!"] No more do I. I only quoted it for the purpose of showing that there is no reason whatever, as far as I am concerned, why I should attach any importance to the violent language of the President of the Board of Trade, as it is usual with him. In the speech at Newtown, the right hon. Gentleman, so far from denying the accusations I had publicly made against him, justified and virtually gloried in the riots that had taken place at Aston, and he did so at a time when all the Liberal Press was condemning them in terms as strong as it possibly could. I pass on to the second point of evidence which I rely on in this matter, and that is, the knowledge which the President of the Board of Trade must have had, from his presence in Birmingham, of the proceedings that were likely to take place. I maintain that the President of the Board of Trade must have been aware—he could not possibly have helped being awaro—of what was likely to occur at Aston on the evening in question. He must have known that the Liberal Association had determined to call a counter-demonstration at the same place. He must have known that a counter-demonstration summoned at a similar hour on a piece of ground absolutely adjacent to that chosen for the Tory demonstration might lead to a breach of the peace. He must also have known of the placard which was issued by the Liberal Association summoning the meeting; and this placard I really must read to the House, and I must ask the Government to remember the description of themselves as an "Even Keel" Government. A more incendiary placard, one more strongly and directly inciting to riot and disorder, was never put out by any Nationalist Body or any Orange Lodge in Ireland. ["Hear, hear!"] I will make that statement good. The placard is headed—"To the men of Birmingham and the Midlands." It is dated Saturday, October 11, and it was circulated in Birmingham on the afternoon of that day, on Sunday, and on the Monday morning it appeared in The Birmingham Daily Post. The placard says— On Bank Holiday you met 100,000 strong, and unanimously protested against the rejection of the Franchise Bill by the Tory Lords. Lord Salisbury laughs at you, and says he cares nothing for your protests. Another Tory, the Right Hon, James Lowther, describes you as a 'horde of ruffians.' Lord Randolph Churchill, who belongs to a family of State paupers, who have drawn £4,320,000 from the pockets of the people, with aristocratic insolence calls you Mr. Chamberlain's 'tag-rag and bobtail.' I content myself at present with traversing those statements, which are all equally and absolutely untrue. I never spoke of the working men of Birmingham as Mr. Chamberlain's "tag-rag and bobtail," and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. J. Lowther) never spoke of them as a "horde of ruffians." It is equally untrue to say that Lord Salisbury laughed at them, and said he cared nothing for their protests. The placard then goes on to make various inflammatory statements. It says— The Tories are holding a demonstration at Aston Lower Grounds on Monday to support the House of Lords in refusing the franchise to 2,000,000 of men. They know that the men of Birmingham and the Midlands are against them, and by holding a ticket meeting, from which all Liberals are excluded, they hope to pass resolutions which will misrepresent your opinions. Do not submit to these Tory insults. Refuse to allow the opinion of the Midlands to be misrepresented. Show to Lord Salisbury and his lieutenants, who have always been the enemies of the people, that you will insist upon justice The Franchise Demonstration Committee asks you first to attend a great open-air meeting in Witton Road, Aston, on Monday next. The placard goes on to state that three processions headed by brass bands will start from places named, and then comes this paragraph— After the open-air meeting, let all who can get admittance attend the Tory meeting and vote against the Tory resolutions. Now I ask is there one law for England and another for Ireland? In Ireland counter-demonstrations have been prohibited over and over again by the Government, and yet in the case of counter-demonstrations in that country there has been a strict injunction given by the promoters that each party should go to their own meeting and not interfere with their opponents' meeting. But in England this Government allows a counter-demonstration to be called by a placard of this inflammatory nature, which incites interference with the opposing meeting. The third paragraph on the placard—and I am sure the Prime Minister disapproves of it—says—"Wear the Gladstone badge, and show that you are not ashamed of your colours." Now, I ask the House whether the President of the Board of Trade, with his great intelligence and local knowledge, knowing that a placard of this kind had been put out, knowing that it would be widely read and numerously obeyed — whether he could have imagined that any other result would possibly take place than that which actually did take place? What would the right hon. Gentleman have done in the character not only of a Minister of the Crown, but of the leading, and in many ways rightly the leading, person in Birmingham? Surely, with the knowledge which he possessed, and with the knowledge of what would be the result of issuing this placard, he could have publicly uttered an opinion on the Monday morning to the effect that he would not tolerate, that he would do all he could to prevent, a disturbance of the Tory demonstration. It would have been very easy and very simple; and if he had taken that course it would have completely exonerated him and his colleagues in regard to any charge which might be brought against them in this House with reference to these riots. The President of the Local Government Board (Sir Charles W. Dilke) said, at a meeting of his constituents, when he joined the Cabinet— When one reaches Cabinet rank, it is necessary to remember what is due to one's Colleagues in the Ministry. I want to know whether the President of the Board of Trade has ever remembered what is due to his Colleagues in the Ministry; and I particularly want to know whether on this occasion, when he refrained from taking any steps to prevent what he knew must turn out to be a riotous and tumultous proceeding, he remembered what was due to his Colleagues? I maintain that it was not only his duty to use his great influence to prevent such disorderly proceedings in any case, but it was his special duty on this occasion to do so because of the fact that the Leader of the Opposition was going to Birmingham. When a Leader of the Opposition, be he Liberal or Conservative, goes down to any part of the country to address a great meeting of his supporters called together for a particular occasion, I declare before this House, without fear of contradiction, that he has a positive and indisputable right to the protection and support of every leading local authority or leading person, at any rate, as far as public order is concerned. I should have thought very little of all this if it had been a mere riot against a candidate, who should know what he may have to go through at Birmingham; but I do say that the President of the Board of Trade, occupying the position he does at Birmingham, exercising as he does enormous power there, knowing that the Leader of the Opposition was going to address a meeting of his followers, was bound not only as a Minister of the Crown, but also as an English gentleman, to come forward and, at any rate, as far as he was concerned, to do all that he could to prevent disorder. I do contend, further, that as a general principle, when a man knows that an outrage is going to be committed or likely to be committed, when the same man has the power to arrest that outrage, or, at any rate, to mitigate it, and when he declines to exercise that power, he is morally and directly guilty of the outrage when it is committed. I now come to what I may call positive evidence. ["Oh, oh!"] Yes, I say the direct evidence, for I consider it would not be right to bring this matter to the notice of the House if I was not prepared to state all the proof I have to show the direct complicity of the right hon. Gentleman in all that took place. I have to show to the House the direct complicity of the Birmingham Liberal Association with the riot. I shall not detain the House with evidence on the point, because it would take up far too much time. I simply say that the Conservatives of Birmingham have made this matter the subject of legal investigation, and they have evidence of a very clear kind, at any rate, so far as it has been sifted, to show a carefully prepared organization for the riot, and to show the steps which were taken to forge tickets of admission. The moment I came into the House I received a letter directly inculpating a leading member of the Liberal Party of Birmingham with a large order for forged tickets. We have also evidence at Birmingham to prove the introduction into the ground beforehand of a few accomplices, and to show that ladders were brought by appointed persons, and were in readiness to enable the storming party to scale the walls. There is complete evidence to show that gangs of men known to the police were hired in Birmingham. There was the Cecil Street gang, and £50 were paid to this body. There were the Harding Street gang, the Lench Street gang, under a man named Martin—I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman knows him—the Great Bar Street gang, under the Brothers Reed, two notorious pugilists, each of whom received £20, and others; and some of these were paid by members of the Town Council, and also by members of the Committee over which Mr. Schnadhorst presides—the Caucus Executive. The arrange- ment made with the leaders of the roughs was that if they succeded in breaking into the premises 5s. would be paid, and if they succeeded in breaking into the hall and preventing the meeting 2s. 6d would be added. The Committee had the folly to be stingy; the fact that the additional half-crown was not paid in some cases has enabled the solicitor to obtain useful and reliable information. All this, of course, is an ex parte statement; but the matter has been the subject of legal investigation, and this is what the Conservative Party are prepared to prove in a Court of Law or before a Committee of this House. This is the evidence of the direct complicity of the Birmingham Liberal Association with these riots. Before going into the connection between the Association and the President of the Board of Trade, let me say a word about a matter which has been greatly misrepresented—the character of the Conservative meeting. I have a letter on the point from the principal authority of the Conservative Party, Mr. S. Hopkins. It has been stated in the House that the Conservatives tried to get up a free and open meeting as an expression of the opinion of all parties, and that that was a provocation to and a justification of what the Liberals did. This is an altogether incorrrect and inaccurate statement. Mr. Hopkins says— Mr. Chamberlain's statement as to the Liberals being invited is untrue; also as to the Conservatives representing or wishing to use their meeting as an expression of Birmingham opinion. All the meetings were advertised as plainly as possible, and declared to be in every way Conservative demonstrations. Applications for tickets by Liberal agents were refused. For instance, Messrs. Tangye made a request for 800 tickets. The secretary replied that the Conservative demand was so large, we could not spare them. I have here a ticket which bears out the statement. It is one which was issued long before the meeting, and it is headed "Conservative demonstration in support of the House of Lords." It is obvious that we were merely endeavouring to get all the Conservatives we could together in one meeting, which was to be a demonstration on the one side, and it is altogether inaccurate to say that it was anything else. The House may rely on the perfect integrity of Mr. Hopkins. The President of the Board of Trade and the hon. Member for Ipswich will admit that he is incapable of putting an inaccurate statement before the public. He is responsible in all these matters, and he says the Conservatives never tried to do more than hold a Party demonstration. I will now ask the House what is the Birmingham Caucus or Liberal Association? I will reply to it myself by stating that the Birmingham Liberal Association is the President of the Board of Trade. Anyone who can divest himself for a moment of the extremest Party prejudice will say that the Association and the President of the Board of Trade are one and indivisible. He created it in its modern form; he presided over it; he was returned by it; he is at once its father and its child. I have a curious record of the fact in a statement made by Mr. George Dixon, a man of the highest authority in Birmingham, standing next, indeed, to the right hon. Gentleman, who was formerly a respected Member of this House, and looks forward to being the Colleague of the right hon. Gentleman. This is what Mr. Dixon says on the subject at a meeting of the School Board.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

What is the date?

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

May, 1878. Speaking of the connection between the President of the Board of Trade and the town of Birmingham and the Liberal Party there, Mr. Dixon said— Mr. Joseph Chamberlain is undertaking to create the public opinion of the Town Council and of Birmingham, and also to be its public exponent. In fact, it seems as if the terms Mr. Joseph Chamberlain and Birmingham were become synonymous; Mr. Joseph Chamberlain is Birmingham, Birmingham is Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. He represents himself in the Town Council, and he also represents himself in the House of Commons. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain has adopted the House of Commons' plan, and has a Whip in the Town Council. I suppose that he also has a Cabinet, composed partly of members of the Town Council and partly of members outside. If that were a Tory statement, it would be the most miserable libel that could be put forward about Birmingham; it would be "a falsehood, a wanton falsehood;" but, unfortunately, it is the statement of Mr. George Dixon, who is to be the Colleague of the right hon. Gentleman. That plainly bears me out in the assertion I have made as to the connection between the right hon. Gen- tleman and the Birmingham Liberal Association. The matter is one of absolute notoriety. I am quite certain of this—that the right hon. Gentleman is far too courageous, far too determined, ever to repudiate anyone of his political associates. As he expects, no doubt, that his Colleagues will defend him from charges which may be made against him in this House, so I am certain he is prepared with even more cordiality and sincerity to defend the leaders of the Birmingham Liberal Association from any charges against them, and to maintain his responsibility for all their acts, and to avow his knowledge of them. I may add that the connection between the President of the Board of Trade and the Birmingham Liberal Association, and the control he exercises over it, are far more direct, powerful, and effective than the control which the hon. Member for the City of Cork exercises over the Land League and its proceedings. [Cries of "Time!" and "Order!"] I am very sorry for having trespassed so long on the time of the House, and I apologize. To sum up the case, it is this. I rely principally upon the three speeches which were made by the President of the Board of Trade, the first speech inciting, as I hold, to tumult, the second renewing that incitement, and almost rebuking his audience for not having acted upon his incitement, and the third speech glorying in the result and inciting to further tumult. To corroborate and confirm all that, I also bring up his refusal and neglect, until the other day, to deny the charge I made of his being connected with the Birmingham riot. I bring up his presence in Birmingham, his knowledge of what was likely to occur, and the power to prevent these occurrences taking place, and his refusal to exercise that power; and, lastly, I make out, as strongly as I can, and I assert before this House, and shall not be contradicted by the right hon. Gentleman, the indissoluble connection that exists between himself and the Birmingham Liberal Association, and his complete, real responsibility for the acts of that Body. That, Sir, is the case against the right hon. Gentleman. [Cheers, and "Oh, oh!"] I do not expect to convince hon. Gentlemen opposite. But there is a power of opinion outside this House, on which I hope that these facts may make no inconsiderable impression, and, even in spite of prepossessions, may carry conviction to some Gentlemen opposite. It is with no little confidence in the general impartiality of the House of Commons that I submit to its consideration the Amendment which stands in my name.

Amendment proposed, To insert in the ninth paragraph, after the word "us," the words "and humbly to assure Her Majesty that this House regrets to find in recent speeches and actions of one of Her Majesty's Ministers, holding the high office of President of the Board of Trade, an incitement to interference with the freedom of political discussion, and a justification of riot and disorder."—(Lord Randolph Churchill.)

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

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

Mr. Speaker, I hope the House will think that the speech to which we have just listened justifies my reticence on a previous occasion, when the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), at the instigation of the noble Lord, made a vague and violent attack on me. If I had attempted then to answer that attack, I could only have done so in very general terms, and, having exhausted my right of speech, I should have been quite unable to give to the House any information with reference to the numerous details in the formal indictment which has now been preferred against me by the noble Lord. Sir, the noble Lord, in his concluding observations, commented on the fact that I had waited until last Monday to deny the charges which he and others had made against me. I should wish to point out that the noble Lord himself, like the hon. Member for Portsmouth, when he first brought these charges, and others still stronger against me in Birmingham, did not attempt to substantiate them by the slightest tittle of evidence. In these circumstances, I attributed them to what was, perhaps, the natural irritation of the noble Lord, who had seen his best laid plans go astray, and who was hoist with his own petard. But when the noble Lord repeats these charges, or any portion of them, in his place in this House, speaking with due deliberation, and with a full sense of responsibility, then, Sir, I am prepared to treat them with the seriousness which they deserve. I feel that I have no option but to meet in detail the accusa- tion which he has brought, and I shall then submit myself to the judgment of the House. If these accusations are true, I shall incur its just censure; if they are false, the House will appreciate the conduct of the noble Lord who, in order to damage a political opponent, has brought forward charges which he has been unable to substantiate. Now, the inquiry divides itself into two branches. There are two matters which I shall try to keep perfectly distinct upon which I have to offer explanations to the House. First, there are the charges which affect myself personally, my own character and reputation; and next, there are charges against my constituents, for whom I am not responsible directly or indirectly, but as to which I shall have some defence to offer, and some explanation to make. As regards the charges against myself personally, let me clear the way by protesting, in the most absolute terms, against the new doctrine laid down on Monday, and brought forward again to-night, that if a man does not deny violent charges brought against him, he is to be assumed to admit them. That is a favourite doctrine of the noble Lord, who has brought more reckless charges against political opponents than any other living politician. Public life would be perfectly unendurable if a public man were to be held responsible for every crime of which he may be accused unless he immediately takes steps to refute the accusation. There is not a day passes in which I do not see some old slander revived, or some new libel devised, and if I am to deny them I should have to keep another secretary. In a Court of Justice a defendant is not called upon for an answer until some evidence, at all events, is brought forward, and I do not see why it should be different in a Court of Honour. But this practice of the noble Lord of flinging charges in the air tin the hope that they may strike an opponent is a very common one. He has ventured to allude once more to the infamous charge, as I consider it, which he has brought against the Corporation of Birmingham. I denied that charge in strong language. But the noble Lord wonders that I should deny the charge against the Corporation, while I left my own reputation to take care of itself. I did so because that charge tended to damage local government, in which I was deeply interested. I think it is perfectly monstrous that a charge of that kind, affecting the integrity of 50 or 60 gentlemen who give up their time to the service of their fellow-townsmen, should be lightly made. If such charges can be lightly made by persons in a responsible position, it will be impossible to find men who will be willing to undertake such labour and responsibility. But what did the noble Lord do with reference to this charge? He was challenged to prove it by the Mayor of Birmingham in a calm and temperate letter, to which the noble Lord replied by a letter which the Mayor of Birmingham has been forced to characterize as insolent and evasive. The noble Lord has not attempted to substantiate this charge. He knows perfectly well that there is not a tittle of evidence in its favour. He knows perfectly well that a Conservative member of the Town Council—himself the treasurer of the Conservative Association at the present time—having been appealed to by one of his constituents, declared that in his knowledge and belief the charges were not true. Yet the noble Lord never withdrew them. Well, Sir, I say this new method of controversy—to make a foul and offensive charge, and then, if those against whom it is brought do not think it worth their while to contradict it, to assume it to be true, or, if challenged to prove it, to refuse the proof—is not a fair method of warfare; and those whom the noble Lord calls my "tag-rag and bobtail" would be thoroughly ashamed to adopt such a course. The noble Lord used very similar tactics in his attack upon me. What is the charge which he brings against me? The words of the Amendment are— Humbly to assure Her Majesty that this House regrets to find in recent speeches and actions of one of Her Majesty's Ministers, holding the high office of President of the Board of Trade, an incitement to interference with the freedom of political discussion, and a justification of riot and disorder. [Opposition cheers.] Yes; hon. Members cheer that as they cheer any other charge against the President of the Board of Trade. But that is not the charge which the noble Lord brought against me. That is not the charge which I challenged him to prove in this House. Why has he gone back from his own words? In Birmingham he charged me with direct complicity in these riots; he charged me personally with having hired roughs; and he charged me with having entered into a direct conspiracy with others to provoke these disturbances. There is not one word of that either in the Amendment or in the speech he has delivered to the House.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Read the Amendment.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

I have read the Amendment, and I have shown that the noble Lord has entirely shifted his ground. He has evolved a new charge, but it is not the charge which I challenged him to prove. I do not deny that the charge which he brings now is a serious charge, and I am quite prepared to answer it; but I want to know, if he believes his charge against me, that I was personally responsible for the hiring of these roughs, why he has not put that charge into the Amendment? Well, now the real fact is, that the noble Lord does not believe in these charges himself. He knows that if he did believe them—

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Mr. Speaker, I rise to Order. I wish to ask you, Sir, whether the right hon. Gentleman is in Order in stating that I do not believe the charges that I have brought before the House?

MR. SPEAKER

I have not yet heard the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

I was merely going to point out that that was not the statement I made. I did not say the noble Lord does not believe in the charges which he has brought before the House. What I accused the noble Lord of was not believing the charges which he has failed to bring before the House.

MR. SPEAKER

It would be altogether out of Order for the right hon. Gentleman to accuse the noble Lord of not believing in charges which he has brought before the House. If the right hon. Gentleman says that, he will not be in Order.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

I will content myself with saying that, whatever the noble Lord believes, I do not think that after the evidence which I shall be able to lay before the House, he will be able to get any assembly of gentlemen to agree with him.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Mr. Speaker, I rise to Order. I really must ask you, Sir, whether the right hon. Gentleman, having said that I do not believe in the charges that I have brought before the House of Commons—[Cries of "No!"]—and you having ruled that he is out of Order, is not bound to withdraw the statement he has made?

MR. SPEAKER

I understand the right hon. Gentleman to deny that he made the assertion that the noble Lord did not believe in the charges which he has brought before this House. I have said, and I repeat, that if the right hon. Gentleman does make such a charge, he is out of Order, and I call upon him to withdraw it.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

Now, Sir—[Cries of "Withdraw!"] I have nothing to withdraw; I did not make the statement of which the noble Lord complains, and I cannot, therefore, withdraw what I have never said. Now, I am going to call the attention of the House to the charges as they were made by the noble Lord at Birmingham, and to contrast them with the charges which he has brought forward to-day. To-day, the noble Lord has said he bases his case principally upon speeches which I delivered on August 4, and again at Hanley, and on a speech which I delivered after these occurrences took place. That is a totally different thing from a charge against a Minister of direct complicity in outrage. I find the first proceeding of the noble Lord in connection with this matter appears to have taken place at the Midland Conservative Club, on Monday, October 13, when Lord Randolph Churchill moved— That, viewing the scandalous and discreditable organized riot excited this afternoon by Mr. Chamberlain and the Caucus, with the object of preventing Sir Stafford Northcote from addressing the people of Birmingham on public affairs, the members pledge themselves to combine, organize, and prepare for such retaliatory measures as may be necessary against the Radical Caucus in Birmingham, and shall in future effectually protect the tranquillity and order of public meeting. Then, at a banquet at the Exchange Rooms on the 14th of October, the noble Lord is reported to have said— Now, the Tory Party are not quite so stupid as Mr. Chamberlain and his friends think they are. They are much more ready to learn a lesson than is generally supposed; and having discovered last night the great Party advantage which Mr. Chamberlain derives from a timely exhibition of force, I presume that they will pay him the compliment on the earliest opportunity of resorting to force themselves. All I will say in reference to that part of the noble Lord's statement is, that it seems to be a little inconsistent with his present proceedings. I want to know whether the noble Lord is an advocate of order, or the champion of disorder? If he thinks that these proceedings at Birmingham were disgraceful, why does he propose to retaliate in the same way? On the contrary, if he thinks them perfectly legitimate, and intends to employ them himself, why does he come down to this House and complain? I really do not see how the noble Lord can get out of that dilemma. Does he pose as a champion of Parliamentary Order and decency, or is he prepared to support in Birmingham the proceedings which he has condemned to-day in this House? The noble Lord was more definite in later speeches. On October 15 he spoke at a banquet in a great hall, and he then said— The authors of this outrage were men who were hired—who were hired by Mr. Chamberlain and his friends — who were picked up, Heaven knows where, and who were paid, Heaven knows how, to do the work which no Birmingham artizan could be found to do. The noble Lord went on to say— The only people who glory and revel in their disgrace are Mr. Schnadhorst and Mr. Jesse Collings, the Pylades and Orestes of Birmingham. We will not be too severe on them, for, after all, we may be perfectly certain of this—that they were acting under the inspiration and under the high direction of Mr. Chamberlain. On October 13 the noble Lord also said— It is, gentlemen, to Mr. Chamberlain that we owe the scandalous proceedings of tonight; and later on he said— Let it go forth to-night that we, the Conservative Party in Birmingham, numbering at least one-half of the population of Birmingham, are prevented from holding a great meeting in the Town Hall to-morrow solely by the arts of Mr. Chamberlain.' Those charges are definite enough. I ask the House whether any one of these charges has been—I will not say proved, but even repeated, to-night? Now, I am going to reply to them in detail, because, whether made in the House or outside, I think the time has come when an answer should be given to them. I will take first the case of the Town Hall. I have no more to do with the letting of the Town Hall in Birmingham than the noble Lord himself. It is let under regulations which have been in force for a generation. It is let to the first comer. The Tories have had the Town Hall again and again for their political demonstrations. The noble Lord, Lord Salisbury, and many other distinguished Members of the Tory Party, have in recent times had the Town Hall in Birmingham, and have received a perfectly attentive and respectful hearing. I did not know the Town Hall was engaged on this occasion. I knew nothing at all about it. I did not know anything about the meeting which was held there the night after the disturbances till I read the account of it in the papers. But I have inquired of the Liberal Party in Birmingham whether they could throw any light on the matter, and they tell me that the Town Hall was engaged by the Liberal Association last May—long before there was any talk about this Conservative demonstration, and long before they could know whether they would in any way interfere with the proceedings of the Tory Party. I am told, further, that they would have been perfectly willing to allow the use of the Town Hall to the Conservatives as a matter of courtesy, if an application had been made; but no application was made on behalf of the Tory Party. The noble Lord has evidently to-night, as on former occasions, been under a great delusion as to my supposed influence in Birmingham. It is most complimentary to me, although I think it ought to be rather discouraging to the noble Lord in his candidature for the borough. No doubt, in 1878, when my friend, Mr. George Dixon, in a moment of irritation about some local controversy which has been long since amicably settled, described me as having great influence in Birmingham, I do not think I could fairly have contested his statement. It was true at that time. I had been Mayor of the town for three years, Chairman of the School Board for three years, I was chairman of several of the leading institutions in the town, and a prominent member of the Liberal Association; and I was then fairly described as one of the most influential persons in the town. But since I have been a Member of Parliament I have taken very little part in local affairs, and since I have been a Member of the Government I have taken none at all. The moment I became a Member of the Government I resigned all the offices which I held in Birmingham, and I have since refrained from all interference. In my own interest I thought it inexpedient for me, the Representative of the town in Parliament, to interfere in local matters. Then the noble Lord says I am the Birmingham Caucus. Again, I am much flattered by this description of my influence and ability; but it is a total mistake. Except that I am a subscriber, although, I believe, not one of the largest subscribers, for, in common with my hon. Colleague and other Liberals in the town and neighbourhood, no doubt, I continue to subscribe to the funds exactly the same sum as I subscribed before I was Member for the town—beyond that I have no part whatever in the Liberal Association. I am not a member of any of its committees, and I have not attended any of its meetings. I am a Representative of the Liberal Association and of the town of Birmingham; and, knowing how jealous my constituents would be of any interference with their independence, I have thought it advisable to keep out of the matter altogether. The noble Lord is utterly mistaken, and is basing his suspicions and charges on the most slender foundation, if he puts them on the ground that I am in any way a moving force in connection with the Liberal Association of Birmingham. And now I come to another charge, probably the most serious of those which are brought by the noble Lord against me. He says that I have hired roughs. I will answer that in this way. I have never in my life hired a rough for any purpose whatever. I have never in my life contributed, directly or indirectly, to the hiring of roughs; I have never suggested the hiring of roughs. I have never connived at the hiring of roughs; and if I can in any possible way put that denial more broadly I shall be perfectly willing to do it. Then there remains the question whether any of my constituents hired roughs upon this occasion? It is, perhaps, too much for me to undertake to answer absolutely for all of them; but I do not believe a word of it. The noble Lord says that the Tory Party in Birmingham have got proof. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Evidence.] The noble Lord says "evidence;" but the House will observe that throughout the noble Lord, in talking about evidence, has not given the name of one individual except that of Mr. Satchell Hopkins, the chairman of the Conservative Association. Let hon. Members mark that. I have a good deal of evidence to bring before the House, and I am going to give names. I challenge the Conservative Party to prove the hiring of roughs. I suppose that the hiring of roughs for the purpose of breaking up a meeting is a criminal offence; and if the Conservatives discover that any of my constituents are guilty of it, let them bring them before a Court. I do not believe a word of it. In the first place, it has never been the custom of the Liberal Party in Birmingham or any of its members to hire roughs; and, secondly, on the present occasion the hiring of roughs was absolutely unnecessary. [Cheers and laughter.] Well, it was absolutely unnecessary. Even supposing that anyone in Birmingham was animated by the intentions which the noble Lord ascribes to them—even supposing now, for the sake of argument, that there were persons in my constituency who organized a premeditated disturbance in this meeting—it would have been totally unnecessary for them to go to the expense of hiring roughs, for they had 15,000 men on the ground, according to the noble Lord's own knowledge, close to the meeting. [Opposition cheers.] I assure hon. Members opposite that they will find that their cheering is a little premature when I come to deal with that part of the case. They admit there were 15,000 Liberals close by, and, in addition, there were 20,000 Liberals at least in the meeting itself. And now I come to the next question—that of the forged tickets. The noble Lord does not accuse me, I am happy to say, of personally forging these tickets; but as a reference has been made to it, I will first clear myself. I know absolutely nothing about it. I certainly have not suggested such a thing; I am not a party to it; and I do not know that it was done. Indeed, I am firmly convinced in my own mind that it was not done. [Murmurs from the Opposition.] I know perfectly well that Mr. Satchell Hopkins is a respectable man, whose word I would take on any matter known to himself. I know that he believes in this tale of a forgery; but I am sure it will be found, sooner or later, that it is only a mare's nest which the Tories have got hold of. At all events, if the tickets were forged, I had nothing whatever to do with it. I will undertake to say the same on behalf of all the responsible leaders; and, again, I must point out that there was no necessity for anything of the sort. I will show the noble Lord that there was not the least difficulty, in the first place, on the part of the Liberals in obtaining tickets for this meeting. There was no earthly reason why they should forge tickets when they were to be had by thousands. They had 10,000 tickets, at the very least, in their possession. Perhaps the noble Lord did not know that. Well, now I will give him the evidence at once. I will show him how the tickets were obtained. I have got here a sworn deposition. It is signed by Mr. James Wiggett, a machine tool maker, and dated the 28th of October, 1884. [Ironical cheers from the Opposition.] Yes; the day before yesterday. It would not have been any truer if made earlier. He says— I am the president of the Machine Tool Makers' Society in Birmingham. And at the end he says— I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of either the Liberal or Conservative Associations in Birmingham or elsewhere.

MR. GORST

Before whom is that sworn?

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

Before Mr. W. Horton, a Commissioner to administer oaths in the Supreme Court of Judicature of England. This gentleman goes on— About a fortnight before the day of the Tory demonstration I applied to Mr. Barton, the secretary of the Conservative Association, for tickets of entrance to the Aston Lower Grounds for the purpose of being distributed amongst the members and workmen of my society and the workmen engaged in my trade. I received from Mr. Barton 600 white tickets, which were distributed by me to any person in the trade who applied for them without reference to or knowing their politics. I had for myself a red ticket for admission to the reserved seats. When I presented myself at the entrance at the Lower Grounds I had a Gladstone badge pinned to my coat. The men in charge of the entrance refused to allow me to enter, saying that my ticket was a forgery. That was a ticket which this man had actually received from the secretary to the Conservative Association. He goes on— I went back and took off my badge, and immediately afterwards presented myself at another entrance with the same ticket, and I was admitted without any objection. This is another statement on the same subject. It is from Mr. Walter Parsons, and he says— I presented myself at the turnstile, near the Witton Road, with the ticket I had given me by Mr. Wootton, Scripture reader for St, Paul's Church—given me at the express request of the Vicar himself, who was present on the occasion. Having given my ticket up to one of the stewards, I was told to 'go about my business or I should be removed by the police,' as the ticket I had given was a 'forged' one. Three ladies who passed in before me also had their tickets torn up in their faces and were sent away. I tried to explain myself to the man in charge, but he turned a deaf ear to all my entreaties. Fortunately I had another ticket given me by a very prominent member of the All Saints' Conservative Association. I went to the other entrance near the hotel, and was passed in all right without any ceremony. Now, I think these letters will show the House how all this difficulty has arisen. The Tories got it into their heads that the Liberals were going to forge tickets, and the next thing was to assume that everyone who went with a Liberal badge had a forged ticket, and these people were tearing up their own tickets all over the place, believing them to be forged. I have now done with the accusations made against me at Birmingham, and I come to those made in the House, and the next statement I come to seems to me a very striking one. The noble Lord says I must have been aware of the arrangements for the counter - demonstration. Of course, I was aware of them. I had the same knowledge of them as the noble Lord himself. The first intimation I had was from the newspapers, and if the noble Lord will refer to The Birmingham Daily Post he will see where I got my first intimation of this meeting being held. I admit, without the least difficulty, that I was aware that the meeting was to be held. I did not suggest it; I had nothing whatever to do with it. But the noble Lord says I might have stopped it. My answer is, that I could not have stopped it if I would, and I would not have stopped it if I could. Why on earth should I have stopped it? It was a perfectly legitimate counter-demonstration.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Ireland!

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

I quite understand the support the noble Lord expects to get by his allusion to Ireland. It was a perfectly legitimate and orderly demonstration. There was no earthly reason why I should have interfered to prevent it; and I go further and say that it would not have led to any disturbance or evil results at all but for the crass stupidity of the Tory management. I think I heard some hon. Members opposite say the counter-demonstration was held at the same place. Is it such an uncommon thing to hold two meetings in England where they can be held safely very nearly at the same place by different parties to consider the same subject? Why, Sir, I find that at Stroud, on July 30, there was a demonstration of Liberals, and I find that the right hon. Gentleman opposite the Member for East Gloucestershire (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) attended a Conservative counter-demonstration, called at the same hour, and within 500 yards of the same place.

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH

They were absolutely out of sight of one another. It was utterly impossible for those present at one meeting to have anything to do with those attending the other.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

I beg to say that the meetings at Birmingham were out of sight of one another until the wall went down; and I really cannot follow the right hon. Gentleman when he says it was absolutely impossible for one meeting to have anything to do with another only 500 yards off. But I am not in the least complaining of the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman. What I say is, that it does not necessarily suggest itself to the mind of an English statesman that to hold a counter-demonstration is a provocation to riot and disorder. Well, then, the noble Lord has commented on a placard. I really do not know whether I saw that placard; but having listened to the recital of it by the noble Lord, although it partakes a good deal of the flowery character of controversial political literature, I do not see in substance much to object to in it. The Liberals of Birmingham were called upon to resent the insults that had been flung at them by the noble Lord, Lord Salisbury, and others attending the Tory meeting, and, if they could, to get admittance—for what? To vote against the resolution. Then the noble Lord says they were asked to wear their badges. Of course they were. They went as Liberals, and they were not ashamed of their profession of their political faith. Then the noble Lord makes a statement which really is almost too absurd to be serious. He is bringing this tremendous charge against me; and what is one of the grounds he seriously lays before the House of Commons for suspecting me of having committed an act as to the morality of which I will not at this moment say anything, but which would be an act of the supremest folly in a person in my position? The noble Lord suspects me of direct complicity in the riots at Birmingham, because, forsooth, I was at my house a few days before the meeting. Does not the noble Lord know that I live at Birmingham? I do not know what the domestic habits of the noble Lord are. But I confess I am inclined to augur badly of them if he thinks it a matter of suspicion for a gentleman to stop at home with his family. [Cries of "Oh!" from the Opposition.] Yes; I think these details are unworthy of the House of Commons. But it is not my fault that they have been brought forward. The moment I returned from Germany, after an absence of five weeks, I went to my house at Birmingham, and remained there continuously for some time. I was at Hanley on the 7th of October, where I remained until the 9th, and on the 9th I returned to Birmingham and remained there until the 18th. Does the noble Lord mean to suggest that when he honours Birmingham with a visit I am to fly for refuge to some other place? I can only say I was at Birmingham long before the noble Lord was heard of, and I shall remain there long after the noble Lord's connection with that place has come to an end. I think I have now gone seriatim through every one of the personal charges which have been made against me by the noble Lord. I shall deal with the speeches to which he has referred later on; but, as regards any charge of complicity in these disturbances or in a conspiracy to create them, I treat it with a flat denial, and I meet it with a denial of all the details which the noble Lord has used. I say that a charge of this kind ought not to have been made, and I do not believe that it is advanced on public grounds at all, but it seems to me to be dictated by personal prejudice and Party feeling. I verily believe that in the whole history of Parliament no such grave charge has ever been brought against a Minister of the Crown upon grounds so trumpery and so inadequate. The noble Lord says that in one of my speeches at Newtown I have condoned the acts of my constituents.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

I said that the right hon. Gentleman gloried in those acts.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

Yes; he said that I gloried in them. I should like to read to the House what I did say on this point, because the noble Lord only read a portion of the paragraph from which he quoted. What I said was that if anyone said that I was inciting to violence and disorder— That is false. There are only two men in this country who throughout this quarrel have conspicuously incited the people to disorder and violence. One of them is Lord Randolph Churchill, who, speaking at Edinburgh at the end of last year, declared that he would not consent to extend the franchise unless the labourers showed that they were in earnest by pulling down the railings, or by engaging the police and the military. This is the man who is now so indignant because the working men of Birmingham took him at his word, and pulled off the coping of a wall in order to attend a meeting to which they had been invited, and which the Tory managers were attempting by a transparent fraud to palm off as a representation of the opinion of Birmingham. Well, I do not see, I confess, especially with the information I have now to lay before the House, that there is one word in that statement which I ought to withdraw. I want the House to consider what these proceedings were of which the noble Lord complains. I believe that I have a greater hatred of violence than the noble Lord, and I am perfectly ready to subscribe to every word which was uttered by the Prime Minister on the first day of the Session. If I ask the House to take a lenient view of the proceedings of my constituents on the occasion in question, it is because I believe that those proceedings were caused by almost intolerable provocation, and that they were pursued almost entirely in self-defence. I think it right that the House should know that the whole of this matter has been very grossly exaggerated. The noble Lord talked about a riot.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

I was there and saw what occurred.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

The noble Lord has not seen, as I have, an angry mob, or he would not speak in that way of the proceedings of what was, on the whole, the good-tempered mob before which he stood on Monday week. The total amount of damage done by 50,000 or 60,000 people trampling over the extensive grounds at Aston is only estimated by the manager and proprietor of the grounds at £126, and he says that damage to an equal amount has frequently been done by an ordinary meeting of similar magnitude on a Bank Holiday or similar occasion, and, although the crowd had entire possession of the building and the grounds, there was not one case of serious personal injury. Does the noble Lord suppose that if a Birmingham mob had not been good tempered that 50,000 people could have got out of these grounds without any injury beyond a few scratches? I do not say this in order to excuse what has been done however; that must stand upon a different footing. I merely put this to the House to show that this was not an organized mob, and that this was not premeditated violence, and I think that I shall convince the House that whatever was done was the result of the mismanagement of those who called the meeting. I must remind the House that this was not an ordinary Conservative demonstration. The Conservatives have held meetings in Birmingham again and again, and, as far as I am aware, not a single meeting called by them has ever been broken up before, although they have been attended by a considerable number of their political opponents. On the occasion in question, however, the Tories gave more importance to the meeting than would have attached to an ordinary Conservative gathering. Their game was palpable to the Liberals. If they had called an ordinary Conservative meeting, they could not have hoped to have filled the grounds, because, in spite of the statement of the noble Lord, there are not 50,000 Tories to be found in Birmingham or anywhere in the neighbourhood of that town. ["Hear, hear!" and "Oh, oh!"] Well, not male Tories, at all events; and what the Tories relied upon was the presence of their Liberal opponents in order to make up the meeting, while they were to have packed gatherings in the two great halls, as well as the assembly in the grounds, at which resolutions were to be passed which were to go out to the world as an expression of opinion on the part of the people of Birmingham. The noble Lord says that he has it on the authority of the Tory managers of the meeting that no invitation was ever given to the Liberals to attend, and that the meeting was always declared to be a Conservative gathering. Now, I will call the attention of the noble Lord to a speech of a friend of his, Mr. Barton, the paid secretary of the Conservative Association at Birmingham, and the hon. secretary of this demonstration. This gentleman attended a dinner at the Hen and Chickens Hotel in Birmingham on September 10, and, referring to the demonstration, said— It would be open to all who would take the trouble to get a ticket, Liberals and Conservatives alike, and except for the formality of obtaining a ticket all would be free to attend, and he hoped they would invite all their friends, whether Liberals or Conservatives. There is an invitation given by the official who had more right to give it than any other man in Birmingham, which was accepted, no doubt very much to the discomfiture of the noble Lord. Now, as to the attempt to misrepresent this meeting, The Birmingham Gazette, a Tory journal, on the 9th of October, said— Just as the great Conservative demonstration at Manchester at the commencement of the Recess campaign proved unmistakably that the people believed in the Peers and honoured them for their pluck and statesmanship, so the demonstrations next week in Birmingham, at the close of the Recess, and on the eve of the next move on the Parliamentary chess board, are expected to prove"— not that the Conservative Party, but— that the heart of England beats in unison with its extremities North and South, and that the people of the Midlands have faith in the wisdom and prudence of the Conservative Leaders in the present crisis, and have perfect confidence in their ability to vindicate principles which, being above Party, can claim to be national. It is perfectly plain, therefore, that this was to be a national demonstration in favour of national principles. Well, the Liberals applied for tickets in hundreds and thousands, and the Tories believed that they were going to have a most successful demonstration. They gave away these tickets wholesale, and some 10,000 tickets were obtained by Liberals. But, after a time, the Conservatives found that they were giving too many tickets to Liberals—they began to smell a rat, because they found that the great Conservative demonstration would be attended by so large a number of Liberals that they would not be able to pass their resolutions; and, accordingly, after a time the further issue of tickets to Liberals was refused. It was when that refusal to issue more tickets to Liberals was announced that the working men of Birmingham determined to get up a counter-demonstration, with which, I believe, the Liberal Associations had nothing to do. Of course, there were members of the Liberals Associations on the Committee; but the meeting was chiefly organized by Trades Unionists. Some 15,000 Liberals attended the counter-demonstration, and I am told that the speeches were of a very moderate character, and that there was no incitement to violence, and that no word was uttered to which anyone could take exception. Everything would have passed off quietly but for the utterly unjustifiable conduct of the Tory Party to the Liberals who, having got tickets, presented them at the gates, wearing the Liberal badge, and were refused admission. Here is a letter from Mr. Coleman, who is connected with one of the religious bodies of the town, in which he says— Kindly grant me space to complain of an unwarrantable and dastardly attack made upon my son in the Lower Grounds yesterday. He had purchased a reserve ticket for the great hall, for the purpose of hearing the speeches of Sir Stafford Northcote and Lord Randolph Churchill. This ticket he duly presented at the gates, and was admitted. He had no sooner entered than he was accosted by a respectably-dressed man, who, seeing his Gladstone badge, exclaimed 'You're a Gladstone man,' and immediately struck him a violent blow on the head with a heavy stick, felling him to the ground. Nor was this a singular instance. Several of my neighbours and friends, on presenting their tickets, had them roughly snatched from their hands, and were ejected with great force from the grounds. These facts speak for themselves, and so far from the Tories winning additional votes for Lord Randolph Churchill, by such brutal conduct they stir the disgust and indignation of every right-minded citizen, and provoke against themselves much rancour and bitterness for the future. Yours truly, HENRY COLEMAN. This was not a solitary instance in which Liberals were ill-treated; it was the general treatment of every known Liberal. The consequence of such conduct on the part of the Tory Party may be easily imagined. These men, who had been so treated, came round to the other meeting which was being held in the neighbourhood, and they complained of the scandalous way in which they had been treated. And naturally there was a great deal of indignation expressed. The people in the crowd began to scale the wall. First it was boys, and then it was men. The wall was covered on the top with broken glass bottles, and those who got over first suffered a little in their persons and their clothes, and they, therefore, called out to their friends to knock off the coping of the wall. It was, however, knocked off from the inside, and was reached by a ladder taken from a shed belonging to the manager of the grounds, and that alone showed that there could be no premeditation in the matter. Having got the ladder, they knocked off the coping, and then knocked down six feet of the wall, through the gap in which 15,000 men, all Liberals, came pouring. Then they did that which I cannot justify. They let off the Tory fireworks. That was undoubtedly wrong. And what was worse, they acted with indignity towards the right hon. Baronet the Leader of the Opposition—they let him off upside down. Up to this point, I must inform the House, the meeting had not been disturbed or broken up; and if the Tories had acted wisely, they might have had their meeting and their speakers listened to. Of course, they would have been outvoted by 10 to one; but they must take their chance of that if they call a "national demonstration" in Birmingham. Now I come to the most serious part of the case. Mr. Satchell Hopkins has stated, in a letter to the papers— That the Conservatives had no hired roughs at Aston Lower Grounds on Monday, the 13th of October, either as 'chuckers out' or in any other capacity, offensive or defensive. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Hear hear!] The noble Lord had better not cheer too soon. Mr. Hopkins said— That there were about 450 stewards, all of whom were volunteers and unpaid, and that the whole of the arrangements were made for an orderly and peaceable meeting. Now, Mr. Hopkins is evidently under a mistake in this matter, because, at a meeting held a few days before the 13th of October, Mr. Stone, late president of the Conservative Association, stated that it was expected that the Liberals would come, and that if they did effective arrangements had been made for vigorously repressing them. I accept Mr. Hopkins's statement so far as he speaks of facts within his own knowledge; but Mr. Hopkins is a guileless man, he does not know what I know, and what the House will soon know. Now as to the meeting in the great hall. I have a letter from Mr. W. E. Cooke, a manufacturer at Constitution Hill, Birmingham, who explains the way that the riot commenced. He says that the refusal to admit people with tickets led to people getting over the wall— As to the great hall," he says, "I was near the reporters' table, and saw a Tory steward hit a man trying to get into the speakers' gallery—this was the commencement of the strife. The man struck was directly in front of me, so that I could not see the striker's face. This was the beginning of the row. I have also the letters of two gentlemen—Mr. J. S. Reynolds, manufacturer, and Mr. W. B. Vince, solicitor, the son of a highly esteemed Nonconformist minister. They say they were standing close to the reporters' table, and had a good view of the whole proceedings. They were in a position to state that the first breach of the peace was by a Tory steward. A gentleman came there with a Gladstone badge, showing a platform ticket. He attempted to get on the platform, but was pushed back, and was struck a heavy blow in the face by a person wearing the badge of a Tory steward, and was knocked full length on the floor. This, said the writer, was more than flesh and blood could stand. More joined in the conflict, and a general mêlée took place. The first blow, they said, was struck by a Tory steward, whom they believed they could identify.

MR. GORST

Is that sworn testimony?

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

No; but I shall be delighted to provide the hon. and learned Member with sworn testimony. I would remind him that the noble Lord did not give any sworn testimony at all. Mr. Wiggett, president of the Machine Tool Makers' Society, in the latter part of that deposition from which I have already quoted, says— I went direct into the great hall, and stationed myself at the back of the reserved seats. Long before the proceedings commenced I saw a number of men who were on the platform wearing rosettes, and who were striking the people in front of the platform with their sticks. Up to that time there was no disturbance whatever; but the people close to the platform were so exasperated by the treatment of the men on the platform, that they made a rush to get on the platform. The men on the platform defended it as well as they could with chairs and sticks. I saw all that took place, and I say positively that the disturbance was commenced by the men on the platform who were rosettes, and that up to the time when they began using their fists there was nothing but good-natured chaff and banter taking place. I have some more sworn information. Edward Reed, of Moor Street, Birmingham—perhaps the noble Lord knows him.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Who is he?

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

Well, he is a rough. He says, upon oath, that— Between 9 and 10 o'clock on the morning of the day when the Tory demonstration took place at Aston, I went to the shop of Mr. R. C. Jarvis, in Worcester Street, for the purpose of getting an engagement at the Aston Lower Grounds. I went to Mr. Jarvis, because I had been engaged and paid by him on previous occasions to attend and break up Liberal election meetings. I saw Mr. Jarvis in his shop, and I said to him—'Please give me an engagement for Aston,' and he gave me one. He said—'Why don't you go with the mob?' And I said—'Oh, I go by myself.' He replied—'Go and do what you can.' I said—'Well, what are we to do when we get there?' He said—'If you see any Liberal badges on the people, tear them off their coats and destroy them.' He also said—'You must go with the mob—do what they do, and I will see you.' In the afternoon I went with 11 or 12 roughs down to Aston. We got there about half-past 3. We were all supplied with tickets. When the doors of the great hall were opened we got in, and went on to the platform. We left the platform and we met Mr. Jarvis. One of our party asked him what we were to do, and he said—'I have told you once; do as I told you, rip them things off them,' meaning the Gladstone badges. We at once set to work tearing off the badges from the coats of the people who were wearing them. I then went out to have a drink, and on returning to the hall a lot of Liberals were getting into the room. I and my companions then began knocking the Liberals about, and we did all we could to prevent them getting on to the platform. I afterwards got on to the platform and assisted the Tories in knocking the Liberals off, and this continued until the Liberals got too strong for us. I must have knocked about 10 Liberals down. I used chairs, and broke two of them over the Liberals. I shortly afterwards left the grounds. I went to Mr. Jarvis's shop on the Wednesday following to be paid. I saw Mr. Jarvis himself, and he paid me half-a-sovereign for what I had done.

MR. GORST

Will the right hon. Gentleman say before whom that was sworn?

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

What is the date of it?

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

It was sworn at the Birmingham County Court on the 28th of October before C. Horton, Commissioner to administer oaths of the Supreme Court of Judicature in England. Now I have got another deposition to read to the House.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Another rough?

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

Two or three roughs. Richard Taylor, Baker, Hanley, and Leveson, all living in Birmingham, made oath. Taylor said that, in company with the others, he went to the Aston Grounds for the purpose of getting an engagement from the Tories. He fully expected to get an engagement, as he had frequently had engagements before for the purpose of upsetting meetings of Liberals, for which he had always received payment from the Tory Party. They had tickets given them by members of the Tory Party with which they went straight into the grounds. There they saw Mr. Barton, secretary of the Conservative Association. They told him they were not engaged. He said—"Go and do the best you can, and I will see to you." They then went towards the refreshment bar, and whilst there one of the Tories brought them 7s. worth of checks to get drink with. They were told—"If you see any people with Gladstone badges you must tear them off." They went to the platform. They knocked the Liberals down as fast as they could, until they got too numerous and strong, and then "we hopped the twig." During the following week they received several sums of money from different Tories for what they did at Aston. On the Thursday following they went to the Conservative Association office to be paid. They saw Mr. Barton, and they said—"Is there not anything for us?" He said—"Where is my bag?" And then he said—"We had better leave it till Monday and come again. I will write to the Colonel." They went to the office on the Monday and saw the clerk, who said Mr. Barton was very bad. "Here is half-a-sovereign for you." They refused that because it was not enough. They went on Wednesday and took the half-sovereign, on the understanding that Mr. Barton would write to the Colonel about it. Anderson and Leveson said that was all true; but they did not hear the conversation in the office because they remained outside while Barton went in to receive the money. That was sworn on the 27th of October before Mr. Hooper.

SIR HARDINGE GIFFARD

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what proceedings will be instituted?

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

No proceedings have been instituted; but I think it is likely they will form a part of proceedings in the future.

MR. GIBSON

Is there any title at the head of the document showing that it was taken before a Commissioner of Oaths?

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

I really cannot answer for the Commissioners. These depositions have been taken before three or four Commissioners. I have given the names of two already, and I shall shortly give the name of another. I have hitherto been dealing with the proceedings in the great hall, and I say that the depositions which I have read show clearly that the disturbance in that case was commenced by these Tory roughs, acting as stewards; and it was in consequence of their assaults on the Liberals that the platform was stormed and the meeting broken up. Now I come to the meeting in the Skating Rink. With regard to the Skating Rink meeting, I have a letter from Mr. F. J. Staples, in which he eays— Before the storming of the platform I saw one of the 'gentlemen' behind the speaker's chair take up one of the chairs and hurl it with all his might into the midst of those in front of him. It was a mercy no one was killed; but it was cleverly caught and returned. Others followed his bad example, and the scuffle began; so for the breaking of the chairs in the hall the Conservatives have to thank one of themselves, for they certainly began the quarrel without sitting down to count the cost. I have another letter from Mr. Parsons, in which he bears testimony to the same effect. I now begin to read another deposition in reference to what took place in the Skating Rink. The deposition is signed by Larry Mack, of John Street, late Newton Street, Birmingham, and dated 28th October. It was taken before Mr. Horton, and is to this effect— On the morning of the day on which the Tory meeting took place at Aston I went to Mr. Jarvis's shop in Worcester Street to get an engagement. I went there because I had been told that if I went to him he would set me on. I saw Mr. Jarvis in his shop. It would be about 10 o'clock. I asked him if he was engaging any men to send down to Aston, and he said 'Yes,' and I told him to put my name down. He said 'I am in a hurry now, but go down to Aston and do what you can and come back to me. I know your features, and will see to you.' He told me to join the mob, and do what they did. I went down to Aston about half-past 1 o'clock. I had a ticket. When I got into the grounds I joined a gang of roughs there, and we spent some time in drinking. We had a lot of drink before the meeting commenced. We went into the Rink about 4 o'clock, and stationed ourselves close to the platform. About 5 o'clock the people came into the Rink very fast. We noticed a lot of people coming in with Gladstone badges on, and we snatched them off. On the following day I went to Mr. Jarvis's shop in Worcester Street to be paid. I saw Mr. Jarvis himself. Mr. Jarvis paid me 6s. for my work on the Monday. I asked him for 10s., and he said he could not afford me more. I have here another deposition by J. Welch, of Smithfield Passage, Birmingham, and Enoch Bird, of Central Row, Birmingham, taken on oath before Mr. M. Hooper, Commissioner, on the 27th. The former says— A few days before the Monday when the Tory meeting was to take place at Aston, I met Mr. Bryan, fishmonger, of Balsall Street, at the corner of Macdonald Street and Barford Street South. Mr. Bryan is a Tory. He said to me—'Come here, I want you.' And I said—'What for?' And he replied—'I want you to get 40 men to go down to the Lower Grounds on Monday to "bear up" for the Tories.' He also stated that it would be all right, and that he was waiting for Mr. Jarvis, of Worcester Street. I engaged a lot of roughs, altogether about 14. I could not get any more, as they wanted to know where the 'brass' was coming from. He said—'Meet me at the Queen's Arms public-house, at the corner of Barford Street South, to-morrow, and I will put you all right.' I and about 16 roughs met Mr. Bryan on the following morning at the Queen's Arms. Mr. Bryan paid for about eight or ten quarts of beer. He said—'I want you all to go to the Lower Grounds and do the best you can.' He said he was a rank Tory, and he wanted the men to 'bear up' for the Party. He said Mr. Jarvis was to have met him there, but he had not come. I got plenty of tickets from the Tories for admission to the grounds. I and my 'pals' went to the Lower Grounds about 4 o'clock on Monday. We went into the Skating Rink, and on to the platform, where we took platform seats. A number of Liberals tried to come on to the platform, but as fast as they came up we knocked them down with the chairs. This was the commencement of the row. We continued to knock them down until they got too strong, and then we had to run away. Harry Jarvis was with me, and we had half-a-sovereign given to us, which we spent in drink on the ground. We remained on the ground the whole evening, cheering for and supporting the Tories. On the day after the meeting I went to Mr. R. C. Jarvis, in Worcester Street, to be paid. He gave me a note to Mr. Barton, the secretary of the Conservative Association. We went to Mr. Barton. Mr. Barton gave us his card, and told us to go back to Mr. Jarvis and tell him to pay us anything in reason, and he would pay him back. We went back to Mr. Jarvis, and found a mob in his shop. Mr. Jarvis would not pay because of the mob. When he refused to pay, I said—'Here is your own handwriting; it is clear proof that you engaged us.' He took the note and ripped it up, but I picked up the bits. This statement is confirmed by the other man, Bird. Now, Sir, I think I have really done almost sufficient to prove my case. If the noble Lord has not got enough, I have plenty more evidence. I have got here four or five depositions, altogether, I believe, from a dozen men—[Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Perjurers! and cries of "Order!"]—giving details to the same effect, that they were engaged by certain Tories to go to the grounds at Aston in order to assault the Liberals, to tear off their badges, and, if necessary, to "clout"them—that is, to hustle them; and that they performed that task. They began the row, and, in consequence of their proceedings, the meeting was broken up. One of those depositions, however, contained some special information which it is right the noble Lord and his friends at Birmingham should have some knowledge of.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Hand them over.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

No, indeed; I will not trust them out of my possession. The noble Lord will, I have no doubt, read them in the newspapers, or I shall be happy to furnish him with copies. Charles Smith, of Bow Street, Birmingham, says— About 3 o'clock on the afternoon of the day on which the Tory demonstration took place at Aston, I went to the office of the Conservative Association in Newhall Street, Birmingham, for the purpose of getting an engagement to go to Aston. I saw Mr. Charles Barton. I asked him if my services would be wanted at Aston; he told me that they would, and he gave me half-a-crown to get some beer with. I went down to Aston, and into the grounds. I had half-a-dozen tickets from Mr. Charles Barton. When I got into the grounds I joined a gang of roughs, led by a man named Harry Jarvis. For about two hours we walked about the grounds and pulled off the Gladstone badges that we found, and if any complained about the badges being taken off them, we 'clouted' them.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

What!

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

Does not the noble Lord know what "clouting" means? I sincerely hope he may never have that Birmingham experience. The deposition goes on— This was before the meeting commenced. About 5 o'clock in the afternoon I went up to Mr. William Barton and told him that the half-crown I had had from the office was not enough. He gave me another half-crown and two shillings' worth of checks for drinks. We spent the money, and also the checks, in drink, and afterwards we went into the great hall. When we got in there we began pulling off the badges and knocking the Liberals about. We attacked everybody that we saw in opposition to the Tories. We continued doing this until our opponents became too numerous, and then we ran away. On the following morning I went to the offices of the Conservative Association for some money. I saw Mr. Charles Barton, who said that all the money he had in his pocket was 3½d., and he gave me that. There were between 11 and 12 roughs in my gang, who had all been engaged to work for the Tories. We understood our instructions to be to tear off all the Gladstone badges, and we were left to do what else we thought fit. For the last 10 years I have been engaged by Tories. I was always engaged for the express purpose of attending and breaking up Liberal meetings. I know a lot of roughs who have been engaged by the Tories at election times to do the same kind of work. This deposition is signed "Charles Smith," and it was made before another Commissioner, named Parr. The date is the 29th October; so that there are three dates—the 27th, 28th, and 29th October. I think I have adduced quite sufficient evidence. It is at the service of the noble Lord, if he likes; and I confess that I think it is almost a matter of honour on his part to pursue this investigation further. All the evidence which is before me shall be at his disposal in the copies, if not in the original. From this evidence, it is clear who were responsible for the riots at Birmingham. It shows that there was a set and deliberate purpose to repress the Liberals, and to repress them by means of hired roughs, in the way in which roughs ordinarily pursue their business. In consequence of this violence, there naturally followed the breaking up of the meetings, and the general discomfiture of the whole Conservative demonstration. There is only one thing in the speech of the noble Lord in which I think I can heartily concur. He called upon me to express regret that any possible slight should have been passed on the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. Sir, I respond to that appeal. The right hon. Gentleman has always been a courteous and a generous opponent, and I deeply regret that he suffered any annoyance in connection with those proceedings. I can assure him it was not personal to himself, because I believe my constituents respect him, as I also do. I do not know whether it is possible for me to make any reparation; but this I do offer. If he is magnanimous enough to overlook this matter, and if he will come again to Birmingham, and will allow me to attend him on the platform in the Town Hall of Birmingham, I will pledge myself that he shall have in the Town Hall—in a free, open meeting, and for which no tickets are issued—a respectful attention and a quiet hearing from my constituents. I can promise him that; that they will acquiesce in his views I cannot promise, nor can I promise that a resolution will be carried in the sense in which he may desire; but I think I am justified in the promise I make to him, on behalf of my constituents that he will obtain a quiet and respectful hearing. I say that from what I know of my constituents, and from what I know of the character which is borne in Birmingham by the right hon. Gentleman. I have now only to deal with the noble Lord's observations on the speeches that I have delivered during the Recess, and previous to it. He is entirely mistaken in saying that the first speech of mine, on which he commented, was delivered after the breaking up of Parliament. It was delivered while Parliament was sitting; and if the noble Lord thought that it incited to violence and disorder, I cannot understand why be put such a restraint upon himself, and did not call the attention of the House to that speech. I can only, in regard to the passage which he has quoted from it, say that it appears to me to be a mere historical retrospect, every word of which is true, and that it might very properly serve, I think, as a warning to the Party opposite. Does the noble Lord object to historical retrospects? Does he mean to say that any man who, at a public meeting, relates the occurrences of 1832 and 1867, is offering incitement to disorder? If he does, then I say that the noble Lord is, as usual, very inconsistent. Speaking on the 19th of December, 1883, at Edinburgh, the noble Lord himself said— Now, in 1832 and 1867, when very large settlements of Reform were effected, there can be no doubt that the unenfranchised classes wanted the franchise very much, and it would have been highly inexpedient, not to say impossible, to have refused it. There was, at that time, intense political excitement all over the country, constant mass meetings, imposing demonstrations, gigantic petitions, considerable disturbances, and dangerous riots. To have refused to enlarge the electoral rolls at those times would have brought about a revolution. Why these are almost my very words. The noble Lord continues— But what have you now? You have no political excitement, no mass meetings, no demonstrations, no petitions, no disturbances, no riots, and for this very good reason—that the existing electoral arrangements, although imperfect and anomalous, do not excite any very general or deep dissatisfaction. I must say I think that such an historical retrospect with a moral of that kind does appear to be an incitement to riot and disorder. But my historical retrospect had a totally different purpose and character. The noble Lord referred to my speeeh at Hanley on the 7th of October, in which I said that the Tories had not held a single open public meeting, except at Darlington where the resolution was carried against them. That is the reason why the Tories do not hold open public meetings. I defy the Tories now to hold an open public meeting in any single town in the country on this question.

MR. ECROYD

I wish to ask, Mr. Speaker, whether I may answer on behalf of my constituents? ["No!" and cries of "Order!"]

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

I say I defy hon. Gentlemen opposite at any open public meeting, held without tickets or conditions, to carry a resolution approving of the action of the House of Lords on the Franchise Bill. The noble Lord referred also to the part of my speech at Hanley in which I said that certain gentlemen were presuming upon the love of order and the hatred of violence on the part of the English people, and in which I spoke of the puny obstacles that would be swept away. I should have liked, if the noble Lord—although, perhaps, it might have lengthened his observations—had quoted the context of that remark, in order that the House might have seen whom the gentlemen I alluded to were, and what were the puny obstacles which I said the resolution, and courage, and love of liberty, and hatred of injustice which are the characteristics of the English people would sweep away. I had been referring to the majority by which the Franchise Bill had been rejected by the House of Lords, and I said that they consisted of 59 Peers; and it was the monstrous pretensions of those 59 persons, who were not representatives in any sense, and who are under no adequate responsibility—it was their monstrous pretensions that I described as puny obstacles which would be swept away, and which I am now certain will be swept away in the course of this agitation. With regard to my speech at Newtown, the noble Lord referred to one or two passages in it, but chiefly to that part which has been already quoted, and which I think was perfectly justified by his own observations at Edinburgh. He also quoted the statements that I laid before the meeting, and the question that I put to them—"If the Lords continued to sneer at orderly manifestations of public feeling, what will you do?" The noble Lord makes me responsible for the interjections of the crowd. Why did he not quote the answer given to that question? He has got the answer that was promptly given on the spot—"Turn them out." My question and my observations had the same meaning, and were directed to the same point as those which were made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister the other day when he warned the Party opposite of the consequences, the inevitable consequences, of pursuing this controversy to the bitter end. There is one part of my speech at Newtown which the noble Lord did not quote, but it has been referred to out-of-doors. Lord Salisbury suggested that I should march to London at the head of my constituents, and expressed a strong opinion that my head would be broken in that case. In answer to that suggestion, I said that I would accept the challenge to head my constituents should they think it right to march upon London, provided that Lord Salisbury would head the column which was to meet them. Now I wish to say that the historical march on London that was projected by my constituents or by the forefathers of my constituents in Birmingham in 1832 was distinctly a peaceful demonstration. The great Political Union always appealed to peaceful and Constitutional means; and that meeting was to have been a demonstration only, not a demonstration of physical force, but a demonstration of the earnestness, the sincerity, and the self-sacrifice of the men who took part in it. And, therefore, in saying that I would head a similar march, I only referred to an equally peaceful demonstration. But some comment has been made on the expression that I would meet Lord Salisbury. Let the House recollect the circumstances in which that challenge was made. Who is Lord Salisbury? He is a man who has served the Crown in the highest Offices; he is the Leader of the Conservative Party, a great Peer, a man who has had a much longer and much wider political experience than I have had; and if he thought that he was justified in making such an insinuation, such a suggestion, as that I should march with my constituents on London, and that I should get my head broken, I confess that I thought I was justified in giving a bantering retort of the same character. But if the House should be of opinion that such an insinuation or suggestion was unworthy of Lord Salisbury, and is deserving of the censure of the House, I, for my part, am perfectly prepared to submit my retort to an exactly equivalent censure. I deny that in my speech at Newtown I incited to violence or disorder. I said, however, that there were two men who had conspicuously done so—namely, the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock and Lord Salisbury. I repeat that statement here, and I should not have much difficulty in proving it. If I repeat it now it is because I am sincerely anxious to repeat the warning which I have endeavoured to give in public speeches. I know that it is difficult to get hon. Gentlemen opposite to see the difference between a warning and a threat. I know that when the Prime Minister the other night spoke of the consequences that would ensue from this agitation if it were continued, hon. Gentlemen opposite called out, "That is a threat." Well, Sir, where my right hon. Friend has failed I confess that I have little hope that I shall succeed. But I say, speaking seriously, and with a sense of my responsibility, that I think I know perhaps more than most men in this House of the opinions on this question of the great masses of my fellow-countrymen. I have been in close communication only recently with very large numbers of those men, and especially with the leaders of the working classes in different parts of the country, and I say that the spirit and the temper which they are showing has filled me with alarm, and that if this controversy is pursued in the rancorous spirit in which it has hitherto been carried on by the noble Lord and by Lord Salisbury—["No!" from the Opposition, and Ministerial cheers]—then I, for one, dread the consequences. Someone cried "No!" when I said that the controversy had been carried on in a rancorous spirit. The noble Lord said to-night that if anyone read his recent speeches—and he called the House to witness his assertion—he would find that there was not one word in them which would not pass the criticism of the Chair. I think, however, that Mr. Speaker would be very much surprised to hear some of the language used by the noble Lord in those speeches of his. I have gone over those speeches lately. It was not a very pleasant task; and I have culled a few of the choice flowers of rhetoric that are to be found in them which I should like to lay before the House. I will take my own case first. The noble Lord has described me as a "pinchbeck Robespierre." Well, I believe Robespierre was, by the common assent of his contemporaries, called the "incorruptible." The historical memory of the noble Lord can furnish him with the names of some persons who were not entitled to that appellation. Then the noble Lord went on to describe my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board as a "renegade democrat," and he spoke of the Home Secretary as using the "language of a bravo with the spirit of a flunkey." He spoke of the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Birmingham as "a plundering cuckoo, animated by the calculating meanness of his sect."

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

That is a mistake in the papers. I said "meekness," not "meanness." It was a misreport.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

I might retort upon the noble Lord, as in his accusation against myself, and say that, by not publicly denying the statement, he has practically accepted the responsibility.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

I did deny it, in a letter which was published ever so long ago.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

The passage which referred to my right hon. Friend is, at length, as follows—it was delivered at Kidlington on January 31 of the present year— Those who read Mr. Charles Villiers's speeches will find that Mr. Bright and his dear friend, Mr. Cobden, were nothing more nor less than two plundering cuckoos, who shamefully ejected Mr. Charles Villiers from the nest which he had constructed, and who reared therein their own chattering and silly brood. He then went on to say— Mr. Bright enjoyed for two years the emolument of a sinecure office. During those two years two bloody wars were waged—the war in Afghanistan and the war in the Transvaal. Very bloody and disgraceful wars they were; but Mr. Bright continued to draw his salary, and he lolled at ease in his sinecure office. He swallowed these bloody wars with the calculating meekness of the sect to which he belongs. Well, Sir, the noble Lord also described the Duke of Argyll and Lord Cowper as the party of "snivel and drivel." He permitted himself to speak of the Prime Minister as an "unkennelled fox." The noble Lord went on to say that he had read my speeches, and had found them "poor stuff." I cannot compete with the noble Lord; but I say that the people of this country are loyal to the Leaders they have chosen, and the great majority of the people when they read such statements are filled first with disgust and then with indignation. If the noble Lord does not moderate the rancour of his tongue he will have himself only to thank for the consequences which follow, and which we, at all events, should all deplore.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Assassination.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

The noble Lord is now going to accuse me of incitement to assassination. Why, Sir, I might as well accuse the noble Lord of incitement to arson and burglary, because he has to-day put the case that his friends in Birmingham could attack my house and pull down my walls. I know his friends will not do anything of the kind, and I do not accuse the noble Lord of any incitement. Do not let him accuse me of anything so absurd and ridiculous in very poor imitation of a charge once brought against Sir Robert Peel by Richard Cobden. This personal abuse to which I have referred is, after all, not so dangerous as the insults which are flung against the people of the country. Personal abuse is taken, after all, by many people in its Pickwickian sense. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Its figurative sense.] Well, in its figurative sense. But I believe that, although Lord Salisbury has done many unwise things in his time, he has never done anything that he will have more cause to regret than when he tauuted the people of this country with their good-humour. [An hon. MEMBER: When? and cries of "Quote!"] When he described the first great important demonstration which took place in connection with this matter in Hyde Park, as "a meeting of Radicals taking wholesome exercise," and said that they were quite entitled to have their holiday in the open air. [Cheers.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite may cheer that sentiment; but I tell them that these scoffs and jeers sink into the hearts of the people. But if Lord Salisbury has been indiscreet, what can be said of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock? The other day, when I referred to his speech at Edinburgh, he contradicted me in the face of the House, because he knew that I had not his actual words before me. I told him I would substantiate that statement, and now I am about to do it. The words I refer to were spoken on the 19th of December, 1883, at Edinburgh, and were as follows:— If I saw the agricultural labourers of Great Britain in a great state of excitement"—

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Hear, hear! Agricultural labourers.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

— The agricultural labourers of Great Britain in a great state of excitement over this question; if I saw them holding mass meetings, collecting together from all parts, neglecting their work, contributing from their scanty funds, marching on London, tearing down the railings of Hyde Park, engaging the police, and even the military, I should say to myself these men have great and bitter grievances which have not been represented in Parliament, or have been neglected by Parliament; they know that if they had the franchise those grievances would no longer be neglected, that they would be represented and remedied; and they have made up their minds to have the vote. The fact that they have made up their minds to have the vote shows pretty well that they will know how to use the vote, and if we wish for peace, order, and stability in the realm of Britain we had better give them the vote. And on those grounds, and on those grounds only, would I consent to equalize the political position of the agricultural labourer and the town artizan, and to destroy a wise inequality which has been created by Nature and reiterated from time to time in our history by precedent, custom, and law. I say that was the most dangerous of all the speeches made in the course of this discussion. I say that is a speech which directly incites to violence and outrage. It is a speech which directly points the moral that without violence, without outrage, no redress can ever be secured. Now, I say, in conclusion, while I earnestly trust and hope that this agitation will maintain the character which it has hitherto, speaking generally, so honourably borne, if it should lose that character, the responsibility will lie on the shoulders of men who think themselves justified in insulting the people, in taunting them with the orderly character of the demonstrations which they have made, and who think it safe to call for "great and violent pressure," and to avow their absolute disbelief in the earnestness or the reality of any political agitation which is not supported by the exhibition of physical force.

MR. P. A. MUNTZ

said, he thought hon. Members would realize that it was an extremely disagreeable circumstance to him that he should, on the first occasion on which he rose to address the House, have to devote the observations he should make to the purpose of impugning the conduct and character of a right hon. Gentleman, a Member of that House; but he had a duty to perform to his constituents and the country, and therefore he had risen to answer the eloquent speech of the President of the Board of Trade. He (Mr. Muntz) had always heard that the right hon. Gentleman had a great reputation for audacity, and a doubtful one for accuracy; but he could not have conceived that any man could have had the amount of audacity which the President of the Board of Trade must be possessed of to have made the speech he had delivered that evening. It had fairly surprised him. A few days ago, the right hon. Gentleman, in answer to a Question, said that, if his information was correct, the only persons who had been guilty of disgraceful conduct at Aston Park were the roughs hired as "chuckers-out" by the Tory Party. Knowing, as he did, the facts of the case, and being cognizant of the action of the Liberal Association at Birmingham, that statement of the President of the Board of Trade had filled him with amazement. The original idea of the organization of the demonstrations which took place early in the autumn was accredited to the President of the Board of Trade and the members of the Caucus. It might, indeed, have received some assistance from the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. It was imagined that the Conservative Party had no idea or power of organizing political demonstrations, and that a great influence would be exercised by the agitation thus originated by the President of the Board of Trade. The Conservative Party, however, wisely determined upon a counter-agitation, which had been a great success. It had gathered volume until it culminated in the triumphant reception of Lord Salisbury at Glasgow. The result of that was, that a great fear fell upon the President of the Board of Trade and the Caucus, and a council of war was held. They realized that the coming demonstration in Aston Lower Grounds would be a very great success, and that unless steps were taken to prevent so large a meeting it would probably number some 200,000 people. The right hon. Gentleman had told them that there were no Conservatives in Birmingham or neighbourhood; but he (Mr. Muntz) was a standing witness in contradiction of that statement. He maintained that he was accurate in the number of Conservatives present at the Aston Lower Grounds. As a matter of fact, there were at the meeting 120,000 Conservatives, notwithstanding the dishonest practices of the right hon. Gentleman and the Caucus.

SIR CHARLES W. DILKE

I rise to Order, Sir. I wish to know whether the hon. Member is in Order in imputing dishonest practices to a Member of this House?

MR. SPEAKER

I did not catch the exact expression to which the right hon. Gentleman alludes; but, undoubtedly, it would be an improper and un-Parliamentary expression. If the hon. Member used it, he will, no doubt, withdraw it.

MR. P. A. MUNTZ

said, he would bow to the right hon. Gentleman's ruling, and withdraw the words "dishonest practices," substituting for them the words "irregular practices." A greater insult was never offered to the working men of Birmingham than that contained in the statement that they originated the disturbance in Aston Lower Grounds. He (Mr. Muntz) maintained that they would have listened with the greatest possible pleasure, respect, and attention to the Leader of the Opposition, if they had been allowed to do so. The violent conduct which was seen was the result of the council of war to which he had already referred, at which a determination was come to to raise a fund for the purpose of carrying out demonstration by violence. In fact, a leading member of the Liberal Party in Birmingham told him that he had been asked to subscribe to the fund, and that he had declined to subscribe to anything so disreputable. Beyond that, he (Mr. Muntz) knew a good many of the artizans of Birmingham personally, and one, a man of the highest respectability, whom he had known for 30 years—a Liberal of the old school, and not of the type of the President of the Board of Trade—told him that he went to hear the Leader of the Opposition, and that he had been a witness of the proceedings, and that he was able to state, from his own observation, that the demonstration was interfered with, not by the working men of Birmingham, but by roughs hired for the purpose, who, from the method of their operations, must have been carrying out a preconcerted plan. He said that, as he was standing at a little distance from the boundary wall inside Aston Lower Grounds, he saw a number of men come up in a body and heard some of the leaders say—"We are not in the right place; we ought to be 60 or 70 yards lower down," and they moved lower down. Immediately, a man, respectably dressed—perhaps he was a colleague of the President of the Board of Trade—appeared on the wall and was joined by another, and they began helping the men outside over the wall. That proved that the entrance into Aston Lower Grounds by storming the walls was planned beforehand. A friend of his, who was fond of athletic exercises and well acquainted with the better class of pugilists in Birmingham, told him that he saw a man whom he knew to be one of the low hangers-on of the pugilistic element at- tacking the platform and doing other damage. The right hon. Gentleman said that no damage had been done; but if he had received one-half the amount of injury that was sustained by some of the poor women and children who were present, he would be of a different opinion. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that he had no influence or power at Birmingham; but he forgot what he had stated previously, and shortly after offered to guarantee the Leader of the Opposition a favourable reception at Birmingham if he placed himself under his direction. The fact was, that this vicious and violent outrage upon life and property was perpetrated by men instructed by the Caucus, and that Caucus was nothing more than the right hon. Gentleman, and dared not lift a finger without his knowledge and assent. The vast majority of his countrymen had a strong opinion of the political dishonesty of the right hon. Gentleman. [Cries of "Withdraw!"] Well, then, he would say of his political action. The right hon. Gentleman was a declared Republican, and yet he had accepted Office in the present Administration as a Minister of the Crown; and while a Minister of the Crown and servant of the Constitution, he attacked that Constitution on every occasion, and in every conceivable way. Such conduct did not commend itself to the minds of his countrymen; but let him settle that with his own conscience. They were all ready to give the right hon. Gentleman credit for a certain amount of shrewdness; but what were they to say of a man who had shown his imbecility by organizing this outrage, which the right hon. Gentleman would probably discover at the next General Election had done more harm to the Liberals and more good to the Conservatives than all the meetings that had been held during the Recess? Two days after this action of the right hon. Gentleman in the Aston Lower Grounds, he (Mr. Muntz) was in a colliery district of his constituency; and he would challenge the right hon. Gentleman to hold a meeting in that district. He would not dare to do so to save his life. Had his (Mr. Muntz's) mind been framed on anything like the lines of the right hon. Gentleman's, he might have accepted an offer voluntarily made to him by a man who had great influence over the colliers, and who said to him—"If you want a few thousand men I will send them down." The right hon. Gentleman talked of marching on London with 100,000 men. He (Mr. Muntz), if his mind were of the same type as that of the right hon. Gentleman, would not trouble him to do that—he could meet him with much pleasure on his favourite battle-field in Aston Lower Grounds with any number of men he liked to name, and they could settle the business there. But that threat of the right hon. Gentleman was nothing but a swashbuckler declaration. To say that the working men of this country were all Radicals was rubbish. There were two challenges which he would give the right hon. Gentleman. In the first place, he would like to hear him emphatically declare that he had no knowledge of this disturbance—and it was very strange if he had not, seeing that many of the old respectable members of the Liberal Party left Birmingham a few days beforehand, rather than be mixed up in it; and then he would challenge the right hon. Gentleman to move for a Select Committee to inquire into the whole transaction, and have all the evidence that could be produced on the subject. Let the right hon. Gentleman clear himself in that way.

MR. ERNEST NOEL

said, the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), when speaking the other night with regard to what took place recently at Dumfries, said it was one of the most dastardly outrages that had ever happened. [Cries of "Question!"]

SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

asked whether the hon. Member was in Order in referring to the riot at Dumfries?

MR. SPEAKER

said, the hon. Member would not be in Order in going fully into the Dumfries riot; but he might refer to it by way of illustration.

MR. ERNEST NOEL

said, he regretted very much the occurrence at Dumfries, which was analogous to what took place at Aston. [Cries of "Order!"]

MR. GREGORY

rose to Order, and pointed out that the hon. Member was again speaking of the Dumfries riot.

MR. SPEAKER

said, the hon. Member could not be permitted to go fully into the case at Dumfries on the Amendment before the House.

MR. ERNEST NOEL

said, that if the Conservatives thought that what took place at Aston might be repeated in every constituency in the country, he feared they had before them a time of very serious injury. There seemed to be reason to apprehend that measures had been resorted to for the permament production of scenes of disorder and violence by the Conservative Party. The disturbances at Dumfries and Aston were in complete analogy; and he learned that similar scenes were to be looked for in other parts of the country, to the very grievous injury of the State at large. What occurred at Aston provoked riot elsewhere. At the proper time he would show that in what took place at Dumfries the provocation was much greater and the riot considerably less, though it was still very much to be regretted.

MR. CHAPLIN

said, the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade commenced his observations by defending the Birmingham Corporation, and he was absolutely silent with regard to the charges brought against himself. The right hon. Gentleman said he thought it necessary to reply at once to the charges against the Corporation, because, if they were left unanswered, they might be injurious to local government. Hon. Members knew that the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister of the Crown; and, if those charges left unanswered were calculated to injure local government, it must be far more injurious to the Imperial Government to leave unanswered charges directed against a Minister. He (Mr. Chaplin) must, however, be allowed to say that he was greatly surprised that, even on the Ministerial side of the House, the smallest attempt should be made to vindicate or defend proceedings which had doubtless met with the reprobation of all classes throughout the country. As to the time occupied in the debate, in all probability if the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had replied to the charges against him when they were first made, the discussion would not now have taken place. ["Oh, oh!"] If the original charges were not in the Notice of Motion of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), they were in his speech. The noble Lord said that the Conservative Party at Birmingham had, in their possession, distinct evidence of preparation for these riots by their opponents; they had evidence as to the tickets used by the Liberals, that ladders had been provided and introduced into the grounds, to storm the building in which the Conservatives were to assemble, and that gangs of roughs had been organized by the Caucus. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade must have been aware that there was a probability of those riots occurring when the right hon. Baronet the Leader of the Opposition was to visit Birmingham, and he might have done something to prevent the disturbance which occurred; but he had admitted that he did absolutely nothing to prevent them. And what was his excuse? Want of influence in Birmingham? Nothing of the sort. He said he could not have stopped the counter-demonstration, if he would, and he would not, if he could. But yet, later on in his speech, he expressed the hope that the Leader of the Opposition would overlook what had occurred, and stated that, if the right hon. Baronet would come to another meeting at Birmingham, he, who informed the House that he had no influence whatever in that town, and could not have stopped the riots, would guarantee that there should be a free and open meeting. His words were— If you come to another meeting in that town I will stand by your side, and you shall have a fair hearing. As to the depositions produced by the right hon. Gentleman, it was said that they were not in a form on which a prosecution for perjury could be instituted. But, at all events, they, one and all, had been procured for the purpose of this debate. They were all dated the 27th and 28th of October, and had been got since the Notice of his noble Friend had been given. The right hon. Gentleman told them, with apparently great satisfaction, that, in the great majority of cases, these depositions had been made by gentlemen whom he termed "roughs." The House would do well to wait until they had heard the other side on that question. There could be no doubt—for against all that they had the knowledge, which was the public knowledge of the world, which was stated at the time in papers of all shades of public opinion—that there never was a question or a doubt but that this was an organized riot, and that it was deliberately arranged for the purpose of breaking up the meeting of the Con- servative Party. If what the President of the Board of Trade now said was true, why was not the contradiction given before? The right hon. Gentleman was the only Member of the Liberal Party who had had the courage to give it. He vindicated his own speeches with respect to the House of Lords, while he abstained from a condemnation of the proceedings at Birmingham. As to the speech of Lord Salisbury that had been referred to, in which he spoke of the right hon. Gentleman's head being broken on the occasion of a certain march, it ought to be remembered that the noble Marquess had placed upon it a totally different construction from that of the right hon. Gentleman. No portion of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was received with more satisfaction on the Treasury Bench, than that in which he lectured the noble Lord upon his flowers of rhetoric; and that was, probably, because Ministers had felt the lash of his tongue and had something for which they wished to be revenged. When the right hon. Gentleman referred to the noble Lord's attack on the Secretary of State for the Home Department, it was refreshing to see the scion of the house of Vernon receive that vindication from the President of the Board of Trade. But what of the speeches the right hon. Gentleman himself had made? He should like the House to consider some portions of those made by the right hon. Gentleman during the Recess. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the House of Lords in a most hostile manner. He said of it— It is a stronghold of Toryism, prejudice, and Tory obstruction. During the last 100 years, it has never contributed one iota to popular liberty, or ever done anything to advance the common weal. That was a strong statement to be made by a Minister of the Crown, especially of the present House of Lords and of the Leader of the Opposition in that House. He supposed Lord Salisbury was a Member of that House, and he would remind hon. Gentlemen that the Royal Commission which had been appointed to inquire into the condition of the dwellings of the poor, and from which he hoped much good would result, had been moved for by Lord Salisbury in the House of Lords. [Cries of "Broad-hurst!"] He always thought that Commission was moved for by Lord Salisbury in the Upper House, and not by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stoke in the House of Commons. The day would come when the right hon. Gentleman would regret that he had spoken with such violence as he had done of the House of Lords. They would have to go to a Division soon, and having heard the accusation and the defence, he had no doubt as to the vote he should give on this occasion. From first to last it had been apparent to him that the President of the Board of Trade, throughout the whole of these proceedings, and in all his speeches during the Recess, had been animated by one object, and one alone—not to stop this controversy, not to settle this question, but to raise up a feeling of discontent and violence in the country, with the view of inflicting, as in his own conscience he hoped would be the case, irreparable injury, in which he (Mr. Chaplin) was certain he would fail, on the House of Lords as one of the Institutions of this country.

MR. FIRTH

said, he scarcely thought that the noble Lord opposite (Lord Randolph Churchill) could be congratulated upon the success which had attended his efforts in badger-drawing. If it were justifiable to compare his right hon. Friend to one of the lower order of creation, perhaps a more representative animal could not have been selected. An eminent naturalist had said of the badger that it was an inoffensive animal—[Laughter]—provided by nature for its own defence with very powerful claws—[Renewed laughter]—for its own defence, which latter peculiarity had been discovered by intrusive terriers before to-day. It had struck him as extraordinary that the Tories should have posed before the country, since the Aston disturbance, as champions of peace and order and vindicators of the right of public meeting. He (Mr. Firth) had had some experience of Tory methods on these very points, and he supposed that he had faced as many hired Tory roughs as anybody in the House or out of it. ["Oh, oh!" and laughter.] He was prepared for objections to this statement of fact, and he had, therefore, taken the precaution of preparing himself with sufficient evidence, which he could lay before the House if it was necessary. For a recent public meeting held by the Municipal Reform League forged tickets to the extent of 20,000 were issued by the opponents of Reform, and these were widely circulated by Conservative Associations in London. ["Order!" and "Question!"]

MR. SPEAKER

said, the hon. and learned Member would be in Order only in referring to this case by way of illustration.

MR. FIRTH

said, that he would only make the general observation that, upon the facts of the case being brought under their notice, the Central Conservative Association declined to take any action in the matter. They had had many meetings throughout London, at which there had been organized Tory opposition, and therefore he was surprised to find the Conservative Party posing as the champions of public order. He had in his possession the statutory declaration of a man who had been employed by the secretary of a Conservative Association, of which the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) was president, to get together a number of men to break up a meeting of his constituents at Kensington. He considered the speech of his right hon. Friend a satisfactory answer to the charges of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock as regarded what took place at Aston; indeed, he had scarcely hoped that his right hon. Friend would have been able to make so complete a defence. He had not thought the riot was much to be wondered at, when in the papers of Monday there appeared the report of a violent speech of Lord Salisbury's, in which reference was made to the breaking of the President of the Board of Trade's head. What did that mean? Whatever it meant, it was not to be wondered at if the 20,000 men thought it meant a little more than the noble Marquess intended; and it had seemed to him only a natural corollary of that speech that the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock—worthy follower of a worthy Chieftain — should be tearing through the bushes at Aston, at night, to save his own head. The Caucus had been referred to; and although the Associations in his (Mr. Firth's) own borough were not connected with the Birmingham Association, he would urge that the so-called Caucus only embodied the representative principle, and in objecting to the Caucus, hon. Gentlemen opposite were objecting to that principle.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, he wished to briefly refer to a paragraph from a proclamation issued by the "Franchise Demonstration Committee" of Birmingham, to which he believed the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chamberlain) was only now a contributor, but about which the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings) would be able to give information firsthand. That paragraph, after a reference to Lord Salisbury, went on to say—"Another Tory, the Right Hon. James Lowther, describes you who are going to take part in it 'as a horde of ruffians.'" The hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), speaking last summer at St. James's Hall, had also accused him of using a similar expression with reference to the participators in the Hyde Park Demonstration, though the hon. Baronet had subsequently assured him that he had been misled by an erroneous report of what he (Mr. Lowther) had really said, and had expressed very frankly his regret at having been so misled. In the whole course of his public life he had never had to retract anything. He therefore tried to discover whether he had ever described the "men of Birmingham and the Midlands," to whom the placard was addressed, as a "horde of ruffians." Well, it happened that he made a speech at Huddersfield, a few days after the August Bank Holiday, in which he had referred to the speech made at Birmingham by the President of the Board of Trade. The right hon. Gentleman had mentioned the project of a march of 100,000 men to London at the time of the first Reform Bill, and the riots which took place at Nottingham, Bristol, and other places. He had said that he had never retracted anything that he had ever said, but he had, however, written to The Times to qualify his statement by saying that he should apply to such violent attempts to intimidate the Legislature language much stronger than the mild and wholly inadequate terms which had been quoted from him in the placard to which he had referred. He distinctly applied the words which had been quoted to any persons who were capable of accepting the advice offered to them as to marching to London. [Mr. MUNDELLA: Nobody ever did give them that advice.] The right hon. Gentleman opposite the Vice President of the Council evidently had not heard him when he read his statement to the effect that he addressd these remarks to the persons who were capable of acting on the suggestion of the President of the Board of Trade in reference to marching upon London. [Mr. GLADSTONE: There was no such suggestion.] With regard to the chair-breakers of Birmingham, who, he was bound to say, by their course of procedure had evinced a practial interest in the redistribution of seats that might be advantageously imitated by the Members of the Government, it would be unfair to look upon such persons as being fair representatives of the masses of the population of this country any more than it would be to regard the handful of hon. Members who habitually interrupted the debates of the House of Commons by discourteous and disorderly sounds as representing the House at large. He should not have referred in detail to that episode, but for the circumstance that the President of the Board of Trade had mentioned the placard; and, moreover, the right hon. Gentleman had asserted that the men of Birmingham were called upon to resent the insults which had been flung at them by his noble Friend below the Gangway (Lord Randolph Churchill) and by others—apparently among the others involving himself (Mr. J. Lowther), although he had, months ago, in the most public manner, repudiated the construction placed upon his language. He was perfectly prepared to leave the issue of this controversy on the statement of his noble Friend the Member for Woodstock and the explanation attempted by the right hon. Gentleman; and, as far as the debate was concerned, he thought the House would arrive at the conclusion that the intolerant spirit which evinced itself even now among hon. Gentlemen opposite was only an instance of the determination on the part of the Liberal Party, in every conceivable manner, to suppress freedom of speech in that House and out of it, and to detract as far as possible from the right of public meeting in this country.

VISCOUNT NEWPORT

said, he wished to mention a small incident in reference to the hiring of roughs. He lived in the parish of Aston, close by Birmingham, and he was prevented from going to the meeting to hear the speeches of the right hon. Baronet the Leader of the Opposition and of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock; but, on returning home, a week afterwards, he happened to be talking to his gardener, who informed him that he had attended the meeting at Aston, and had found himself in the midst of the roughs, and had narrowly escaped having his head broken by a chair. The gardener stated that, finding himself close to a man who appeared to be one of the ringleaders of the disturbance, he said to him—"This is a disgraceful thing that you are doing." The man replied—"It is, and I have had about enough of it; but I have had 2s. given to me for the job, and so I am obliged to do it." And he added—"There are 70 others here who have had 2s. apiece given to them to smash up this meeting." [Cries of "Name!"] This was a plain unvarnished fact, which told its own tale, and he had felt it his duty to state it to the House. [Laughter.] His informant was an unimaginative man, who had been with him for several years, and upon whose veracity he could place the most implicit reliance. He had also heard that a fortnight before these occurrences, the Liberals were getting up an organized opposition to the meeting, and that Messrs. Tangye were at the bottom of it. In conclusion, he thanked the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) for ventilating this subject, and, in supporting his Amendment, he did so because he believed he was thereby expressing the feeling of all his neighbours who had the good name of the town at heart, and helping to prevent the recurrence of what respectable men of either Party could not fail to consider a scandal and a disgrace.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, that hon. Members opposite laughed when his noble Friend (Viscount Newport) adduced testimony to show that individuals were hired to break up the meeting. ["By whom were they hired?"] By the Liberals. ["No, no!"] But he failed to see why this testimony was of less value than that which had been so freely produced on the other side. For his part, he should like to have some thorough examination into the value of the evidence which the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade brought forward to show that roughs had been hired by the Tories to assault Liberals. The men who had sworn that they were hired by the Conservatives swore to the fact that they were guilty of a criminal offence. He should like to know what bribe was offered to them to take such an oath. Not, he supposed, a disinterested love of virtue. Yet, if the evidence was bought, what was it value? He wished to know whether it was credible, as stated by the right hon. Gentleman, that the roughs alleged to have been hired to assault the Liberals at this meeting, should have been allowed to wear the insignia of stewards? The right hon. Gentleman, at the commencement of his speech, had made an elaborate profession of respect towards the right hon. Baronet the Leader of the Conservative Party in that House, and he had told the right hon. Baronet that if he would come down to Birmingham alone, he (Mr. Chamberlain) would guarantee him a quiet meeting; yet, in the same speech, the right hon. Gentleman had said that he had no longer any influence in the councils of the Liberal Party at Birmingham which could be used to prevent them from committing outrages. But if the right hon. Gentleman possessed sufficient influence to enable him to guarantee a quiet meeting to the right hon. Baronet, why had he not exercised that influence to prevent the outrages which had occurred at Aston Park?

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

said, he denied that he had spoken of a Conservative meeting. What he had said was, that it was impossible to guarantee that an open meeting in Birmingham would not, in the main, be Liberal, but that he had such confidence in the good feeling of the majority of the people of Birmingham, that he was sure that they would do their best to secure a quiet and orderly meeting for a politician so highly respected as the right hon. Baronet.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

felt bound to remark that the respect professed for the right hon. Baronet by the members of the Liberal Party was shown at Aston in a very singular shape. But if the right hon. Gentleman did exercise such great influence in Birmingham as he boasted—and his speech plainly showed that that influence over the populace was so great that he could have a quiet meeting whenever he pleased—why had he not used it to prevent the recent riots? He would now turn from the special controversy connected with the Birmingham riots, which, in his opinion, had occupied far too large a proportion of the debate, to the more general question of the Ministerial language used in the Recess. He (Mr. A. J. Balfour) did not wish to dwell upon the attacks which had been made upon the private and personal character of Members of the House of Lords further than to say that so far as he had observed they consisted in about equal measure of bad history, bad logic, and bad taste. For his own part, he did not know that the personal character of the Members of that House, as a whole, was much better than that of the Members of the House of Lords. Hon. Members had, as a rule, little claim to distinction except such as flowed from their having secured the favour of not too fastidious constituencies, and had obediently followed their Party Whips into the Lobby. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to think that he was in no way bound to condemn what had taken place in Birmingham. He (Mr. A. J. Balfour) wished, however, to remind the right hon. Gentleman that in some cases not to blame was to praise, and not to declare an act wrong was to allow it by implication to be right. The right hon. Gentleman was perfectly well aware that his speech at Hanley was liable to be regarded as an incitement to rioting. Notwithstanding that fact, however, the right hon. Gentleman had never uttered one word in condemnation of the outrages which had naturally resulted from his speech, and which had disgraced his native town. The taunt of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to public meetings amounted to this—that although it was admitted that even in Birmingham there were sufficient Tories to fill a public hall, the Tories were not sufficiently dexterous to fill a hall before their opponents could fill it. The right hon. Gentleman, in whose borough the outrage had occurred, was bound, as a Minister of the Crown, to condemn it on pain of being regarded as a party to it. Unless a Cabinet Minister, in no ambiguous language, denounced outrages which were alleged, with every appearance of probability, to have been the outcome of his utterances, judgment must go by default. The right hon. Gentleman, in an impressive peroration, had told the House that he had received communications from working men in all parts of the country which had filled him with alarm; and the right hon. Gentleman added that he knew more about public opinion in this country than any other Member in that House. If popular feeling was so excited as the right hon. Gentleman represented, what did the Prime Minister think of a Colleague who did his best to fan that feeling into a dangerous flame? He wished to know what, in such circumstances, was the duty of a Minister of the Crown? Was it to moderate the feelings of the people, or to excite them? The right hon. Gentleman had used language which incited the people to disorderly agitation. He would guarantee that, if the right hon. Gentleman would place his case before a lawyer in Ireland, he would be told that if he made speeches in the Sister Island similar to those he had made in this country, he would have to sleep on a plank bed, and live on prison cocoa. Then the right hon. Gentleman made a perfectly gratuitous attack on Lord Salisbury. [Laughter.] When he said gratuitous, he meant an attack not germane to the question. He thought the right hon. Gentleman would have done better to ask Lord Granville to deal with Lord Salisbury in a place where the latter could answer for himself. The first thing which the right hon. Gentleman had complained of in Lord Salisbury was a prophecy that, under certain contingencies, he (Mr. Chamberlain) would have his head broken. But it must be recollected that Lord Salisbury's statement was made after the right hon. Gentleman had threatened to march to London at the head of 100,000 of his fellow-citizens. Those who led military enterprizes must expect, of course, to undergo the chances of war; and he had no doubt the right hon. Gentleman would not shrink from the ordeal. Then they were told that Lord Salisbury had sneered at the people, because he had said that many of those who attended the demonstration in Hyde Park had done so merely to enjoy an outing. If the right hon. Gentleman thought that an incentive to outrage, how came he to regard the inflammatory placard, to which his noble Friend had alluded, as a piece of harmless chaff? Again, it had been alleged that Lord Salisbury once said that he did not observe any violent signs of public feeling; but was it fair to interpret that as meaning physical violence? The right hon. Gentleman was trying to bring violent pressure on the House of Lords. Did that mean that he was going to break Tory windows and fire Tory rickyards? [Mr. GLADSTONE here rose to express his dissent.] He was not referring to the Prime Minister at all, but to the President of the Board of Trade. The complaint that had been made against the right hon. Gentleman was not based on Party grounds, neither did he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) complain of the violence that had been used at Party meetings such as this at Aston. His belief was that the Conservative Party gained enormously by every act of outrage and violence committed by the opposite side. [Cheers and laughter.] What they did not gain was the cause of Constitutional freedom. More and more questions were being debated, not merely in that House or in the Press, but in the very presence of the constituencies. But if the only arguments that were to pass current there were to consist of noise and outrage, if the most successful politician was to be he who could break up most meetings, government by free discussion would become impossible, and our public life would become hopelessly degraded.

SIR CHARLES W. DILKE and Mr. JESSE COLLINGS

rose together, when—

MR. SPEAKER

called on

SIR CHARLES W. DILKE

, who said, that, in his opinion, his right hon. Friend (Mr. Chamberlain) had completely crushed all vitality out of the case presented by the noble Lord opposite (Lord Randolph Churchill), and that the only speech made since the speech of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Chamberlain) which had contributed anything whatever towards the evidence in the possession of the House, was the maiden speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Muntz). [Laughter.] Of course, he did not refer to the senior Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate), whose speeches they had often listened to with pleasure. Although the speech to which he had referred was a maiden speech, he feared he could not use the ordinary language of commendation with regard to it, seeing that the hon. Gentleman, during its delivery, had been twice called to Order, and ordered to withdraw expressions contained in it. The hon. Member had, however, made a distinct allegation bearing on the case before the House. He said he had recently met a leading Liberal in Birmingham, who had told him that he had been asked to contribute to a fund collected for the purpose of a demonstration by violence. He had at once been asked to give the name of that gentleman. The hon. Member, however, had declined to give the name, and he (Sir Charles W. Dilke) was unable to treat that statement as deserving of the careful attention of the House, unless the hon. Member were willing to give the name.

MR. P. A. MUNTZ

said, he had given the President of the Board of Trade the opportunity of moving for a Committee to inquire into these matters. In fact, he challenged him now to move for one, when he should be glad to substantiate what he had said.

SIR CHARLES W. DILKE

, continuing, said, that the hon. Member, in the course of his observations, had endeavoured to connect his right hon. Friend with these disturbances by accusing him of entertaining at that time the Liberal Association at dinner at his house.

MR. P. A. MUNTZ

said, he had referred to the dinner party, so as to show that the President of the Board of Trade was in Birmingham at the time and knew of what was taking place.

SIR CHARLES W. DILKE

said, he hardly thought that the House would wish him to pursue the question of what gentlemen partook of the President of the Board of Trade's hospitality. The hon. Member, by way of connecting his right hon. Friend with the riot, said that he was at the time in Birmingham. But that was no more ground for connecting the President of the Board of Trade with the Aston Grounds riot than the fact that the Lord Mayor was at the Mansion House made him responsible for the violence at Liberal meetings at Chelsea. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire produced another witness. He said that he had met a Birmingham artizan who was a Liberal, and who expressed indignation at the conduct of the roughs employed. The hon. Member did not say whether it was the Tory roughs; but it must have been, for it had been shown that no roughs were employed by the Liberal Party, and it had been conclusively shown that the Tory Party did employ roughs. The hon. Gentlemen the Members for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) and Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) had argued that the President of the Board of Trade had admitted his influence in Birmingham when he stated that he would do his best to secure the right hon. Baronet (Sir Stafford Northcote) a quiet hearing. But the President of the Board of Trade also said that the right hon. Baronet's character and the general moderation of his language entitled him to a respectful hearing from any audience. The hon. Member said the Birmingham people had shown their respect in a singular manner. But it must be remembered that the right hon. Gentleman on this occasion was not alone, and when respectable men were in bad company, they sometimes must not express surprise at what might happen to them on those occasions. He would illustrate the difficulty of getting a quiet hearing for certain persons. On one occasion, Lord Salisbury made a speech in Chelsea—at Lillie Bridge. It was a memorable speech. He (Sir Charles W. Dilke), his Colleague, and the Liberal Association tried to obtain a perfectly quiet hearing for Lord Salisbury. He was quite sure if the noble Lord asked the Conservative candidate for Chelsea, Sir Algernon Borthwick, he would confirm this.

LORD CLAUD HAMILTON

I absolutely contradict it. I was present as Chairman. ["Order!"] I only rise for the purpose of contradicting the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. Lord Salisbury, throughout the whole of his speech, was persistently interrupted by a gang of Liberals, led by a gentleman ordinarily called a fugleman. The moment Lord Salisbury had finished, these interrupters left the meeting.

SIR CHARLES W. DILKE

said, the observations of the noble Lord were no contradiction of what he (Sir Charles W. Dilke) had said or was going to say. Though this was the fate of the Marquess of Salisbury, he felt sure that the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) would have received a quiet hearing. But, in spite of the efforts of the Liberal Leaders, they could not secure a quiet hearing for the Marquess of Salisbury. It had been said the Birmingham Liberal Association was to all intents the President of the Board of Trade himself. Now, his right hon. Friend was far less connected with the Liberal Association of Birmingham than he (Sir Charles W. Dilke) himself was connected with the Liberal Association of his own borough. ["Question!"] That was the question. Hon. Gentlemen opposite did not understand the working of Representative Liberal Associations. In his own borough he always attended the meetings at which the members of the Council of the Liberal Association were elected, and they were meetings to which every Liberal in the borough was invited to come. At such meetings the Council was elected, and he always made it a rule to be present. But his right hon. Friend never attended the meetings of a similar description which were held in Birmingham. He could assure the House that he had on several occasions tried to exercise some control in his own Association with regard to such matters as meetings; but he had long since given up the attempt, because Associations of this kind, openly and freely elected, resented such interference, on the ground that they were accustomed and competent to conduct their own affairs. The hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) went on to censure his right hon. Friend for having made a gratuitous attack upon the Marquess of Salisbury. He wished to tell the hon. Member that, in his opinion, there was no such thing as a gratuitous attack on the Marquess of Salisbury, because the Marquess of Salisbury, by his extraordinary violence of language, invited all the attacks which he had received. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) began his speech that evening by making his main point hang on the speech which his right hon. Friend made on the Bank Holiday in August in Birmingham. That speech was itself a reply called forth by the previous speech of the Marquess of Salisbury. In his speech at Lillie Bridge, the Marquess of Salisbury used these words—"There is no great and violent public pressure." His right hon. Friend gave a temperate warning to the House of Lords, founded on that sentence of the Marquess of Salisbury, and in reply to the statement that there was no evidence of "great and violent public pressure." The right hon. Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. J. Lowther) also referred to that speech, and his explanation of the phrase "horde of ruffians" scarcely made the matter one bit better, but rather, as it seemed to him, a great deal worse. The noble Viscount the Member for North Shropshire (Viscount Newport) had stated that, in the knowledge of his gardener, 70 roughs had been employed on the Liberal side at the meeting at Birmingham. It was desirable, however, to have other evidence than merely second-hand statements of that kind. It would be much more satisfactory to have some of those persons produced, or, at least, their names given up. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) had had a long time to get up his case, and was it not likely that some evidence in support of it would have been forthcoming if it could have been produced? He (Sir Charles W. Dilke) was Chairman of the meeting at Kensington in May last, which was disturbed by hired Conservative roughs. ["Name!"] That was exactly what he was asking hon. Gentlemen opposite to do. His Colleague bad already stated that evening the names of the persons and the name of the Association by whom the roughs were paid. They were told that some day or other the names of these persons would be produced; but a long time had elapsed, and the matter had been referred to over and over again at Question time. The noble Lord had now had a long time to get up his case, and the attack had at length been made that night. It had, however, entirely failed; it had more than failed; it had proved to be an absurd fiasco, and the House was now promised that some day or other evidence would be produced which ought to have been there that night. The hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) said that what had occurred at Birmingham was only a small part of the question. But it was a very large part of the question a few days ago. By anticipation they had been been told that it was the whole question to be discussed that evening; but now it was said to be only a small part of the matter. In the opinion of the Liberal Members it was a small part of the matter in one sense of those words, because the action of hired persons to break up those meetings, which had been conclusively proved by his right hon. Friend to have come from the other side, was part of a system which had prevailed throughout the country, and which could not be too soon or too conclusively proved to exist, in order that it might cease to exist for the future. It was essential that this should be so, if the free rights of public meetings were to continue to exist in this country. It was the Liberals who would be most affected, because they were always able to bring together the largest number of persons at their meetings. ["No!"] That was a fact so well known that it could not be disputed, and they were therefore most interested in observing the free right of public meeting. Liberals had had evidence, over and over again, of the hiring of persons to attend meetings, and this was a practice absolutely tending to the destruction of the freedom of public meeting. On this occasion, when it had been brought against Liberals as a charge, that charge had broken down, and not a single case had been proved against them. On the contrary, the charge had recoiled against those who made it. He had nothing more to say on this occasion except that he, for one, was glad that the noble Lord had brought this matter before the notice of the House. He should be disposed to doubt whether the noble Lord was quite as glad as he professed to be. No doubt, the noble Lord had been pleased with his speech; but he certainly seemed much less pleased while listening to the reply of the President of the Board of Trade. At all events, they on that (the Ministerial) side of the House had no reason to complain of, or to be dissatisfied with, the manner in which the matter had been gone into that night; and if the Motion were pressed to a Division, he could not but think the House would, by a large majority, vindicate the course which had been taken by his right hon. Friend and the Government.

SIR HARDINGE GIFFARD

said, he wished to apologize to the President of the Board of Trade for the interruption he had made in the course of the right hon. Gentleman's speech; but he had thought it important that the House should ascertain the nature of the documents he was referring to. The right hon. Gentleman had described them as depositions, and to his (Sir Hardinge Giffard's) great surprise had read the names of the Commissioners appended to them. They had evidently been drawn up by a lawyer, from the phrases used in them, and they must have been drawn up in such a form deliberately, so that the persons making the statements would be responsible to no tribunal for the truth of what the documents contained.

An hon. MEMBER: They were sworn.

SIR HARDINGE GIFFARD

said, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council would forgive him for saying that he, at any rate, had not undergone that over-pressure on the brain which was alleged to take place in some of the elementary schools.

MR. MUNDELLA

The hon. and learned Member is labouring under a misapprehension. I did not make a remark at all.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

The documents were sworn.

SIR HARDINGE GIFFARD

said, he was afraid the right hon. Gentleman did not know what the meaning of swearing in a judicial proceeding was.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

remarked, that possibly he and the hon. and learned Gentleman were not talking about the same thing. He did not pretend to have the same technical knowledge in these matters as was possessed by the hon. and learned Gentleman. All that he had meant to assert was that the documents were sworn in the ordinary way on a Testament. He did not know whether there was any other way of swearing.

SIR HARDINGE GIFFARD

said, that the person who drew up the documents must have been a lawyer, and he had evidently drawn them up with the deliberate knowledge that if the witness made a statutory declaration before a magistrate not on oath, he would be liable to prosecution if his declaration was false; but if he went through the form of taking what was called a voluntary oath, he would be liable to no tribunal, even if he stated what was false. After having gone through the form of kissing the Testament and taking what was called an oath, these persons had shielded themselves from any responsibility at all. It was for that reason that he had asked the right hon Gentleman, across the Table, in what proceedings those documents were sworn. He did not accuse the right hon. Gentleman of being a party to the transaction, because it was obviously devised by someone familiar with legal matters, and with the deliberate intention of not making the persons who made the so-called depositions as responsible if they were made in one form as they would have been if they had been made in another. He was extremely surprised that any Commissioner, authorized to administer oaths in legal matters, should have condescended to such a proceeding as to allow such an oath to be taken, and he said that as the foundation for another observation he desired to make. These oaths, as the right hon. Gentleman termed them, had been taken on the 27th, 28th, and 29th of the present month. The statements, as he understood, which they were meant to support were made before any of the depositions were made, and he wanted to know when, where, how, and under what circumstances they were obtained? The right hon. Gentleman himself, he dared say, could not answer the question; but he should like to know if he had any information on the subject. He should like very much to know from whose hands they came, and he was sorry that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings) had not been allowed to give his explanation of the circumstance, so as to show from whose hands they came. One observation arose at once. There was a suspicious identity of language about them. They were now produced for the first time; they were applicable to persons who, as the right hon. Gentleman truly said, were named in them; but not one of these persons had had the opportunity of knowing the accusation against him, and they were brought under the notice of the House at such an hour of the evening that even communication by telegraph with the persons whose conduct was impugned was all but impossible. Taking them as they were, they purported to come from persons who professed to have been in the employment of the Tory Party for years for the purpose of breaking up meetings; and for some inducement or another which did not appear— he supposed by pressure of conscience—they now came forward to confess that they had been guilty of these evil practices for some years past, and that on the occasion in question they did all they could—to do what? The statement was a very remarkable one. He observed that there was a delightful vagueness about the phraseology. They were to go with the Conservative Party. In what respect? To tear off the badges of the Liberal Party, which, by some hypothesis, they knew the Liberal Party were going to wear on entering the meeting; and then what were they to do? They were to get upon the platform, and, with chairs and other instruments, were to endeavour to prevent gentlemen from storming the platform. Was it known beforehand that the platform was to be stormed? And that was what they appeared to have been doing. He would like to ask one or two questions of the persons who made these voluntary oaths for which they were not responsible. He confessed that he should not have thought the matter of so much importance in itself if it had not been that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board, who had just addressed the House, had described these statements as conclusive proofs that the Conservatives were the people who organized all these riotous interruptions. It was rather remarkable that none of these persons professed to have had anything to do with the knocking down of the wall through which the President of the Board of Trade said 15,000 Liberals had poured. He said they had pulled off the coping of a wall, forsooth!—a wall nine feet high—together with a substantial breach in it, which was likely to cost the ratepayers £125 for the damage done. What had that to do with these conclusive depositions? None of these persons professed to have had anything to do with that part of the transaction. It seemed that these injured Liberals were so distressed by the conduct of the hired ruffians that they found it necessary to "take a little of the coping off," and to make a breach in the wall. That was the tone in which a Minister of the Crown thought it right to speak of an invasion of that sort. But if 15,000 men entered the grounds as a counter-demonstration, it was not surprising that such a riot should have occurred. Though the right hon. Gentleman had told them something about his being in Birmingham for three or four days while the right hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) was there, there was one point to which he had made no reference, although it was referred to by the noble Lord. If there was to be such a meeting calculated to create animosity owing to the false pretences which it was said the Conservatives were about to put before the country, and if there was to be a counter-demonstration of 15,000 people, such as the right hon. Gentleman had described, separated only from the other meeting by a wall which could be knocked down by a ladder put against it, and which was, of course, accidentally fixed there, had it never occurred to the President of the Board of Trade that a collision might take place between two opposite parties so brought together and so hostile to each other? But if it had occurred to the right hon. Gentleman that this might happen—and it was part of the case of his noble Friend—there was another thing to which he had made no reference, nor had he said anything about. Had the right hon. Gentleman done nothing between the Saturday morning when he saw the counter-demonstration announced and the Monday night? Would any man of common sense, knowing the hostile spirit which existed at that time in different parts of Birmingham and elsewhere, deliberately say now that it was a safe experiment to bring 15,000 angry men, excited by an alleged fraud upon the public, within sight of the other meeting? Was there nothing that could have been done? Did no one take sufficient interest in the transaction? He thought that the right hon. Gentleman greatly undervalued his influence in Birmingham. He might have said—"We will expose the fraud, but do not go too near the meeting, because there is sure to be a breach of the the peace." The Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a Member had exhibited from time to time its belief in that common-sense view in regard to Ireland by prohibiting the holding of counter-meetings, and refusing to allow one demonstration to be brought in close proximity to another. He thought that the case made out by the noble Lord had not been broken down, and had not been answered by voluntary depositions, which had never been subjected to any test at all, and which the persons incriminated had had no opportunity of replying to. He could not help thinking that the Motion of the noble Lord went upon more important grounds, and might, perhaps, include others beside the President of the Board of Trade. It appeared to him, from the language of the right hon. Gentleman and of others, that it was possible, by subterfuge and innuendo, to suggest violence and outrage, and yet not directly to recommend it. If anyone were to tell a large multitude of excited people that they were being kept out of their rights by irresponsible and unworthy persons, that those persons were actuated by unworthy motives, and that the only way in which they could obtain their rights was to exhibit the courage which their ancestors had possessed in order to sweep away all puny obstacles, it might be ingenious, but what would the multitude suppose he meant? With reference to the Marquess of Salisbury, one expedient by which violence and outrage might be suggested was to misrepresent what he had said. What the Marquess of Salisbury had said had been over and over again misrepresented before public meetings; and if he were permitted, he would read what it was that the Marquess of Salisbury really did say. What the noble Marquess said was this— We know that there are plenty of Radicals in this country; and if it pleases them to walk up and down the roads, and spend their Sundays in the Parks, and to do other things, from which they may derive wholesome exercise, and exhibit themselves in the open air, we know that that gives no indication whatever of the real opinion of the majority of the constituencies, which is the only opinion for which we care, and by which we are bound."—(3 Hansard, [290] p. 468.)

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

Hear, hear!

SIR HARDINGE GIFFARD

Yes, the right hon. Gentleman said "Hear, hear!" But was that the mode in which the right hon. Gentleman had represented the Marquess of Salisbury to the country? The right hon. Gentleman, by way of explanation, not by exact quotation of the Marquess of Salisbury's words, but by a sort of innuendo—by expansion of what he choose to consider to have been in the noble Marquess's mind—had attributed to him what, in fact, he did not say—that he did not be- lieve in any public feeling unless it was accompanied by violence and outrage. The Marquess of Salisbury never said anything of the sort. He defied the right hon. Gentleman to quote a word from the Marquess of Salisbury by which that accusation could be supported. But those observations had been repeated here in a perfectly unqualified sense by the right hon. Gentleman and a Colleague of the right hon. Gentleman. A noble Earl had, indeed, given a warning, predicting to the Marquess of Salisbury how his words would be regarded. For his own part, he agreed that the distinction between a warning and a threat, made under certain circumstances, was very small. The noble Earl to whom he referred—the Earl of Derby—said, on the 8th of July— No one who has heard or read the debate here will be likely to suppose that you object to the extended franchise; but do you suppose that the classes who have power—the present electors, or those who are to be electors—read long debates? Not they. If anybody tells them that the Opposition Leaders have said they were not fit to be trusted with a vote, they will swallow it to a man."—(3 Hansard, [290] p. 391.) He did not suppose the noble Earl who used that phrase would imagine that his own Colleague would be the first to act upon the hint. Who was it who, at meeting after meeting, and in speech after speech, had attributed to the House of Lords a desire to withhold the franchise from those who were not in the possession of it now? Of course, the Government must not ask the concurrence of the Earl of Derby in those statements, in regard to which the noble Earl told them that no one who had listened to or read the debates could be misled, but the class who were to exercise the power would swallow them to a man. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade was very angry and indignant at the different interpretation which his noble Friend the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) had placed upon his Welsh speech from that which he had meant; but what did the right hon. Gentleman mean by that speech? What did he mean by asking his audience what they would do if orderly meetings did not prevail with the House of Lords? What was the intended antithesis to orderly meetings? How were his auditors to act? How did the right hon. Gentleman suggest that his Welsh audience were to turn out the House of Lords? What was in his mind? What did he intend his audience to understand? When he said, as others had said, "turn them out," did he mean by due course of law—by orderly legislation, to which the House of Lords itself would consent? He had not said so to-night. Had that observation been made by a private person, it would have been an improper one, and, if used in Ireland, it would have subjected the speaker to prosecution for sedition; but the cardinal importance of the person who made the observation must not be overlooked. It was made by a Cabinet Minister invested with the Executive government of the country, who went about the country using language which 99 out of every 100 persons would understand to mean this—"We, the House of Commons, have determined upon a certain measure, and if you, the House of Lords, do not acquiesce, you will be extinguished as a branch of the Legislature, and by force, if necessary." [Ministerial cheers.] He quite understood the cheer from that quarter. Hon. Members below the Gangway opposite made no concealment of their views; they spoke in plain language; but the language of the right hon. Gentleman was not plain, and what he complained of in the right hon. Gentleman's speech was that he did not speak in plain language. He spoke up to the point of how it was to be done, and then he left an excited audience to fill up the blank for themselves as to how they were to get rid of the House of Lords. Instead of appealing to the constituencies, which was what the Conservative side had always demanded, he appealed to violent mobs, and made threats of violence, more or less veiled by specious phrases and innuendoes, to the effect that the House of Lords was to be stamped out of existence if they would not submit to the dictation of an imperious Minister.

MR. JUSTIN HUNTLY M'CARTHY

expressed his approval of a very large portion of the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill). The noble Lord had made some remarks on the parallel to be drawn between the utterances of the President of the Board of Trade and some of those of the Irish Leaders. No speeches of Irish Members had been more open to accusations of violence or of inciting to violence than those of the President of the Board of Trade; and yet hon. Members who sat on that side of the House had been condemned to a plank bed, and to all the ignominy and suffering which the Liberal Government could subject them to. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), the Leader of the Irish Party, for replying to an exceedingly violent and unjust speech of the Prime Minister, had been condemned to a long term of imprisonment. The President of the Board of Trade, in the opening part of his speech, had complained of the unfairness of holding a speaker responsible for any crimes which might have been committed because he did not at once deny the allegations which had been made against him. The Irish Members knew that the hon. Member for the City of Cork had been attacked over and over again, because he would not reply to the accusations that were made against him by unscrupulous and mendacious men—because he did not incessantly get up in that House and say that he was not in sympathy with murderers or with assassins. It was historically evident that the Liberal Party were willing to avail themselves of violence if they thought that by so doing they could further their views. It was well known that at the time of the Reform Bill of 1832 many of the Whig Leaders were ready to proceed to violence in order to accomplish their views, and endeavoured to induce Sir Charles Napier to lend them the support of arms. In 1866 the Reform measure was materially aided by violence. It was the violence which broke down the Park railings that eventually carried the Bill; and who was the leader and instigator of that violence? It was a gentleman named Edmond Beales; and when the Liberal Party came into Office how did they treat that instigator of violence? So anxious were they to reward him that they made this veiled revolutionary a County Court Judge. As a rule, the Irish Members took little more interest in the controversies between the two great Parties of the House than in the struggle of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines; but, in this case, Irish interests were distinctly touched. If it were a breach of the law for an Irish Member to deliver a speech which could be twisted into a violent interpretation—and many inoffensive speeches had thus been construed into breaches of the law—it ought to be a breach of the law for the President of the Board of Trade to make a speech which could equally be construed into an incitement to acts of violence. On these grounds he should have great pleasure, if the noble Lord went to a Division, in following him into the Lobby.

MR. NEWDEGATE

said, that he would detain the House for a very short time; but his own Colleague (Mr. P. A. Muntz) had been honoured by the approval of the President of the Local Government Board, who said that he had stated more facts in support of the present Motion than anybody until the hon. and learned Member for Launceston (Sir Hardinge Giffard) addressed the House. The reason why there was a difficulty in producing evidence in regard to the disturbance at Aston was owing to the fact that this disturbance had been managed and organized by the Caucus. The Caucus was essentially a secret Society, and yet the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade acknowledged that he continued to be a subscriber to, and intended to remain a member of, that Caucus. He (Mr. Newdegate) was quite certain that much of the obedience of the majority of the House to the dictation of their Whips was caused by their consciousness that this Caucus organization was widely spread throughout the country. Last Session he had brought before the House the measures which the Congress of the United States had passed to prevent this coercion of political liberty. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade sat opposite to him on that occasion. He challenged the right hon. Gentleman to contradict the facts he had then adduced, and what did the right hon. Gentleman do? He got up from his place and walked out of the House. He did not attempt to show that the Caucus, which he had imported from America, and of which he was still a member, differed in any degree from the Caucus which the Congress of the United States had been obliged to coerce. Not one word did the right hon. Gentleman say. The same difficulties which the Americans had experienced existed in this case; and if his (Mr. Newdegate's) own Colleague had refrained from giving the names of those who had supplied him with information, it was only because he knew that a system of intimidation was practised by the Birmingham Caucus—that abominable importation from the United States. He had already shown that night that he would attribute to no man an action that was criminal in itself, such as being present at an illegal riot; but he would say this of Mr. Tangye—that he was a subordinate of the Caucus, and that he dismissed a large number of his workmen from their work, in order that they might attend the counter-demonstration at Aston. They marched out from Soho, in South Staffordshire, to Smethwick, also in South Staffordshire, through the adjoining borough of Birmingham, and went straight to the counter-demonstration which was in Aston, that is in North Warwickshire. They were the men who principally took an active part in breaking down the wall. He was prepared to prove that they broke it down to the very ground, and admitted 15,000 men to the Conservative meeting. Instantly upon their arrival the disturbance broke out; instantly upon the arrival of those men violence was resorted to. He had known something of Warwickshire and Birmingham for more than 40 years, and he had told his friends that before the meeting was held which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) was to address—the meeting at Aston—they ought to be prepared for a disturbance, which might break out or break in. He had told them that they were too slow in their preparations, and he was afraid the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) was now somewhat too precipitate in the course he had taken. If he had waited a little longer, and had taken a little more time, he would have been able to collect more evidence in support of his contention. Opinions had been expressed in favour of appealing to the Law Courts in respect of these outrages. He (Mr. Newdegate) was sorry to say that the Caucus organization was not confined to Birmingham; its effects extended to that House, and he hoped that the majority of the House would rebel against the tyranny of the Caucus, as the majority of the Congress of the United States had rebelled against it.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

It is not my intention, at this late hour, to detain the House at any length; but I think, under the particular circumstances in which I stand, that it is my duty to say a very few words upon the subject of this Amendment. I say them chiefly because, having myself been present, and having taken part in the meeting to which reference has been made, I am able to state, of my own knowledge, some things which may, perhaps, have a bearing upon the question which has been raised. My noble Friend (Lord Randolph Churchill) has brought before the notice of the House the question whether the language used by, and the actions of, the President of the Board of Trade have not been such as to have conduced to the disturbances which took place at the Aston meeting? In reply to my noble Friend's speech, the right hon. Gentleman has made this answer—that he was not connected, in the first place, with anything that took place at Aston. But, beyond that, he challenges an answer to the question whether there was any disturbance at all on the part of the Liberals who attended that meeting? He tells us that there was nothing premeditated; that there was nothing organized; and that it was entirely owing to the stupid management of, and the intolerable provocation given by, the Conservative Leaders and the managers of the assembly, that the Liberals were obliged, in self-defence, to take certain steps, and he brings forward a number of statements which are vouched by depositions which he has read, and upon which my hon. and learned Friend (Sir Hardinge Giffard) has commented, to show that a certain number of persons on the Conservative side acted in a certain way. Now, with regard to the general question as to who gave the provocation, it is a very unintelligible theory to maintain that the provocation was given, not by those who attacked, but by those who were attacked. The Conservatives had organized a meeting; they had taken steps to obtain a place for that meeting, and they had not without some difficulty found a place. At all events, difficulties were thrown in the way of their obtaining the Town Hall, in which they wished to hold the meeting, and where it would have been more convenient to hold it. They succeeded in obtaining the Aston Grounds, and they had stated that they would be ready to dispose of a certain number of tickets to Liberals who might wish to attend the meeting. But the meeting was purely a Conservative meeting. It was intended to be a Conservative meeting. It was intended to bring together at a convenient centre large bodies of Conservatives to hear what was to be said on the questions at issue, and that they might express their opinions themselves. For these meetings provision was made for distributing a certain number of tickets among others than Conservatives, but, of course, taking care that such a number should not be issued as would deprive Conservatives of all right of admission to their own meeting. The right hon. Gentleman took upon himself to say that there was no organization on the part of the Liberals and no forging of tickets, and that the provocation came from the Conservatives. The theory upon which my noble Friend proceeds, and upon which we all proceed, is that the provocation was given by the Liberals, who, having obtained a certain number of tickets, went themselves and forged a large number more, and by means of those forged tickets obtained admission to the place of meeting, and when it was found that men were there who had no right to be there, on account of forged tickets, an attempt was made to prevent more from coming in, and then these men took the very summary course of breaking down the wall, and so getting into the meeting. It is said that tickets were not forged. My noble Friend read a statement which he says he had from a gentleman who communicated to him the information that there was evidence to prove that tickets had been forged. Well, I have in my hands two tickets that were actually delivered at the meeting. The tickets are exactly alike, and so exactly alike that they have even the same number upon them. The hon. and learned Member for Chelsea (Mr. Firth) told us that some time ago there was a meeting which he attended for which the Conservatives forged tickets which differed from the others only in not having the name of the secretary on them.

MR. FIRTH

I did not say that the Conservatives forged tickets; but what I said was that the Conservative Associations throughout London distributed many thousands of tickets.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

The only difference, the hon. and learned Member said, was that the secretary's name was not attached to them. Here the name of the secretary is printed on the tickets; the two are exactly the same, and they carry their similitude so far that they are both numbered "893." It may be suggested that this was an accident. But if I am rightly informed, a great number of cases occurred in which the tickets bore the same identical numbers. Therefore, it is perfectly evident that there were forged tickets. ["No!"] Hon. Gentlemen say "No!" but it is very strong presumptive evidence of the fact when we find that there were numerous tickets of the same number. We are told that there was no organization on the part of the Liberals. I very much doubt that statement. In the first place, I myself had some reason to believe that there was to be some such organization before I reached Birmingham. I came to Birmingham from Exeter that day, and on my way I stopped at the Cheltenham Station, where a certain number of my Conservative friends came and had a conversation with me on the platform. I declined to make a speech; but I had a conversation. One of these gentlemen said—"You are going to have a row at Birmingham to-night." I said—"Oh, are we? I have heard nothing of it." "Oh, yes," said this gentleman, "you are going to have a row, because a trainful of men have gone on from here, and they are going to break up your meeting." Now, I do not know more than what I was told at second-hand; but all these things point the same way—and the probabilities point the same way—that there was an organized attempt to disturb the meeting. When my noble Friend and myself got into the hall we found that the hall was in a state of considerable confusion, though the fighting was practically over, and when I had to get on to the table which stood in the place of the wrecked platform and endeavoured to make myself heard, I found how the case was. Anyone with experience of public meetings very soon knows whether there is an organized resistance, or what is called a mere spontaneous resistance. It often happens, in large meetings, composed of persons of differ- rent sides in politics, that there is a certain amount of opposition and interruption, and so forth. I had in front of me a considerable number of friends and a considerable number of opponents. It was difficult enough to get attention, and yet I thought, after a time, that I had succeeded in getting their attention; but it was obvious that there were two bands of opponents—one close on my right, and another close on my left—led by a fugleman. These bands were acting in concert, and whenever there was an opportunity of speaking, and the great mass of the people were disposed to listen to what was being said, these gentlemen to the right and left set up a continuous strain which entirely drowned the voice, so that it was impossible to make yourself heard even by speaking at the top of your voice. It is really ridiculous for anybody who was there, and saw what took place, to be told that there was no organization. I am as certain that there was an organized opposition as I am certain that this is a meeting of the House of Commons. Then, after all, what is the main charge which my noble Friend has made against the right hon. Gentleman? It is this—that he, being a Member of the Government, holding that very responsible and important position, has by his language on various occasions in the speeches he has made since the decision of the House of Lords in regard to the Representation of the People Bill, availed himself of opportunities, from time to time, for using language of an inciting character—of a character calculated to incite those people whom he addressed, not only against the House of Lords, but against all who were prepared to support the House of Lords. I have no doubt whatever that he is prepared to contend that for everything he has said he can find pretty strong sentiments expressed by somebody else on the other side of politics, or that some of the statements he has made may be more or less explained away. But, as was so powerfully put by my hon. and learned Friend just now, the great mass of the people attending the meetings addressed by the right hon. Gentleman would take his opinions in the rough, and as they were expressed. The language of the right hon. Gentleman had one meaning, and one meaning only—call it the meaning of warning or menace, or whatever you please—it was the meaning of a threat. When the right hon. Gentleman referred to the 100,000 men who proposed to march up from Birmingham to London in 1832, he said that after all that was a very moderate thing, because the intention of those 100,000 men, if they had marched up, was of an entirely peaceful and moral character. That may have been so; but it is not the impression that people generally will entertain. Generally, when that march of 100,000 men is referred to, people suppose that that inarch is mentioned for the purpose of intimidating and overawing the Legislature. That is the impression conveyed, and when the right hon. Gentleman mentioned it that must have been the impression produced. I am convinced that 99 out of every 100 of his audience must have had that view. My noble Friend says that is conduct on the part of a Minister of the Crown which deserves and ought to have the rebuke of this House. It is a matter of a serious character, for the question is, as the Government say, a burning question, and one upon which there is likely to be misunderstanding, and heated and angry feeling. Surely, of all persons in the world, Ministers of the Crown are those who ought to allay such a feeling, rather than stir it up. The right hon. Gentleman cannot deny that he used the language charged against him with the view to forward and press on a measure which he is desirous of promoting, and that he wished to attain his object by appealing, not to the reason, but to the fears of his opponents. That is the real meaning at the bottom of all those observations and speeches of the right hon. Gentleman to which reference has been made. It is the general and uniform tenour of the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman since the month of August upon this question. It seems to me that my noble Friend has done entirely well and was quite right in calling attention to this matter; and although the speech of the President of the Board of Trade was one of great ability and great power, yet it seemed to me that he entirely missed the point of the attack and comments upon his conduct, and that all the charges he brought against the Conservative Party in Birmingham and other places, and all the arguments he used to show that he was not personally connected with any of the proceedings which took place at Aston, are entirely beside the question as compared with the consensus of the tone of the speeches. The speech of the 4th of August clearly pointed out that meetings in the streets were to be the kind of agency which was to be employed for promoting the measure he was anxious to promote. He appealed to the people in a manner and with references which were calculated to excite the feelings of those who were appealed to, and he spoke to them in language which would have had the effect, in former times, of shaking Ministries and overthrowing Monarchies. From first to last the language used by the right hon. Gentleman has been of the same character. He must be well aware that on this question of the Representation of the People Bill we are treading on red-hot cinders. It is a question of considerable delicacy, and one upon which the position of Ministers of the Crown ought not to allow them to be led into speeches which, in their tendency to alarm and threaten, may carry away people from processes of reasoning to processes of violence and intimidation. We desire to record our opinion that such language as that, on the part of a Minister of the Crown, is language to be deeply regretted.

MR. GLADSTONE

I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman—and it is a sentiment which no motive of temporary convenience would induce me to suppress—that Ministers of the Crown are under special obligations in regard to the language they may use in addressing large bodies of people. There is no doubt that I myself have been greatly ridiculed, and persistently exposed to ridicule from the organs of the Party opposite, for contending that great responsibility attaches to Ministers of the Crown for the language they use. I might use that statement for the purpose of retort; but I do not make such use of it. I quite agree that while it is a gross offence on the part of a public man to use language—and I shall have to come to that question presently—calculated to produce disorder, that offence is still more gross if committed by a Minister of the Crown. The right hon. Baronet appeared to me rather to confuse what was made most clear by my right hon. Friend in his extremely powerful speech—namely, the distinction he drew between the portion of that speech which he made in vindication of, or apology for, his constituents, and the portion which referred to what concerned himself personally in respect of the speeches he had made. And the right hon. Baronet did this, although my right hon. Friend, in the production of evidence at great length and with great force, spoke in defence of his constituents in respect of a course of action with which personally he had had nothing whatever to do, and with which the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) hardly made a serious attempt to connect him. Now it is necessary, as the conduct of that great community has been before us, to say something on that matter. It has been assumed that some days before the meeting was held there was reason to anticipate a serious collision between the demonstration and the counter-demonstration. Now, Sir, I contend there was no such reason at all. The right hon. Gentleman forgets the facts. The facts were these—that 10,000 tickets were distributed by the agents of the Conservative Party to Liberal Associations and Associations of working men. What was the effect of that? Obviously to set forth to the country—and I make no complaint of such attempt—that a meeting virtually open was going to be held, that masses of Liberals obtained tickets from authoritative sources; and we have the proof quoted by my right hon. Friend—namely, that a newspaper, the chief Conservative organ in Birmingham, boasted beforehand that this was no mere Party meeting, but that it was a representative and universal meeting, whose opinion was to go forth to the country as that of the community of Birmingham at large. Therefore, the right hon. Baronet totally failed in his contention. And I admit I am very much obliged to him—he is the only person who in the course of this debate has produced one ray of evidence in support of the contention that forged tickets were used. He has produced two tickets, one of which is presumed to have been forged, and on which undoubtedly primâ facie presumption arises that some forged tickets were used. But with regard to the tickets that were issued. First of all, a vast mass of tickets, stated definitely by my right hon. Friend, were distributed by the Conservatives themselves to Liberals and others by Conservative agents. And my right hon. Friend states that gentlemen and ladies who obtained tickets from Conservative authorities were refused admission, and were in some instances subjected to immediate violence on presenting those tickets. The right hon. Baronet has not attempted to deal with these facts, nor, indeed, with any fact brought forward in my right hon. Friend's elaborate and most earnest speech. There was no reason to anticipate a collision. Why were the Liberals of Birmingham to be in a bad humour when an open meeting was to be held? They were confident that in an open meeting their opinions would have full play, and they were willing to bear the result. And what is the evidence of the right hon. Baronet? As I understand him, the right hon. Baronet says that at the railway station on the day on which the meeting was to be held he was told by someone that a train had gone by full of persons who were going to wreck the meeting. And what did the right hon. Baronet say? He said he had heard nothing of it, which, I say, shows that up to a very short time before the meeting was held there was no reason in the world to anticipate a collision; and the opinion which my right hon. Friend entertains of the respect for law and order which prevails at Birmingham—["Oh, oh!"] It looks very well for hon. Gentlemen opposite to sneer at those whom the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) is endeavouring to make his constituents. I am speaking of the respect which my right hon. Friend believes is entertained by the people of Birmingham for law and order, and with that respect it would have been ludicrous, it would have been absurd, if, when he knew that a meeting was going to be held for which 10,000 tickets had been issued to Liberal Associations and working men by the agents of the Conservative Party, he had anticipated an angry collision. Sir, I say it was intended, it was professed, to be a meeting of an universal and representative character. ["No, no!"] That is our contention, and we state this fact—that 10,000 tickets were issued to Liberals. You produce to us two tickets with regard to which, you presume, they were forged. We tell you the names of persons who presented themselves with genuine tickets—Scripture readers and others—who had their tickets taken from them and torn up, and who in certain instances were subjected to violence. Well, Sir, I have not a word to abate from what I said on a former night on the subject of violence. I knew when I used that language I should be supported by my right hon. Friend and by all my Colleagues. I said I would never consider provocation or incitement for the purpose of extenuating violence. Provocation and incitement, however, are very considerable temptations. The right hon. Baronet says that the provocation in this case was intolerable. I admit that we have not got yet to the bottom of the circumstances with respect to the nature of these declarations, and I will not attempt to gain any unfair advantage; but we have before us the particular persons. I remember one, whom my right hon. Friend named Coleman, was, for the simple offence of appearing with a badge with my ill-omened features upon it, struck violently on the head and felled to the ground by some of the regulators of the Conservative meeting. My right hon. Friend says that the persons who suffered this violence went over to the counter-demonstration, and everyone knows how intelligence of an event of the kind spreads like the electric fluid through a large assembly. I understand my right hon. Friend distinctly to say that that demonstration was assembled at the time, and if they were then assembled, I say that the news of that sort of violence offered to a respectable man who presented a genuine ticket, and who had conformed to the rules and usages laid down, would cause that state of excitement which leads to dangerous acts, and I think those acts which my right hon. Friend has detailed — the ill-treatment of persons presenting genuine tickets—is largely chargeable with the events which took place. Now, Sir, let us look at the evidence in this case. The noble Viscount the Member for North Shropshire (Viscount Newport) thought it a great piece of evidence to allege something which he learned from his gardener, and it would have been a good piece of evidence, no doubt, if it had been a matter within the knowledge of the gardener; but it did not purport to be within the knowledge of the gardener, and the whole object of the noble Viscount's speech was to convey to the House what he thought most important—namely, that a person, whom his gardener did not name, and whom, as far as I can judge, his gardener did not know, had said that he was a Liberal rough on the occasion in question employed with others in breaking up the meeting. That is the evidence offered by the noble Viscount the Member for North Shropshire (Viscount Newport). It is evidence of a certain kind, and I hope it will be examined. [Mr. NEWDEGATE: I will examine it.] I am glad to hear the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Warwickshire say he will go into it. The hon. Gentleman says—"I am sorry, but if we had had more time we should have produced better evidence." Yes, Sir; but they are the accusers. I have heard of defenders pleading for more time, which is sometimes allowed; but it is indeed an extraordinary case in which that plea has to be put forward by the accusers.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

I never said I wanted time.

MR. GLADSTONE

It was the plea which the noble Lord's hon. Friend made in his behalf. But I understand the noble Lord to say that if he had more time he could not have made a better case.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

I did not say so.

MR. GLADSTONE

If it be true—and it is true—that Ministers of the Crown are under special responsibilities and obligations, there ought to be some discrimination and some consideration and care exercised in the nature of the case which is brought forward to impeach them. What evidence has the noble Lord about these meetings? The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Sir Hardinge Giffard), speaking with great authority, has deducted considerably from the value of the evidence produced by my right hon. Friend. I do not mean to say that he is right, and I should be sorry to say he was wrong; but I say that the papers read by my right hon. Friend are of some consequence, inasmuch as those who signed them give the names of the persons concerned, and do not scruple also to give the names of those by whom those persons were apparently bribed. That is a presumption, at all events, and it affords better evidence—evidence of a stronger character than has been given to us by the noble Lord, because there is not a single case of a name being given.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

I gave the particulars of four gangs. I know that my speech was a long one, and I cannot blame the right hon. Gentleman for not remembering; but I gave the particulars of four gangs, and also several names, especially of three men—Martin, or M'Martin, and the brothers Reed, two notorious pugilists, each of whom received £20.

MR. GLADSTONE

I have not the least doubt of it; the noble Lord gave the names just as he gave the name of my right hon. Friend; but he had no vouchers. He had not a shred of evidence to produce. Why did he not give some confirmation of his statement? How can we base a case against my right hon. Friend upon evidence so vague, upon mere information conveyed to the noble Lord by no one knows whom?

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

It was given by the solicitors.

MR. GLADSTONE

Yes, by a gentleman professionally employed; and that gentleman so employed has been careful not to supply the noble Lord with anything in the nature of proof, when he was in an excellent position to know that, if they were to be of any value, he must give something to vouch for the truth of the statements. I trust that full knowledge will be obtained on this subject; and I must say that while I think my right hon. Friend has shown evidence of great imprudence on the part of the Conservative Party in Birmingham, in professing to hold a representative meeting which it appears now, on the highest authority, they did not intend to be representative, and in respect of the intolerable wrong committed on those persons, simply for the offence of wearing a badge not proscribed by the rules of the meeting, and which, consequently, was no infringement at all—I think, under these circumstances, great provocation was given, the bearing of which on the acts of violence committed I will not undertake to measure, but which in itself constitutes a great offence, and one which I hope the Conservative Party in Birmingham will be careful not to repeat. The point I put is this—that no person has in the slightest degree succeeded in showing that there is any action of my right hon. Friend for which he can be impeached, as he is impeached in this Motion. My right hon. Friend has explained how difficult—howimpossible—it was for him, as a Minister of the Crown, incessantly occupied with the labours of his Department and of the Government, to maintain that local activity for which, before he was distinguished in this House, he was so honourably known in the great community to which he belonged. I submit that there is not a shred of evidence before the House, and the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down did not allege that there was any action of my right hon. Friend which could be regarded as an incitement to interference with the meeting or to disorder; and now, on the contrary, he is going to vote that not only the speeches, but the actions of my right hon. Friend incited to violence and disorder. Well, Sir, I submit he has shown nothing to justify that part of the allegation of the Motion which impeaches my right hon. Friend not only for speeches, but for actions. Then with regard to the speeches of my right hon. Friend, what has been said and what is to be said? [Opposition cheers.] You will hear what is to be said. What said the hon. and learned Member for Launceston (Sir Hardinge Giffard)? He said that, without using actually inflammatory language, my right hon. Friend had left the inflammatory part to be filled up by the audience. Well, Sir, that might be a good form of speech for a peroration; but allow me to say respectfully that it expresses a mere theory.

SIR HARDINGE GIFFARD

I quoted the speech of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Chamberlain) in Wales.

MR. GLADSTONE

The hon. and learned Gentleman made no quotation which was of such a character as to be in the slightest degree in point. Sir, I am going to refer to and quote the speech—it is impossible for me to go through all the speeches; but my right hon. Friend himself made a very full statement to the House with regard to them—I am going to refer to the speech which, as far as I understand, is that upon which reliance is principally placed, and that is the speech with regard to the march on London. I must say that what my right hon. Friend said has been cruelly misrepresented. ["Oh, oh!"] Yes, cruelly misrepresented. I do not ask you to believe what I say; but I ask you to hear with respect what I have to say on the subject. Here I must refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour). He said he wished that, instead of animadverting upon the Marquess of Salisbury in the Provinces, my right hon. Friend had asked Earl Granville to make the attack upon the noble Marquess in a place where the noble Marquess could have replied. Well, Sir, I have been long in this House, and it has been my fate to have been over and over again the subject of prolonged attacks and invectives in the House of Lords; but down to this night I have never imitated the example that has been thus set me. I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford, and I wish that attacks upon public men were always made in the place where those attacked could defend themselves; but, unfortunately, it is the constant practice of the Marquess of Salisbury to attack those who are not present, exercising his great powers of speech in censure and invective upon persons in this House belonging to the Government. Well, Sir, it is not in self-defence; but in this particular case in which my right hon. Friend has been made the subject of attack it is absolutely necessary I should refer to it. Now, Sir, as to the march upon London. What was the passage spoken by my right hon. Friend with respect to the march upon London? The speech was made on the 4th of August, and the passage as to the march on London was—it is with difficulty I can read the print— 100,000 men in Birmingham and the surrounding districts who were sworn to march on London, if need were, in defence of their liberties. The peace was broken in many parts of the country, and there were at Derby, Nottingham, and Bristol fierce outbreaks of popular passion, accompanied by a great destruction of property. Now, Sir, that is the recital, and that is the basis of the assault on my right hon. Friend. What words did my right hon. Friend use immediately after that recital in his speech? After saying there was to be a march on London, after saying that there had been these breaches of the peace in the country, he went on to say— He had hoped that we had left those days of disorder far behind us. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Had hoped?] Certainly, "had hoped." I am quoting from something in the third person— He had hoped that we had left those days of disorder far behind us. A most natural and simple explanation' and one which ought to have been exempted from the slightest criticism. What did the Marquess of Salisbury do? ["Read on!"] Does the hon. Gentleman who cries "Read on!" know what follows? No, Sir; he does not. My sight does not enable me to read, so, without knowing what follows, he calls "Read on!" simply for the sake of causing me embarrassment if he can. Well, Sir, what says the Marquess of Salisbury upon this? At Kelso, on the 13th of October, the Marquess of Salisbury began by speaking of another speech of my right hon. Friend, in which he had said— I think that these Gentlemen in the House of Lords presume on your patience, on your love of order, and on your hatred of violence. And then he says— That the English people had shown courage and resolution. And that statement is treated by the Marquess of Salisbury as an incitement to violence. Do you think, Sir, that, under these circumstances, it is the duty of Ministers, or of anybody else, to go to the people of this country, when they have the formidable obstacles in their front that they have now, and say to them—"Love order and hate violence?" It is certainly one's duty to advise the people to love order and hate violence; but am I to say nothing else? Am I to make no appeals to them? Am I never to remind them of the dignity and the force that attach to the well-considered resolution of a great nation? Are we to cast aside all the natural, legitimate, and powerful weapons of our warfare? I would go all lengths to exclude violence, and on that ground I object to the speech of the Marquess of Salisbury. But while I eschew violence, I cannot—I will not—adopt that effeminate method of speech which is to hide from the people of this country the cheering fact that they may derive some encouragement from the recollection of former struggles, from the recollection of the great qualities of their forefathers, and from the consciousness that they possess them still. Sir, I am sorry to say that if no instructions had ever been addressed in political crises to the people of this country except to remember to hate violence and love order and exercise patience, the liberties of this country would never have been obtained. The Marquess of Salisbury goes on to say— I only hope that if Mr. Chamberlain incites the people to riot, he will head the riot himself. Is that a wise method of speech? ["If!"] Right hon. Gentlemen opposite think it is a wise method of speech; I think it is a most unwise method of speech. Even if the words of my right hon. Friend fairly bore the character attributed to them, the speech of the Marquess of Salisbury is an aggravation of the incitement; it is extending and deepening the mischief; and, therefore, it is not a speech which ought to have been made by the Leader of a great Party in this country— I only hope that if Mr. Chamberlain incites the people to riot, he will head the riot himself. I hope that if he is going, according to his threat, to march to London from Birmingham, we may see him at the head of the advancing column. I believe the reference in that passage was to the speech of the 4th of August. Then the Marquess of Salisbury did not scruple to say that Mr. Chamberlain had threatened to march on London, when Mr. Chamberlain had recited the intended march upon London in a series of facts belonging to the year 1832, with reference to which he immediately said— He had hoped that we had left those days of disorder far behind us. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Had hoped?] Had hoped; certainly, had hoped, and nothing was more proper than for him to say "he had hoped," when the Marquess of Salisbury had come into the field to revive this painful and dangerous subject by charges which were utterly groundless. He had hoped that these things had been universally abandoned; but he now found that a great Nobleman, the Head of the great Tory Party, was prepared to revive them. That is my comment on your "had hoped." Well, Sir, the Marquess of Salisbury, having expressed the hope— That Mr. Chamberlain may be sent at the head of the advancing column, he goes on to say—which I suppose is a warning and not a menace— and my experience is that those who will have to receive him will be able to give a very good account of him, Having forced upon him this declaration, which he never made, of an intention to march upon London, the Marquess of Salisbury makes another declaration—namely, that when my right hon. Friend marches upon London he will be met by another column which will be able to give a very good account of him— And that Mr. Chamberlain will return from the adventure with a broken head if nothing more. Sir, I have made solemn declarations on the subject of violence; and I want to know whether hon. Gentlemen opposite think that that language is wise language, prudent language, tolerable language, when used by a man in the position of the Marquess of Salisbury? Now, my right hon. Friend, on a late occasion, adverted to this passage from the Marquess of Salisbury's speech. It may be that he did so in a spirit of banter; but, in answering the speech of the Marquess of Salisbury, he pursued for a little the thought, and used expressions assuming that the events of which the Marquess of Salisbury had spoken were to take place. My right hon. Friend has said to-night that he anticipated the House would not approve of this language of the Marquess of Salisbury; and that if the House disapproved of the provocative remarks which drew forth his retort, he was perfectly willing his own words in answer should pass away, and should, in like manner, be subject to the censure of the House. My right hon. Friend is not at all a defender of such language, and I am very sorry that, for the first time, I have been compelled to take notice of words spoken by a person in the other House; but they grew so essentially out of the main charge against my right hon. Friend that I could not avoid doing so. My answer to the charge is, that it has not, upon the report of my right hon. Friend's speech, a shadow of foundation. When he made that speech he himself supplied the barriers against the possibility of mischief by speaking of these proceedings as proceedings which he had hoped—he had hoped until he heard what a person to whom I will not further refer had to say—he had hoped that such things were left far behind, and were never to be heard of again; and I therefore submit that my right hon. Friend, upon this point, upon this passage in his speech of the 4th of August, has afforded no ground for criticism; and that if there be any ground for criticism in what followed, he has expressed how content he would be that the answer which he made should be abandoned. There is no ground for such a Motion as the present. Every hon. Gentleman is asked to pledge himself that the actions and the speeches of my right hon. Friend deserve censure. My right hon. Friend has, as to his actions, shown that there is in what he has done nothing that can possibly be construed into incitement to riot and disorder. As respects his speeches, I think he satisfied the House as to their character when he went over them; and I have myself stated to the House what I believed to be the acts principally relied upon. The House, I trust, will do justice in a case of this kind; and, while guarding to the best of its ability, and guarding impartially—guarding, not against Liberals alone, but also against misled and misguided Conservatives—the principle that no encouragement is to be given to violence in any shape or form, decline to pronounce an unjust sentence upon one who does not deserve it.

MR. GORST

I am not going to attempt to make a speech. I only wish to ask leave to read a telegram, in justice to a gentleman who has been accused, without Notice, of very disgraceful conduct. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, on the strength of these sworn documents, accused a Mr. Jarvis, of Birmingham, a candidate for the representation of one of the wards of Birmingham, of having hired roughs to exercise violence to Liberals attending Conservative meetings. I hold in my hand a telegram which was sent at midnight from Birmingham by Mr. Jarvis, and I desire to read it to the House. It is addressed to the noble Lord the Mem- ber for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), and is as follows:— Just seen telegram of Mr. Chamberlain's charges against myself in the House of Commons to-night. They are a deliberate fabrication, which I will swear on oath.

MR. O'DONNELL

I am sure that, in view of that communication, the indulgence of the House will be given to the Prime Minister, if he has any further remarks to make.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 178; Noes 214: Majority 36.—(Div. List, No. 2.)

Main Question again proposed.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Mac Iver.)

Motion agreed to.

Debate adjourned till To-morrow.