HC Deb 28 May 1900 vol 83 cc1582-7
SIR WILFRID LAWSON (Cumberland, Cockermouth)

I think the discussion we have had on the Indian famine has thrown a wonderful light on the effects of the war. Here we have had a description of what our Indian fellow-subjects are suffering. I regret that instead cf spending money to save the lives of the starving people in India, we are spending it to kill Boers in South Africa. I think I may be allowed to say a few words on this occasion, for we are going to break up for one of the longest holidays ever enjoyed by this House at Whitsuntide. We are to be away for something like three weeks, and it is desirable to know what the policy of the Government is, and how they intend to act in connection with the great war going on. When this House met we had a division on 6th February, and hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House voted that they regretted the want of knowledge, foresight, and judgment displayed by the Government in their conduct of South African affairs since 1895, That was our opinion on this side of the House. On the other side hon. Gentlemen were satisfied with the manner in which South African affairs had been conducted. [Hear, hear.] I hear hon. Members say " Hear, hear," and they are perfectly satisfied now with the way the war is being carried on. I should like to know what the policy is. So far, the war policy does not seem to have brought any very great blessings with it. I myself voted against Supply for this war, because, as far as I can understand it, it is a most unjust and wicked war.—[An HON. MEMBER: No!] —Well, that is my opinion. I may have my opinion. I voted against Supply for carrying it on, and I think the policy of those gentlemen who voted Supply because, although they thought the war was unjust, they would see it through, was one of the most immoral policies ever advocated in this House or anywhere else. Let us see what the results of this policy are so far. You have spent, I suppose, nearly a hundred millions, you have got a 1s. income tax, and, worse than that, according to the latest Returns we have lost 20,000 men killed, wounded, prisoners, and missing. Of that number over 6,000 have been killed or have died from disease. Just think of that. Think of the desolated homes, the broken hearts, and the blighted lives you have caused by all this. That is what has happened with regard to the Army. What has the war policy done for us at home? The war has imperilled free speech, the foundation of our liberty, and it has established throughout the country in very many places mob law. The right hon. Gentleman called it the limit of endurance of human nature. I call it mob law. You have postponed all social legislation. You never have any beneficial legislation while you have a war going on, and what does that mean? It means that you will not do anything for the hundreds and thousands of our fellow countrymen in this country whose sufferings are such that the sufferings of the Uitlanders are nothing as compared with them. You have shown a grand spectacle to the world. You have shown two Christian nations cutting each other's throats while the heathen are looking on. I never can understand the outcry against the natives being allowed to take part in the war. If the war is right surely the natives should be called upon to take part in it also as a grand Christian exercise. I think that this state of things is disastrous at home and abroad, and shows that the policy of the Government with regard to South Africa has turned out as we voted in February—wanting in knowledge, foresight, and judgment. I think the result more horrible and heartrending—to use an expression of Lord Derby in connection with the Crimean War—than anything one can conceive of. But do not suppose that I wish to blame the Government too much in this matter. Governments in this country are exactly what the people make them, and if one condemns the Government one condemns the people. Why, in my mind the Colonial Secretary is a splendid representative of the nation—a splendid representative of the bunkum, bosh, and swagger of the people of this country. He reflects most truly the tone and temper, and the standard of political morality, of the country at this time. The signs of the times show that the Government, I am sorry to say, truly represent the people. Take the press; it urges them on day by day to more and more destruction. Take the pulpit; it glorifies, nay, deifies war, which The Times once called ornamental murder. I never understood until this war broke out what was exactly meant by "professing Christian." I now know what it is. A professing Christian is one who professes Christianity and practices heathenism. An hon. Member asked the Leader of the House the other day whether we could not have a day of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for having murdered so many men in South Africa! S Can anything be more horrible? I do hope the Leader of the House will consider rather whether we should not have a day of humiliation for our astounding work. I see that most of the Members of the House of Commons support the Government, and what is more important than all, whatever the Government do "the man in the street " supports them. The man in the street is at present the supreme arbiter of political action. He certainly rejoices in this war, and dances with delirious delight at every fresh day of massacre, murder and misery. You do not find fault with that. What does Herbert Spencer say? He says you have brought about the re-barbarisation of the nation. I think what he says is perfectly true. I am not saying that the war is not popular. You could not carry it on if it was not. Let me read the words of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose just before the war began. At an immense meeting in the north of England he said— You may carry fire and sword into the midst of peace and industry—such a war of the strongest Government in the world against this weak little Republic—and the strongest Government in the world, with untold wealth and inexhaustible resources, will bring you no glory. It will bring you no profit, but mischief, and it will be wrong. You will make thousands of women widows and thousands of children fatherless. It will be wrong. You may add a new province to your Empire. It will still be wrong. You may give greater buoyancy to the South African stock and share market. You may create South African booms. You may send the price of Mr. Rhodes's Chartereds to a point beyond the dream of avarice. Yes, even then it will be wrong. All that has been done. The Colonial Secretary has succeeded, as Sir Edward Clarke when a Member of this House told him distinctly—or rather I think it was my right hon. friend the Member for Bodmin who told him that it was his war. Let him have all the honour and credit of this war. All I can say is that for my part, I would not have on my hands the blood that he has for all the glory that this world could give me. Now we are going to separate for throe weeks; and perhaps for a few days, when we take up the newspapers, we shall find fresh tales of forty or fifty killed here, and twenty or thirty there—of brave men dying far away from their homes. We will have all that to read, and of course the illustrated papers will come out again and again with those horrid and loathsome pictures we see every week—pretty things for our children to take up and read. Why are those men killed? Why are they butchered to make a in go holiday? What is it all for? That is why I rise to-night. I want the Government to tell us what is gained by this slaughter. It is not defence now. Now we are the invaders. Why are we invading this country? You say you are going to Pretoria. What are you going to do when you get there? I ask any man in this House—statesman or politician, or Radical, or even Irish Member, even the man in the street. There is no human being can toll what you are going to do when you get to Pretoria, or how you are going to settle this matter. All that appears on the face of it is a nation, which used to be proud of freedom and generosity, trying to crush out two republics. I say it is one of the sorriest sights this world has ever seen. Is there no hope for the voice of reason and humanity being heard in this matter? I am not pleading for the Boers. Oh, no. The Boers are hopeless. They are weak; crush them out. [An HON. MEMBER: You are not against, them.] Well, nobody comes to my help. I am not afraid so much for them, I am afraid for this country. I say we are in deadly peril that this sordid militarism will blight and blast all that is best in our own national life, and for these reasons I think we are entitled to ask the Government whether there is not some statesmanship left in them, and if they are, at any rate, trying to settle this dispute without further bloodshed, instead of going on in this insistence on brute force. I ask them if they will at least stop the horrors of this war.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I do not rise to reply to the hon. Baronet. He has made a bitter attack upon my right hon. friend the Colonial Secretary, who is precluded by illness from being present—

SIR WILFRID LAWSON

I was not aware of that.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I am quite sure the hon. Baronet would not deliberately or by preference attack a man in his absence. However he may be mistaken in his opinions, nobody has a higher courage or more generous instincts than the hon. Baronet. But I am not going to argue with him; he is perfectly consistent with the professions of a life-time. I think he is profoundly mistaken in the views he has expressed to-night, as he has often been before. I will only ask him to reflect when thinking over the substance of his speech, after expressing the views he has expressed of the criminal folly of the nation, whether he still retains his old views about the infallibility of democracy or even of the local veto. But what I really rose for was to make an appeal to the House to remember that the adjournment is the subject of debate, and that it was with a view to meeting the con- venience of Members and sparing them a sitting to-morrow that I made this arrangement for taking the motion before proceeding with the Railway Accidents Bill. Under those circumstances I would venture to make an appeal to the House, and to ask hon. Members whether they have not discussed miscellaneous subjects on this motion for a sufficient length of time, and whether it is not time to get to the business we still have to pass before the evening comes to an end.