A PERSONAL STATEMENT. (Hansard, 22 April 1914)

§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE
My Lords, on the Motion for the adjournment of the House, I ask permission to make a short personal statement. Your Lordships will remember that earlier in the evening the noble Marquess opposite, Lord Lincolnshire attempted to justify a resolution charging the Tory Party with unpatriotic attempts to corrupt the Army and use it as an instrument for the defeat of Parliamentary Government. He was challenged to produce instances of such attempts, and he put in the forefront of his case a speech which I had delivered in the month of November last—or, rather, he put in the forefront of his case the comments made by the Prime Minister upon that speech. We hoped throughout the discussion that the noble Marquess would produce the passage which he, or the Prime Minister, had in mind. He did not do so, but I have now been able to obtain the report of the speech, and I desire, in self-defence, to read to your Lordships, certainly not the whole speech, but the only passage in it which is really material. I said that Mr. Winston Churchill had accused the Unionist Party of attempting the seduction of the Army; and then I went on in these words— What about seducing the Army? The fault, if fault there be, lies not with us, for I know of no Unionist who has ever used language which could be interpreted as inciting the Army to do anything but its duty, but it lies with those who have announced, not ambiguously, that they intend to use force in Ulster. The question is one of the effect which will be produced upon the Army in this country if they are called upon to use violence against their fellow-subjects in Ulster. That is a question which, with or without Mr. Churchill's permission, is being asked at this moment wherever thoughtful men are discussing the problem of Ulster. That is all I said, and I put it to your Lordships whether the language which I used deserves to be described either by the noble Marquess or by the Prime Minister as "the whole gospel of anarchy."

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE
My Lords, the noble Marquess has quoted the words which he used on November 18 as to the possible action of the Army, and 1038 he asks whether any of those words justify either the comment which the Prime Minister made upon them or the further deduction which my noble friend behind me drew this evening. The noble Marquess has read out his words, and I had better, perhaps, repeat what Mr. Asquith said of them. He spoke on November 27, nine days later, and said— We are not going—I am sure you do not need the assurance—we are not going to be frightened, or arrested, or deflected in the pursuit of that which we believe to be right and politic by the menace of Civil War. It is threats of this kind—I am speaking in all sobriety and seriousness when I say so—coupled and reinforced by hints, such as even Lord Lansdowne thought it proper to give the other day, of their possible effect on the British Army which are, in my deliberate opinion, the most formidable obstacle at this moment to anything in the nature of an agreed settlement. In many of the recent utterances, even of responsible statesmen like Lord Lansdowne, there is expressed, or implied, what I described some time ago as ' the whole gospel of anarchy.' If you once lay down that the individual citizen has in his own bosom a dispensing authority which entitles him to offer armed resistance to the law of the land, and, further, that the servants of the State, be they soldiers or police, be they officers or men, may discriminate at will between the binding force of the various orders which from time to time they receive from those above them—I say, and I say it with all solemnity, once accept such a doctrine as that, do not be blind enough to suppose that its application will be confined to a particular case. What I think it is important to point out is that the Prime Minister evidently did not rest that statement only, or indeed mainly, upon the observations of the noble Marquess opposite.

§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE
The Marquess of Lincolnshire did.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE
The Prime Minister was thinking of some speeches which had been made, some of which have been quoted in this House and many of which I have no doubt have been read by noble Lords opposite. There was a speech, I think, of Mr. F. E. Smith, and one or two speeches I think have been quoted in this House as having been made by Mr. Bonar Law, which seem to imply at any rate the possibility of the existence of some kind of dispensing power in the mind of those who might receive orders as servants of the Crown. And when the noble Marquess used the words "The question is one of the effect which 1039 will be produced upon the Army in this country if they are called upon to use violence against their fellow subjects in Ulster;" the Prime Minister, I take it, spoke rather to the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, in the sense of Et tu, Brute! Less responsible members of the Party, opposite might conceivably make speeches to which such an interpretation could be given, but that the noble Marquess who is so responsible and who has himself been Secretary of State for War should use a phrase which could be taken as giving any hint of the kind, cut to the heart my right hon. friend the Prime Minister.
What I believe to be the criticism which may reasonably be made, slightly, if you will, against the words of the noble Marquess, but with greater force against some of the other speeches which have been made, is that if they are merely prophecies of what may happen in a particular event they belong to the class of prophecies which come dangerously near to the giving of advice. I remember that in one of the debates we had on the subject of Ireland I was speaking of what might occur if the Home Rule legislation broke down and the majority in Ireland found themselves confronted with the failure of their hopes. I spoke of the lawless condition which might follow, and I went on to add that the kind of resistance which Irish Nationalists might make in such circumstances to the Government here would obtain from a great number of people in this country the same kind of sympathy as the Ulster movement is obtaining from the Party of noble Lords opposite to-day. I remember I was most severely taken to task for saying anything of the kind, and my prophecy, which was a mere prophecy of a most hypothetical series of conditions, was treated as though it was an encouragement to Irish Nationalists to resist the law of the land in the event of Home Rule breaking down. It is because some of the observations which have been made, which are described by noble Lords opposite as merely forecasting a state of things which may occur, do seem to us to come dangerously near the region of encouragement that the Prime Minister said what he did on that occasion, and that my noble friend behind me said what he has to-night. I do not think that there can be any object in our pursuing this particular question any further, but I thought it right to say these few words in explanation of the various observations that have been made.

§ VISCOUNT ST. ALDWYN
My Lords, the noble Marquess who leads this House has spent some minutes in attempting to justify the observations which the Prime Minister made upon the speech of my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition. He has suggested that my noble friend's words may be taken as something in the nature of advice to the Army not to obey orders. But anybody who reads the words which my noble friend has quoted will see at once that if there was anything in the nature of advice it was advice to His Majesty's Government not to pursue the dangerous policy of attempting to coerce the Ulster Protestants by force. The whole of the speech which the noble Marquess has just delivered is an attempt at justification of the reference of the Prime Minister to my noble friend's words; but not a word did he say in justification of the utterly baseless charge which the noble Marquess, Lord Lincolnshire, made against my noble friend of attempting to corrupt the British Army by the language which he used.