The Speeches (In Full) of the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., and William O'Brien, M.P., on Home Rule, Delivered in Parliament, Feb. 16 and 17, 1888.

Mr. Balfour. We have made statistics before on boycotting.

Mr. Gladstone. Yes; but I am speaking of the ancient and traditional practice which this Conservative Government are always so indisposed to follow. (Opposition cheers and laughter.) Statistics of crime deal with facts and matter of record; statistics of boycotting, as far as I understand, are matter of opinion. ("Hear, hear.") What amounts to boycotting, – what is the test of it? There must be, and will be, cases of harsh and unreasonable persecution under the name of boycotting. It is never to be forgotten, though it is very common to forget it, that when you have a state of things that prevails in Ireland, – old and sore relations of friction between class and class, the sense of still remaining suffering or grievance, and consequent instability of social order, – the criminal elements that will always subsist in every community (though I thank God to say that I believe they subsist in Ireland more narrowly than almost anywhere else), I will find their way into social questions, and undoubtedly you will have bad, and very bad, cases exhibited in matters such as these. Therefore the exhibition of particular instances is a very unsafe and insufficient test. They ought to be quoted with great accuracy. The right honorable gentleman has been defending to-night his chosen instruments of the present year. ("Hear, hear.") Yes, but he was met immediately with point blank contradictions on matters of fact, and at present I shall enter no further into that question, which evidently must be made the subject of further examination. ("Hear, hear.") But the right honorable gentleman gave us last year a case of boycotting which was touching to the last degree, – the case of the Galway midwife. (Cheers and laughter.) Does the right honorable gentleman say that the instance he selected last year – the instance of the Galway midwife – was well founded? (Cheers.)

Mr. Balfour. Absolutely correct in every particular. (Ministerial cheers.)

Mr. Gladstone. All I can say is, that here likewise the right honorable gentleman has been met with a point blank contradiction. ("Hear, hear.") But what are we to say of boycotting statistics as a basis for legislation or for congratulation on the rising felicity of a country, when the right honorable gentleman, out of the thousands of cases he has had before him, can only select for us two upon which he is at once met by having his facts challenged, and his conclusions falsified? (Cheers.) Let me point out this. My right honorable friend, the member for Newcastle, well remarked on a former occasion, that there is a chapter of statistics which, if the right honorable gentleman had chosen to enter it, would have been far more to the purpose on this occsion than these he has laid before us, though they are not wholly without value; and that is the statistics of evicted or derelict land. ("Hear, hear.") There could be no difficulty whatever for the right honorable gentleman to have called for returns of the acreage on farms, which, in different counties in Ireland, either all over Ireland or in selected counties, had been derelict a year, two years, or three years ago, in the time of Lord Spencer and down to the present date, and had shown us how, under the recovered liberty of the Irish people, about which he boasts, the acreage of these derelict farms had gradually been diminished. The right honorable gentleman has not only avoided but shirked that question (cheers), and he shirked it because he substituted for any attempt at a rational answer to my right honorable friend, a jeremiad upon the state of feeling which he thought might be produced in Ireland when he found my right honorable friend using language which, in his opinion, was capable of being interpreted into sympathy with the operations of the Land League. ("Hear, hear.") A more unjust charge never was made. (Opposition cheers). But, just or unjust, it has nothing to do with the question.

The right honorable gentleman found himself, and the Queen has been instructed to found herself in her speech, and the organs of the Government have based themselves in their articles, upon the assertion that liberty, as they phrase it, is returning to the people of Ireland. If that liberty were returning, it would be exhibited in a proportionate diminution of derelect farms. ("Hear, hear," from Mr. Balfour.) Then why have you not shown it? (Opposition cheers.) There is one part of the statistics that we have read with increased satisfacfaction, that is the diminution in the amount of crime, limited as that diminution is. I thought when the right honorable gentleman constructed his artificial return, he had some very special purpose in view. It is the first time that I have known the month of January do such good service, and when I look into the return, I find out the cause: The return of offences reported to the constabulary are reported under three major heads, – offences against the person, offences against property, and offences against the public peace. With regard to the offences against the person and property, I find that if I take the five months only of last year, after the passing of the Coercion Act, and compare them with the corresponding five months of the year before, there is no diminution whatever. ("Hear, hear.") But in the month of January there was in offences against the person a sudden, a most well-timed, and fortunate, and rapid decline, for they fell from ten to three. The right honorable gentleman drew January into his service; by means of that declension, he was able to show a diminution of six per cent of offences against person and property. I am extremely glad of it, and wish there had been a great deal more. The offences which have sensibly and really diminished are those against the public peace, and I rejoice that they have diminished. But why? The right honorable gentleman stands up and says that the cause of the diminution is the Coercion Act, but I think I have shown that whereas the diminution of crime proper, as directed against person and property, is an exceedingly small diminution, the diminution of offences against the public peace is much larger. I make it out to be that that they fell in these six months from three hundred and twenty-four to two hundred and thirty-eight, or a diminution of about twenty-five per cent. These are exactly the offences that would diminish under the operation of a conciliatory Land Act. (Opposition cheers.)

The right honorable gentleman has the boldness to say that we, on this side of the House, never gave any credit to the Land Act. Why, sir, the Land Act, grossly imperfect as it was, culpably imperfect in the matter of arrears (cheers), contained a great and important provision which the member for Cork in vain had demanded in the September before, which, if it had then been granted, you probably never might have heard of the Plan of Campaign. (Cheers.) It was denounced to the House by the Government of that day as being a provision totally incompatible with that morality, forsooth, on which right honorable gentlemen prided themselves. (Laughter.) I speak of the provision which, under a great responsibility, her Majesty's Government, though far too late, introduced as a most valuable gift. It was quite evident that, so far as offences against the public peace were concerned, the reopening of the judicial rents, and the concession made to leaseholders, could not but operate in the most powerful manner in favor of that diminution. (Cheers.) There are two other questions to be considered, viz., how the law has been administered, and how the administration of the law has succeeded. Has the administration of the law been of a character to reconcile, or has it been of a character to estrange, or has it been calculated to teach respect for the Government, or to bring the Government into increasing hatred or contempt? I am not going into details of prison treatment, but I am going to touch the case of two members of Parliament, with reference to a matter other than prison treatment. I am not cognizant by direct and personal knowledge of the facts, but I have received them from quarters thought to be thoroughly informed. Unless I had so received them, I would not think of laying them before the House.

Mr. Sheehy, a member of this House, has been arrested and remanded without bail. It was a misfortune which might have been taken into consideration at the time that his wife was ill of a disease known as scarlatina, or scarlet fever. He was offered bail by the Government if he would promise not to open his lips in public. By Government – that, I presume, means the Executive Government. I want to know what title the resident magistrate had to make such a condition as that. (Opposition cheers.) Most dangerous is this introduction of the new discretion of resident magistrates, – a discretion of imposing new restrictions upon prisoners. Why is it necessary to impose these conditions? If Mr. Sheehy chose to commit an offence while he was under bail, he could be taken up for that, and I want to hear from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or some member of the Government, a distinct account of the new doctrine that those conditions may be imposed, which are written, I believe, neither in law nor in custom, which have been set in action in Ireland, but which in England, we know, are not heard of, and would not be heard of or tolerated for a moment. (Cheers.) Mr. Sheehy, I must say, very properly entirely declined to accede to that condition, and he was tried and sentenced to three months' imprisonment. He appealed, as he was entitled to do, and bail was accepted for his appearance at quarter sessions, so that he would have been able to obey the almost sacred domestic form of tie which was at the time incumbent upon him. But as he was going out of the door of the court he was arrested again on another charge, and brought away immediately to a distant part of the country, his wife being in the very crisis of her illness, and her life seriously threatened. On the second charge he was sentenced, not to three months, which would have enabled him to appeal, but to one months imprisonment, (Nationalist cheers), depriving him of the power of appeal.

Mr. Chance. Which had been promised by the right honorable gentleman to the House.

Mr. Gladstone. The right honorable gentleman, the Chief Secretary, is perfectly aware of that promise. He is perfectly aware that in the debate last year he was charged by my right honorable friend near me (Sir W. Harcourt) with breech of faith with regard to that promise, and to that charge of breach he has remained, I must say, very patiently silent. (Opposition cheers.) Now, is that the sort of administration of the act of last year which her Majesty's Government are prepared to defend? (Opposition cheers.) Is it thus that Ireland is to be reconciled? (Nationalist cheers.) Is it thus that the Irish nation is to be converted? Is it in this House of Commons, the most ancient and the noblest of all the temples of freedom, that such operations as this are to be either passed over in silence or defended by those engaged in them? (Loud Opposition cheers.) I cannot understand the extreme severity of treatment in certain particulars, if I am rightly informed, meted out to this gentleman; but I wish to keep for the present to what relates most distinctly to the administration of the law as apart from prison discipline, and in that view alone I would mention the case of Alderman Hooper and others. Alderman Hooper was sentenced for publishing reports of the National League branches that had been suppressed, although, as I understand, there are plenty of these reports published within the cognizance of the Government, with respect to which those who publish them have not been sentenced and have not been proceeded against.

Well, Mr. Alderman Hooper was proceeded against, and was sentenced for publishing these reports for a term of one month. He would have had there no right of appeal, but was again simultaneously charged for publishing another report; another sentence of one month was pronounced upon him. These sentences, though cumulative with regard to him, were not cumulative with regard to the right to appeal. (Cheers.) Therefore, while the right honorable gentleman professed to give the right of appeal for all sentences above a month, by this clever device he has contrived to inflict upon Alderman Hooper, a member of this House, an imprisonment of two months, and yet that Alderman Hooper should have no right of appeal. And there again, sir, I say I am sorry to use strong words, but I am tempted to do so outside this House, and I will do so in this House. (Opposition cheers) This was explained to be not only a constitutional violence, not only a clear evasion of the spirit of the law, but an incredible meanness (loud Opposition cheers), a meanness in the method of administering the Crimes Act, and a spirit is displayed which, if the Irish people had only a hundredth part of the courage, the pluck, and perseverance which they had shown through seven centuries, could only tend to alienate and estrange them from those who attempt so to govern them. (Opposition cheers.) The word that I have thus used I am going to use again. (Ministerial laughter.) I am very desirous to invite the concurrence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the propriety of my application of it, or whether he considers that nobleness would be a better description of the circumstances which I am about to describe. Without knowing what I am going to say, the right honorable gentleman accepts my challenge, and, therefore, I am justified in exhibiting a specimen of the nobleness with which this administration of Ireland is conceived and executed.

I have before me a list of six people prosecuted, not for publishing reports of suppressed branches, but for selling them. Their names are: Macnamara, at Tralee; Mahony, Tralee; Molloy, Tralee; Brosman, Killarney; Green, at Killarney, also; and at Ennis, another Macnamara. (Irish honorable members: "This same man twice.") Two of the cases were dismissed, but four of them were sent to prison, – one for a month with hard labor, another for a month with hard labor, another for two months with hard labor, and another released on a promise not to do it again. Again this method of interfering with private freedom by arbitrary restriction, governed by no law, justified by no usage, devised by this spirit of Irish administration (cheers), and with respect to which I want to know how far this importation into the law and jurisprudence of the country is to be carried under the auspices of her Majesty's Government. Well, now, sir, I want to know from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he is to speak to-night, does he see nobleness in the prosecution of these men? ("Hear, hear.") Does he think it rational to prosecute these men? (Cheers.) Does he think it right to require of the vender of a newspaper that he should read its contents? Does he think it right to require that he should have formed his judgment of those contents, that he should have made up his mind whether the proceedings described in the newspaper were legal or illegal? and is that the responsibility which he thinks ought to be imposed on the vender of a newspaper under pain of being condemned to one month or two months' imprisonment? This administration of the Crimes Act, to which I must advisedly apply, until I am better instructed, the term "meanness," has yet, at any rate, had no defence offered in the course of this debate. (Cheers.) The remaining point of the administration of the law on which I will comment is of a different character. It is with respect to exclusive dealing.

It will be remembered that we, in our charges against the bill last year, did not say that it justified the proceedings of exclusive dealing. I do not believe the act does justify them; but this I am bound to say, that the interpretation of the act appears to be deliberately applied in a variety of instances for the punishment of simple exclusive dealing. The right honorable gentleman ought to know, if he does not, for I delivered the speech in his hearing, that when I spoke of the dismissal of curates by rectors and the deprivation of their daily bread, that men with wives and children were to be turned out upon the world, I was not, as the right honorable gentlemen charged me, comparing them with cases of conspiracy, but I was comparing them with cases of exclusive dealing, which, while they are practised freely both in Ireland by the opponents of the Nationalists, and in England by the party of the right honorable gentleman (Opposition cheers), unpunished by the law, I believe it is stretching and straining even the deplorable and shameful act of last session to make it include such cases. Now, sir, I wish to mention eight cases, but first I find I was quite wrong in saying that two of the cases for selling newspapers had been dismissed. They were not. The defendants were released upon promise, and the other four punished. I have now before me eight cases of exclusive dealing, two of which were dismissed, but in all of which the Government proceeded. In one of these cases a man was punished with a month's hard labor for refusing to shoe a horse for a boycotted person; another, for refusing to sell groceries to a boycotted person; a third, for refusing to shoe a horse; and a fourth, for declining to deal with emergency men. Those are all cases of exclusive dealing. They are not cases of conspiracy. In fact, these men have been punished for doing in Ireland that which would be perfectly lawful in England, and which, I believe, is perfectly lawful even in Ireland, under any fair interpretation of the act. Now, has the act succeeded, or it has failed? I do not think gentlemen will object to the proposition that its real object was to put down the National League and the Plan of Campaign.

Now I come again to the speech of the honorable member for East Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien) which, I venture to say, was a memorable speech. (Cheers). To him, as I have never had the privilege of private or personal communication, I will say publicly in this House that though, as he says, imprisonment under the condition he describes is a hard and severe thing, which drives the iron into the soul of a man and leaves him such that he hardly can be again what he was before, yet I trust that the right honorable gentleman has derived some consolation and encouragement to persevere, at least, in lawful and patriotic efforts for setting right the wrongs of his country. I hope he has derived it from the enthusiastic reception that he encountered in this House and out of it, and, I will add, for the credit of honorable gentlemen opposite, from the respectful, and, to some extent, I think, the symathetic silence with which they also accorded him a kindly reception. (Cheers.) The speech of the honorable member was of an importance which has not in the smallest degree been appreciated by the Chief Secretary. The right honorable gentleman has argued the case in his old manner; and whereas the honorable gentleman charged him with having said that he pleaded ill-health against the prison dress, what appears is that the Chief Secretary says that the honorable member had sheltered himself by ill-health against the demand to wear prison dress. For that statement of the right honorable gentleman, as amended and admitted, there is not a shadow of foundation. (Irish cheers.) That you cannot contradict, although you have plenty of myrmidons, and, perhaps, some minions. You cannot show that either by word or act, the honorable member entered this ignominious plea. Why has the right honorable gentleman passed by in silence another personal statement of the honorable member, which I tell him he had no right to pass by, and with respect to which I will now put it to him and the House, that after he has had an opportunity of making Lord Salisbury's defence, he has utterly failed to tender any defence at all? (Cheers.)

Mr. Balfour. He did not require any.

Mr. Gladstone. That is just the matter I am going to argue, and we will see how it stands. The statement of the member for Cork was to this effect, that Lord Salisbury in one of his speeches, after some jocose references which exhibit the tase of the Prime Minister (Opposition cheers), and which are a great deal too common in speeches proceeding from such quarters, held up to British indignation the illegality of the conduct of the member for East Cork, and stated that it had led to disturbances, to attacks upon persons which even placed life in danger, and to gross outrages. In reply, the honorable gentleman stated that his intervention at Mitchelstown produced no act of violence whatever, but on the contrary averted it. The Chief Secretary has not been able to controvert that statement. (Cheers.) Not being able to controvert it, he has passed it by. He has neither the courage to prosecute, nor the generosity to withdraw. (Cheers.) Lord Salisbury made an allegation of a gross and grievous character, which his nephew in this House cannot say a word in support of.

Now, however, he says that that allegation of Lord Salisbury, injurious as it is, and remaining without a shadow of defence, needs no apology. (Cheers.) I hold that until Lord Salisbury can show that he was justified in the broad and most important statement that he made, a personal apology from him is due to the member for East Cork. (Opposition cheers.) This is a personal matter, but it is no slight thing that charges of this kind should be made by the Prime Minister, and that then, forsooth, we should have a shuffling and a shrinking from any attempt to deal with them. With regard to the act for which the member for East Cork was put in prison, the honorable gentleman, has pointed out the attendant circumstances and the consequences of his act; but the right honorable gentleman instead of admitting the virtue of those pleas, generalized his charge, and said it was the habitual and settled practice of the Irish members to do these things. Why, then, did they select for prosecution this instance, in which the member for Cork is able to state, without contradiction, that his intervention, whatever judgment may be given on the naked question of its legality, not only saved tenants from distress, but the public peace from disorder and outrage? (Cheers.)

Now I wish to call attention to the most important part of the statement that I am presuming to make. When I heard the address read from the chair, I said that the heart of it was the challenging paragraph; and when I heard the speech of the member for East Cork last night, I said to myself, "Never did I hear so challenging a speech." The assertions of the member for East Cork opened up the whole question, and gave to the Government the opportunity by contradiction, by grappling with those assertions, of establishing their case and of showing that their designs against the National League and the Plan of Campaign were, at least, in process of accomplisment. Here I must say a word about the Plan of Campaign. It is an interference with the law. It has, no doubt, substituted its authority for the law. Far be it from me to assert that necessarily such a plan in the abstract is an evil. But it is something more. It is a sign that the law does not do its work. It is a sign that the conditions of legality do not exist. It is a warning to set about restoring them. This is not the only place where extra legal combinations and anti-legal combinations have been brought into existence for the purpose of mitigating social disorder. Having cited several of such organizations, such as the Swing organization, the Camorra society in Italy, and Lynch law in America, the right honorable gentleman said, these, all of them, are in their nature evils, but such is the imperfection of man and the imperfection of his institutions, that sometimes things that are evils in themselves are the cure of greater evils, and in respect of the Plan of Campaign, what has to be shown, is that without it Ireland would have been happier and more tranquil than it is at present.

Having recapitulated Mr. O'Brien's six statements as to the beneficial effects of the plan, Mr. Gladstone continued: Now, whereas we now appear to know that there are about forty cases settled under the Plan of Campaign, there is no case in which payments made under the plan have been censured as rapacious or unreasonable by a single Land Commission. Now, be it recollected that I am not arguing upon the propriety of the plan. I am arguing upon its success. I have shown that there is not the smallest shred of contradiction against any one of those allegations, and that, taken as they stand, they show that at this moment, notwithstanding the boasts of the administration, the Plan of Campaign stands in Ireland entire, successful, and triumphant. Since it has been under the proscription of the right honorable gentleman for a certain time, it appears, according to the facts before us, to weigh considerably heavier than it did before he had anything to do with it, and well this illustrates the success of the right honorable gentleman's policy. (Home Rule cheers.)