Fearing lest he might play them Balaam's part,
And bless whom he should curse; and so they drew
Their bonds about him closer day by day
Living or dying, till no will he knew
But theirs, and as they pointed, marked the way.
In Home Politics Ireland largely dominated the scene during the latter half of the Beaconsfield administration. As early as 1876 Punch had dealt faithfully with the plea advanced on behalf of political prisoners in the following caustic argument:—
Killing is no murder if complicated with treason. That renders it a mere misdemeanour. A military offence, simply capital, becomes a minor offence when treasonable besides. Treason is an extenuating circumstance of mutiny and murder, and its commission in committing those crimes reduces murderers and mutineers to political offenders. Therefore, instead of being hanged or shot, they ought, if punished at all, and not, on the contrary, rewarded, to be condemned to nothing worse than temporary seclusion, and should, all of them, after a merely nominal imprisonment, be respectfully released.
Obstruction and the Remedy
This was a logical and ironical reductio ad absurdum; yet Punch lived to see it translated into practical politics forty years later. In 1877 the scientific obstruction practised by the Irish Party in the House of Commons prompted a whole series of cartoons. In one Parnell, Biggar and Callan appear as "Erin's Three Graces." In another a drove of Irish pigs (including Whalley) are shown blocking the railway line of Parliament. In a third Punch bids schoolmaster Northcote to take down not the words, but something else of the obstructives. Commenting on the twenty-six hours' sitting in July, 1877, in which the House was held up by a group of obstructives that never rose above seven, Punch observes:—
Four Chairmen—Raikes, Childers, Sir H. Selwin-Ibbetson, and W. H. Smith—were used up in the night-watches, and the House was kept, by relays, against the "Dauntless Three"—for Gray, Callan, Nolan and Kirk are but recruits to the banner of Biggar, Parnell and O'Donnell, the standard-bearers of Obstruction. All pretence of argument was early abandoned; and it became a mere contest of endurance, varied by episodes of more or less—generally less—lively squabbling and chaff—if such a word may be used of anything that passes in the august Temple of Legislation. All this while the new Standing Orders seemed, by tacit consent, set aside; and Parnell, Biggar and O'Donnell moved the Chairman out of the Chair, or report of progress, again and again. And yet the Leader of the House had the rod of suspension in his hand, though he forbore to use it, preferring the reductio ad absurdum of such a night's match between the toughness of the House and the tenacity of its Obstructives. Once only he went so far as to threaten more summary proceedings, on which, they say, O'Donnell collapsed. Of course, the great O denies it.
But why, Punch must again ask, allow debates to be degraded to a farce, and the House to a bear-garden? Go to his Cartoon, ye squeamish, and be wise. With the rod in the Speaker's hands, it is not the Obstructives' words that Punch would have taken down. The House sat from four o'clock on Tuesday till six on Wednesday.