What I fear is rather this, that if resistance to the national voice of Ireland be pushed too far, those who now guide the mind of that nation may gradually lose their power, and may be supplanted and displaced by ruder and more dangerous spirits. These very institutions, the National League and the Plan of Campaign, which would vanish into thin air upon a rational settlement of the Irish difficulty, might with their power drive such deep roots into the soil, they might acquire such a mastery, if not over the understandings, over the passions of the people, for passions in these cases will always be let loose, they might acquire a strength which may enable them hereafter to offer serious hindrances to government which is good. I venture to express a hope that there will be deeper reflection upon these matters. In the present administration of Ireland, it is too plain you are endeavoring to do what the language of Lord Salisbury shows is too clearly your intention, what has long been endeavored, but under circumstances wholly different. For seven hundred years, with Ireland practically unrepresented, with Ireland prostrate, with the forces of this great and powerful island absolutely united, you tried and failed to do that which you are now trying to do with Ireland fully represented in your Parliament, with Ireland herself raised to a position which is erect and strong, and with the mind of the people so devoted that if you look to the elections of the last twelve months you find that the majority of the people have voted in favor of the concession of Home Rule.
If this is to continue, I would venture to ask gentlemen opposite under such circumstances as these, and with the experience you have, is your persistence in this system of administration, I will not say just, but is it wise, is it politic, is it hopeful, is it conservative? (Cheers.) Now, at length, bethink yourselves of a change, and consent to administer, and consent finally to legislate for Ireland and for Scotland in conformity with the constitutionally expressed wishes and the profound and permanent convictions of the people; and ask yourselves whether you will at last consent to present to the world the spectacle of a truly and not a nominally United Empire. (Loud Opposition cheers.)
MR. O'BRIEN'S SPEECH.
Mr. W. O'Brien rose amid loud and prolonged cheers from the Irish members, and speaking for the first time in this House since his release from Tullamore Jail, said: All the speeches which have been made in support of the Government have seemed to follow the keynote struck by the Chief Secretary. They all appeared to be more or less artfully designed to draw angry retorts from these benches. It is one of our national faults to be very ready to resent injustice, and a most generous use our opponents have made of that characteristic. ("Hear, hear.") The whole policy of our opponents towards Ireland, and the whole object of the powerful London newspapers, seems to be to get at the worst side of Irish and of English character, and to sting and goad us into doing things which will put new life into national prejudices that are expiring in spite of you. (Opposition cheers.) Irishmen and Englishmen are becoming only too united for your purpose. Yours is a noble ambition! But you have failed in Ireland, and you will fail, I promise you, in this House also. There was a time when we came here with our hand against every man's, and every man's hand against us. We expected no quarter, and to the best of our ability we gave none. It seemed to no purpose to struggle against the tremendous and cruel forces arrayed against us; but that is all at an end forever, thanks to the right honorable member for Mid-Lothian. (Cheers.)
We have come to this House no longer as enemies among enemies. We count ourselves Ishmaelites no longer in this House, nor in this land of England. We are now among allies and friends who were not ashamed nor afraid to stand by our side and by the side of our people in many a bitter hour of trial and calumny last year. (Opposition cheers.) We come here now among a people whose consciences, I believe, have been deeply stirred by the sufferings of our unfortunate people; and though we are confronted by a hostile majority, callous to those sufferings, we know that that majority does not represent Scotland and Wales. (Opposition cheers.) We believe that it does not even represent England. (Renewed Opposition cheers, and counter Ministerial cheers.) It is a majority obtained by foul means and upon representations which have turned out to be utterly false. We know that it is a majority who, two years ago, were not ashamed to receive their offices at the hands of the men whom they are now libelling in England and torturing in Ireland. (Loud Opposition cheers.) We have no respect for that majority. I doubt whether in their secret hearts many of them have much respect for themselves. ("Hear, hear.") I know very well that they are extremely ill at ease. We believe, as I say, that we are winning. (Cheers.) The right honorable gentleman opposite (the Chief Secretary) has failed in Ireland. (Home Rule cheers.) He has failed to smash our organization. He has failed to break the spirit of our people. He has failed to degrade us, I won't say in the eyes of our countrymen, for that would be absurd, but in the eyes of every honest man within these three realms. He has failed in every one of those calculations in which he indulged so confidently last autumn.
I shall prove before I sit down that failure is written on every clause and upon every provision of this act, abject failure, discomfiture, and disgrace. I shall be able to prove that sorely as our people have been tried and wronged, that they have managed to survive one of the most horrible Coercion Acts that has ever been directed against human liberty: that they have been able to crush and baffle it at every point, and that without one deed that they look upon with shame, but by sheer force of an incomparable national feeling. (Cheers.) Now, in the first place, I shall try to deal very shortly with my own case; and if I refer to it at all, it is, not in order to notice the coarse sneers of the honorable member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell),—I do not think it would be as parliamentary as it is true to say malignant sneers ("Hear, hear"),—I think it possible that before very long those sneers may be answered in the only way they deserve, by the electors of South Tyrone,—it is because I recognize that I am the very worst parliamentary criminal under this act. I am the only one who could have been proceeded against under the ordinary common law, with the shadow of a chance of conviction. Every colleague of mine who has been punished is being punished for new and statutable offences for which no jury in the world would convict under the ordinary law. The point I press upon the House is that if I can justify my offence, then I say, with a thousand times more force, the conviction of every one of my colleagues is an outrage upon justice, and their treatment in prison is an indelible disgrace to the man who planned it. I find that foul misrepresentation has been resorted to to mislead and to deceive the English public as to the offence for which I was sentenced.
Within the last week I have been reading the papers, and I am sorry to find that Lord Salisbury was not above stooping to encourage and to lead this attempt most unfairly and untruly to poison the English mind against me. He made a speech at Oxford, in which he indulged in flouts and gibes at my own humble expense. I do not complain of that. It is not the first time that he has been accused of making flouts and gibes at the expense of persons with whom he was more intimately allied than he is with me. (Opposition cheers and laughter.) But here is how this great nobleman describes my case to an English audience. He says, "What is there in the case of Mr. O'Brien to make him a martyr?" And then he goes on with his creditable witticisms. He says, "I do not refer to his small clothes. (Laughter.) Their vicissitudes would furnish a theme for an epic (rewewed laughter), and I hope an Irish bard will arise worthy of the subject. (Continued laughter.) But taking the man apart from his clothes." (Roars of laughter; Ministerial cheers.) I notice that your cheers do not rise to a roar. (Opposition cheers.) I do not answer these remarks. The noble lord went on, "What is there to excite the sympathy of the loyal subjects of England? He broke the law; he incited others to break the law, and recommended that the men who were endeavoring to collect just debts should be met with violence. In consequence of his recommendation, they were met with violence. They were scalded with hot water, and some of them were brought next to death's door. What is there to excite the sympathy of the loyal subjects of England?" (Cries of "Nothing.")
Now I shall tell you briefly the circumstances under which my advice was given, and the results of that advice. I will ask any candid man in England, after he has heard me, whether that speech of Lord Salisbury is not calculated to convey to the average Englishman an impression, so false, so misleading, that I am afraid I should be obliged to travel beyond the region of parliamentary epithets to characterize it. Now, on the 2d of August, this House had, practically speaking, passed the Land Bill, enabling over a thousand people of Mitchelstown, who were leaseholders, to have their rents revised. On the 8th of August, word reached me that the police and the military were gathering in Mitchelstown to carry out an eviction campaign. The effect of that campaign would have been to forestall all the operations of the Land Bill, and, practically speaking, to defeat the intentions of Parliament, and to fling these poor people naked upon the world before the relief, which was actually entering the door, could reach them. (Opposition cheers.) That was technically legal for the landlord for a few days longer, but I hold that if ever there was a crime committed against society, it was that which was being attempted the day I went down to Mitchelstown. Well, but what was to be done? If the right honorable baronet, the late member for West Bristol (Sir M. Hicks-Beach), were still Chief Secretary, at all events, in his early manner, we might have had some hope that the Queen's troops would not have been made accomplices in such an act.
On the day I reached Mitchelstown, on the appeal of these poor people, I found that evictions had already been carried out on the non-residential holdings, where there was no possibility of resistance. Ah! It is an old story in Ireland. No mercy for the weak who can make no resistance, no scruple about perpetrating a wrong when it can be done in the dark. (Home Rule cheers.) That was the bitter thought which passed through my mind that day, when these poor people, my own constituents, came to me in helplessness and despair, to know what was to be done to save them from the ruin that was impending. There was just one hope for these people in all the world, and it was this. The Northwich election was pending (Opposition cheers), and the Irish evictions were an awkward topic for a Tory candidate. The stories of Glenbeigh and Bodyke were beginning to horrify the English mind. I knew that Tory statesmen would not scruple to lend troops if it could be done without commotion, but I thought they might hesitate, lest they should lose the Northwich election. I had not a moment to consult anybody, and absolutely on my own responsibility, and on the spur of the moment, I did there and then, in the open square of Mitchelstown, and in the hearing of a number of policemen, tell the people if, under these special circumstances, the evictions were carried out before the Land Bill, which was almost law, did become law, it would be no outrage of the law, and that they would be justified before God and man in defending their homes by every honest means. (Cheers.)