The Annual Register 1914: A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad for the Year 1914Anonymous
History
The Annual Register 1914: A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad for the Year 1914
Anonymous
History, Modern; History, Modern -- Periodicals; World War, 1914-1918
Other angry questions followed next day (April 28) and then the debate
opened on the Unionist motion for an inquiry into the "plot." But it
took an unsuspected turn. Various Liberal amendments had been put down
to the effect that in view of what had happened subsequently (_i.e._
the gun-running) the Government would be supported in whatever measures
it might take. Mr. Austen Chamberlain moved the motion, which demanded
a full and impartial inquiry, in view of the "incompleteness and
inaccuracy" of the statements of Ministers and of the continued failure
of the Government to deal frankly with the situation. He reviewed the
course of events since the Prime Minister's offer of March 9, referring
to Mr. Churchill's Bradford speech, the incidents at the Curragh,
the Prime Minister's statement of March 22 (which, he said, was
misleading), and he complained that information was still withheld--the
police reports on which the Government had acted, the instructions
given to Sir A. Paget at the War Office, his address to his officers in
Dublin and at the Curragh. He charged the First Lord of the Admiralty
with inventing an elaborate story to support his account of Lord
Morley's connexion with the peccant paragraphs, and said that Colonel
Seely was only the tool of more astute and unscrupulous colleagues.
[Popular rumour had specified the First Lord of the Admiralty and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer.] He commented on the application for
field-guns for the Fleet, the appointment of Sir Nevil Macready as
virtual Military Governor of Belfast, and said also that the Government
had "seized important strategic points." His charges against them
were: (1) That they took measures, not against a few evilly disposed
persons, but on the basis that conciliation was hopeless till they
showed overwhelming force; (2) that the protection of stores was only
a pretext; (3) that they insisted on movements which Sir A. Paget
thought dangerous after he had done all he thought necessary to protect
stores; (4) that the warships' movements were part of the larger plan
never avowed by the Government, but applauded by their followers; (5)
that the withdrawal of troops from Belfast could only be so explained;
(6) that Sir A. Paget's announcement to his officers, that he would
have 25,000 men, was not compatible with the story that only a minor
movement was contemplated. For his own honour the Prime Minister should
have a judicial inquiry.
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