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.Gladstone, W. E. (William Ewart)
History
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.
Gladstone, W. E. (William Ewart)
Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901
Now, I have given the right honorable gentlemen my views about
Mitchelstown. (_Opposition cheers and derisive Ministerial cheers._) It
was time that I should say, "Remember Mitchelstown." Mitchelstown might
have become what in one particular class of language is termed a
"prerogative instance." The Mitchelstown police, commended by the right
honorable gentleman, were held up to the police in Ireland as the
pattern which they were to follow. (_Cheers._) They were told they had
acted only in self-defence, and the measure and meaning of self-defence,
as exhibited at Mitchelstown, I feared, and it was reasonable to fear,
would be the meaning and the measure of self-defence on every other
occasion, when, by legality or illegality, the police found an
opportunity of coming into collision with the people. (_Cheers._) I tell
the right honorable gentleman frankly that, in my opinion, he had
become, by clear implication, a breaker of the law. (_Cheers._) He had
given to the breaking of the law authoritative countenance and approval,
and not only so, but he had done it under circumstances where that
authoritative approval, conveyed to the mind of the police, would
naturally, justly, and excusably, almost necessarily, have pointed out
to them that that was to be the model and rule of their conduct in every
example of the kind. (_Cheers._) Sir, it was in the interests of law and
order that I denounced the conduct of the police. (_Opposition cheers
and derisive Ministerial cheers, in which Mr. Balfour joined._) It will
be a long time, I think, before he can discover an instance, either on
this bench or among any of those who are our friends, in which the law
and order of the country, and the security and the lives of the people,
had been treated with such recklessness as they then were by the right
honorable gentleman and his colleagues. (_Cheers._) I have done my best
to inform myself, and in conformity with, I believe, uncontradicted and
consentient statements, I contend that the inferences I have drawn from
these facts are just inferences, and that it was not only natural but
necessary to adopt precautions on the part, I will say, of England,
against the fatal imitations which Mitchelstown might have produced, and
to take securities for law and order in Ireland, first of all, as I
pointed out to the people of England, that these things ought to be
watched; and secondly, by making known to the Government, and to their
agents and their organs beyond the the Channel, that if such occurrences
did happen, they would not pass uncensured. (_Cheers._) I believe I
never spoke more useful--I will go further, and say more fruitful--words
than when I telegraphed, "Remember Mitchelstown." (_Loud Opposition
cheers and derisive Ministerial cheers._) I now come to the statistics
of the right honorable gentleman, with reference to boycotting. The
Government are particularly stingy in their statistics, but they have
given some figures as to boycotting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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