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 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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