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
I pass on to the remarks of the right honorable gentleman the Chief
Secretary for Ireland, and I feel bound to refer to the observation he
made during the general debate on the address last week, to what he
called the practice of members on this side of the House of making
statements outside this House which they would not repeat within it, and
especially to his adverse and rather angry comments on tne pacific tone
of the speech which I had just delivered. The right honorable gentleman
overflows with pugnacious matter. He is young and inexperienced in
debate, and bold and able as I confess him to be, I think that when he
has been fifty-six years in the service of his country, it is possible
that his stock of contentious eagerness may be a little abated.
(_Laughter and cheers._) I have many reasons, but if I must give a
reason why I was particularly anxious to avoid the needless introduction
of contentious or polemical or accusatory matter in speaking on the
opening debate on the address. I felt that an Irish debate was pending;
and in the second place, the great object I had in view was to assist
and to promote the purpose of the Government,--to promote, I will also
say, the honor, dignity, and efficiency of this House, by giving what I
may call in homely language a good start to the business of the session,
by detaching it from everything like controversy. But if the right
honorable gentleman laments the uncombative character of that
discussion, I think he will derive probably ample satisfaction in the
future. There is no fear, I believe, that Irish debate will be wanting
in animation, possibly in animosity, so long as the right honorable
gentleman continues to be Chief Secretary. (_Opposition cheers and
laughter._) The right honorable gentleman even on that occasion found in
my pacific speech matter deserving of indignant rebuke. I repeat my
lamentations that some of the most difficult and the nicest parts of the
law are removed by the operation of the Coercion Act of last year from
judges and juries to men whom I termed of an inferior stamp. That was
the observation I ventured to make, and the right honorable gentleman
was rather wrathful over it. I fully admit that he is a perfect master
of _tu quoque_. He said, "Whoever they are, they are the men whom Lord
Spencer appointed." In the first place, that is quite inaccurate; and in
the second place, if inaccurate, it was totally irrelevant. It is
perfectly inaccurate.
Mr. BALFOUR. I said that sixty out of seventy-three were appointed
mostly by Lord Spencer, or else were the appointments of previous
Governments revived by him.
Mr. GLADSTONE. And so the right honorable gentleman thinks that what he
calls reviving--that is to say not dismissing--is the same thing as
appointing. (_"Hear, hear," and laughter._)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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