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
On this deplorable occasion the agents of the law were the breakers of
the law, and those breakers of the law, acting in the first instance
under subordinate authority, were adopted and sanctioned by the right
honorable gentleman, with the full authority of the Government.
(_Cheers._) What was the second act of the police? Their wedge was not
strong enough; they were pressed back out of the crowd, and it seems to
me with perfect propriety and legality, whereupon they brought a large
force of police and charged the crowd, because the crowd had not
concurred and co-operated in the former illegality. That was a fresh
illegality committed by the police. Then violence began; then began the
use of batons; then began the use of sticks and cudgels; then began the
sufferings of the men in the crowd, and of individual members of the
police, on which the right honorable gentleman is eloquent, and which I
regret as much as he does. But the police in these two illegalities of
attacking and batoning the crowd were defeated. The crowd did not pursue
them. (_Cheers._) According to all the information before us, the crowd
were recalled, and again took their places in the square. A mere
scattering and sprinkling of most probably boys, we know not how and to
what extent, were in the street where the police barracks are to be
found; and among them, those boys or others, succeeded in breaking three
windows of the police barracks. (_Laughter._) Those three windows were
exalted and uplifted by the right honorable gentleman into a general
attack on the barracks, compelling the police, in self-defence, to fire
on the people. In one sense I must say the police did not fire on the
people, for no mass of people was there to fire on. I said at
Nottingham, and it is the result of all the inquiry I have made, that
there was not more than twenty people in the street opposite the
barracks, and under these circumstances the police actually fired into
the windows of the opposite house, where there were peaceful people,
women, and children; and they fired deliberately at individuals, two old
men and one boy, whom they destroyed. That I do not hesitate here to
denounce--I think I did not use the words at Nottingham--as cruel,
wanton, and disgraceful bloodshed (_Loud cheers._) It recalls the period
of Lord Sidmouth, and was bloodshed which, so far as I know, has had no
example in its wantonness and causelessness since the memorable occasion
in Manchester, which is popularly known as the Massacre of Peterloo.
(_Cheers._)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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