THE IRISH AGITATION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2650, 6 July 1889, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE IRISH AGITATION.

The following is the report of the spccch delivered by Lord Salisbury, on the Irish Question, at the opening of the new Oonserativc and Constitutional Club at Watford The Marquis of Salisbury oil vising was received with renewed cheers. When silence was obtained he said : — My Lords and Gentlemen,—On behalf of my colleagues and on my own behalf I thank you inost heartily for the reception you have given to the too flattering words of my honourable frieud beside me. I observed, though, that in his kind tribute to our efforts he passed over—he passed through many topics of interest—topics that in ordinary times would be of supreme interest to any speaker and any audience. He was driven as though by a remorseles fate to end with that Irish question which absorbs all discussion and engrosses every audience. I confess that my pity is on these occasion? deeply moved for those who have to hear me. They have to listen to this Irish question over again. I know that there are many subjects for which they care a great deal more, and I know that they think rooro of the Empire to which we belong, and of the manner of defending it. (Choera.) I have some suspicion that that recent wave of protectionist opinion has a considerable echo in many minds. Still, there are many other subjects to which they would naturally tend, but wo are driven by an inexorable fate, by tho arguments of our opponents, by tho effects which are being made 011 tho scoro and through tho help of the Irish party, to discuss this Irish question, to contradict, as they arise, the calumnies and the falsehoods that are uttered in respect to it, and to keep those whom we address right as to the facts which deal with the most momentous controversy in which England has ever been engaged. (Cheers.) But there is one branch of tho Irish question which I will not discuss on tho present occasion. I do not propose to discuss, as our opponents have constantly done, tho question of Mr Richard Pigott and the forged letters. (Cheers and laughter.) With respect not only to that, but to tho very much larger mass of matter and accusation that has been brought against tho Irish leaders, and which is now under trial and examination before an eminently oompotent and impartial tribunal (hear, hoar), with respect to theso matters 1 propose to observe the silence which is fittiu"- in regard to questions that are still sub jadiec. (Cheers.) I wish to make only one remark with respect to them. By some strange hallucination it is supposed that we have some special interest iu those equivocal documents, and that it was our doing to select them as the tost upon which the merits of tho Irish leaders should be judged. I beg to assure you that the truth is exactly the reverse. Last July Mr Parnell wanted a committee which should be occupied only with these documents. We declined to give that committee, and we offered him the Commission in its stead, and our grouud for doing so was that the scope was too narrow a one, and we declined to place the issue of a great and important public contro 'ersy upon matters which were far too narrow to bear such a burden, and which were not in themselves of importance enough to excltfde from consideration far wider and far more important ;harges which had nothing whatever to do with the documents. (Choera.) I observe that the fact that a Nationalist has forged the signature of the Nationalist leader is treated in certain circles as a remarkable testimony to the merits of tho Nationalist leader (laughter), and that on public platforms a great process of public embracing has been going on (laughter), and that tho men who wore the rao4 deadly opponents, and said the most atrocious things of each other, fall into each other's arms because it was proved that this Nationalist journalist b".d committed cer--1 tuiu forgories. (Cheera and laughter.)

Well, I desire to express no opinion, but I confess it seems to me that this jubilation is excessive and possibly premature (cheers and laughter), and I should like to wait before expressing an opinion on any portion of the subject till that competent tribunal to which I have referred has delivered its judgment. (Hear, hear.) But only the fact that a man has forged your signaturo is not proof that you are possessed of every statesmanlike quality and every moral virtue. (Cheers) Undoubtedly there has been a great demonstration of public affection on this 'flubject. I have only missed one character in the dramatis persona: in these various embracementa of Mr Parnell—l cannot help wishing that Sir William Harcourt had taken part, and I should have then known more exactly, perhaps, the meaning of that phrase, which has always remained somewhat dark and obscure in my mind, about "stewing in Parnellite juice." (Cheers and In nghter.) I am sorry to say that the effect upon Mr Parnell's moral nature has been wholly deleterious. He was always rather given to a flighty imagination before, but his attempt to give an account of facts since he has had the backing of the Gladstouian party really rivals anything in the " Arabian Nights " or that Baron Munchausen ever wrote. I wish just to note one or two of these observations, because, of course, if he is to be looked upon as the alter ego of Mr Gladstone and Lord Spencer he becomes a much more important person than he otherwise would be. I find that four or five days ago he made this statement: — "I say that it has happened that the Tory party, which in 1885, by the mouth of Lord Carnarvon, promised an Irish Parliament to us in ISBG, has in 18S7 turned right round and renewed the policy of coercion and produced forged letters as proofs of the criminality of Irish members." Now, courtesy does not allow me to give to these statements the name which they deserve. (Cheers). But it is nbsolute imagination, absolutely outside of the faintest foundation in fact, either that the Tory party, by the mouth of Lord Carnarvon, ever promised an Irish Parliament to Mr Parnell, or that the Tory party ever brought forward forged letters are proofs of his criminality. (Cheers.) Whatever may be the truth as to these documents —and the matter is very mysterious (hear, hear) — whatever, I say, may be the truth with respect to them, this alone, whether they be forged or not is quite certain —that they were never produced by the Tory party. (Cheers.) In the same speech Mr Parnell, I may mention, went on to dwell upon the sorrows and grievances of the Irish tenant, and the excuse which these grievances might give for any exeessesof which the Irish tenant might have been guilty. I think it is necessary here a<jain to correct an error which pervades the speeches of all Gladstouian speakers upon this point. The matter on which Mr Parnell takes his stand was that the Irish tenant made the improvements on his farm, suggesting that when he was evicted he would not get the value of those improvements. Now, that is, again, absolutely contrary to the fact. It is quite true that the Irish tenant generally does perform the improvements on his farm, but it is not true that any landlord has the power—or for the last 19 years has ever had the power—of robbing him of the value of those improvements. (Cheers.) By an Act past in IS70 —and so far as this clause was concerned it was passed with the general assent of all parties in Parliament—the tenant was given an absolute right in the case of eviction, whether for non-payment of rent or anyt'liug else, to the value of the improvements which he, or his predecessors in title, had made upon the farm. It is a bold thing to read a clause of an Act of Parliament at a dinner like this, but the matter is so important that I hope you will allow me to do so. The Irish Land Act of 1870, clause 4, says :—" Any tenant, other than under the Ulster custom (who is otherwise provided for) may, on quitting his holding, claim compensation to be paid by the landlord under this section in respect of all improvements on his holding made by him or his predecessors in title," and by section 9 these words include a tenant ejected for non payment of rent. (Cheers.) It is therefore absolutely untrue to say that the Irish tenant has any grievance in respect to his own improvements. He has, whether he goes by his own will or whether he is turned out in consequence of the non payment of mnt, an absolute right, under this statute 19 years old, to the value of all improvements which he or his predecessors in title may have made upon his farm. (Cheers.) It is very important to bear this in mind, because again and again you will find Gladstouian speakers resting their claim to sympathy for the Irish tenants who have taken part in the Plan of Campaign on the the ground that they were threatened with the loss of the value which their own improvements had created. In this very speech Mr Parnell speaks of the buildings which the tenauts themselves had erected, and to which they had a perfect right. Undoubtedly they had a perfect right to them, and it is a right which was absolutely protected —a right of which in no case could they be deprived, a right, therefore, which in no case form a justification or an excusc for any of the excesses that are justly laid to their charge. (Cheers.) The real test of the position of the Irish tenant is this. His advocates have been challenged again and again to point out any country in Europe or America where the positiou of the tenant is so favouurble as it is in Ireland. (Hear.) It is not so in England, it is not so in Scotland, it is not so in France, it is not so in America, it is not so in any country under the sun. (Cheers.) Parliament has doue everything, has strained every principle, has loaned heavily—nay, I think with unjust weight against the other party to the contract (hear hear, and cheers) in its earnest desire to deprive the Irish tenant of any pretence for a grievance in respect to the tenure which under the law he enjoys. (Cheers.) It may havo occurred to you in reading the newspapers during the past few weeks that there has been a good deal of screaming. (Laughter.) I dare say you will have observed that big words have been used against Her Majesty's Ministers, and possibly of epithets which have been applied to a gentleman whose name was just now mentioned to you, and which was received by you with indulgence —the Chief Secretary for Ireland (renewed cheers), of whom I m.iy be permitted, in spite of my relationship, to say how deeply I think both the country and the Ministry are indebted to him. (Cheers.) It is good that we should stand aside from the noise and smoke of the conflict, and try to ask ourselves what is the matter that is really in issue. (Hear, hear.) Now, I venture to say that if you will banish all personal questions, and remove all party controversy, you will find that what we are called in question for is that we maintain, above all things, the sanctity of the law. (Cheers.) We are told that the Irish tenant has grievance?. We do not think so (hear, hear); but that is not the question. His rights, like the rights of every man in this room, are ascertained by the law. (Hear, hoar.) If ho is wronged there is a Parliament which has shown itself only too willing to do hitn justico. (Cheers.) I always understood that it was one of the advantages of democratic institutions that a democratic Parliament is to bs obeyed by the

Radicals who had voted it into existence ; but it seems to mo that these Radicals treat a democratic Parliament and its enactments with as much contempt as they might have treated those of any aristocratic or autocratic Government. (Cheers.) We maintain that whatever the rights of the Irish tenant or of 'he Irish landlord are, they only exist so far as they are ascertained by law, and that it is the duty of every loyal citizen to respect those rights which the law declares. (Cheers.) Again, it is said that the statute against assaults on property is unduly severe, while it only deals with tho very smallest range of punishment in the criminal jurisprudence ; but whether that be true or not, it is true that this statute was passed by a Parliament elected on a democratic suffrage (cheers), | that it was passed by an enormous majority, and that it is the law ; aud if you once admit the principle that a statute so passed can be rightly and morally defied at the bidding of midnight conclaves and associations you undermine civilization. (Loud cheers.) Well, again, complaints are made that Mr O'Brien has been hardly treated in prison. (Laughter.) I am not going to enter into the question of his tragic nudity. (Laughter) ; but if you want prison rules altered, there are other ways of getting that done than by lying on your back and kicking at the warder. (Laughter.) Again I fall back on the same principle. These things are questions of general regulations. They are not aimed at Mr O'Brien, they are aimed at every prisoner. (Hear, hear.) If they are wrong, a Parliament exists by which they can be corrected (hear, hear); but so long as they exist, no sympathy is due to any prisoner who tries to resist them, still less to a man who resists them for factious purposes and for political ends, backed up by resistance out of doors. (Cheers.) I will ask you this —do not imagine that this is a matter which concerns the Irish alone ? The supremacy of the law concerns every human being within these islands. (Cheers.) It is the foundation upon which our happiness and prosperity rest. What would you think if a man were to wish to take an unlet farm in this neighbourhood, and a secret association directed that his legs should be fired into at midnight ? You would not consider that a very desirable state of things (hear, hear), and if you found that that was so common that it prevented farms being let you would not consider it a state of society which was altogether advantageous. (Cheers,) But, supposing you found a man of high education, a man who was a member of Parliament, and who, being a member of Parliament, was a lawmaker and ought to know better, come forward and say that men who took unlet farms ought to be treated in this fashion, would you say that he should escape scot free ? (" No, no.") Would yen not say that it was a scandalous deference to distinctions of class and rank, if he were exempt from the punishment which was the lot of those who had been duped by his eloquence? (Cheers) Mr O'Brien, in language not so crude as I have used, but perfectly distinct, urged upon all tho*e who heard him that men who took unlet farms should be treated as they have been treated during the last ten years in the locality in whioh he spoke (" shame") — that is to say, that they should be murdered, robbed, their cattle shot and illtreated, their farms devastated. To prevent those things ia not faction. (Hear, hear.) It is not an assault on political opponents. It is maintaining the very essence and rudiments of civilisation. (Hear, hear). They tell us that proceedings of that kind are analogous to sedition, and ought to be treated like seditious language. They are much more analogous to receiving stolen goods or burglary. (Cheers). Well, but then it is said that the sentences passed on these men were too severe. These sentences —and thi« seems to be a novelty to several speakers —are not delivered by the Executive Government. They are delivered by the judicial officers (hear, hear), and those judicial officers in Ireland, to whom every man can appeal if he likes, are appointed for life, and are absolutely free from any influence the Executive Government can exercise upon them. (Cheers). Wo do not know beforehand what sentence they will give, and we have no power of interfering with tbera in the exercise of their undoubted independent jurisdiction. (Hear, hear). They stand precisely in the position ef the judges of the land here;, and you might as well fall foul of the Home Secretary because a Judge had condemned a man to be hanged, as fall foul of the County Court Judges in Ireland becauso those who are brought up before them receive greater punishments than their political friends think they deserve. (Hear, hear.) It has, I know, been suggested that by the use of the prerogative of pardon we might frustrate tho action and defeat the functions of the Judges ; but that is not our view of our constitutional duty. (Cheers.) Our view is that we are bound to support the judiciary in the discharge of its functions. (Hear, hear.) There was once an English Sovereign who lost his throne because he tried to do what we are recommended to do—namely, to exercise a dispensing power and to make the Executive Government supreme over tho decisions of the Courts of Justice. We are not prepared to follow in that path. Whatever the Courts of Justice determine, that is the law, and must be maintained. (Hear, hear.) It is unreasonable to say, " If you want the rights of property altered you must come to Parliament. If you want the criminal law altered you must come to Parliament. If you want the regulations of tho prisons altered you must coiim to Parliament?" (Hear, hear) In the case of any of these three matters have you any right to seek to alter the law, that is sanctioned by the admitted authority, by the use or by the threat of violence and outrage ? (Cheers.) But wo are met with a very strange phenomenon. For the first time in the constitutional history of this country the legitimate Opposition has given itself up mainly to the duty of inciting people to break the law and of protecting those who have broken it. (Hear, hear.)_ What motive can there be that has induced them to take this strange and abnormal course? I think I can point it out to you. In Ireland there is no real desire for Home Rule (cheers), but there is a great and very widespread desire on the part of the people to possess the property of their neighbours. I do not say this in the least as a reproach to the Irish people. As far as I know there is no people in existence in which a considerable number of persons would not be found to desire their neighbour's property if they could get it, but the only condition on which the Irish peasant will support this cry of Home Rule is the chance of being able to better his own condition in relation to the land he occupies. (Hear, hear.) The agrarian question is at tho bottom of Home Rule. (Cheers.) As long as there is an agrarian question, as long as there is discontent and disturbance in Ireland, so long there will be a large number of people who will support Home Rule, without any real conviction of tho benefits of separation from this country. (Hear, hear.) If Home Rule is to bo supported, agrarian outrage must be maintained. (Hear, hear.) If Mr Balfour succeeds, the cry of Homo Rule will be crushod. (Cheers.) Therefore the word has been passed that, so far as agitation and incitement can c o

it, Mr Balfour must not succeed, and hence you can explain that extraordinary subservience to the acta of secret and unlawful conspiracies in Ireland, which has marked, the policy and conduct of Her Majesty's Opposition. (Cherrs.) It is for that they have become the abettors of outrage and the advocates of anarchy. (Cheers.) It is for that that their Parliamentary existence has been one long effort to make the application of the law in Ireland impossible, (Cheers.) Now, I should be very sorry to leave you with the idea that in our judgment this firm administration of the law, though we hold it to be one great essential, is the only thing, the only agent, or, indeed, the main agent, to whioh we trust for bringing back peace to Ireland. In our view, the relations between landlord and tenant require a certain amount of good feeling and trust on both sides. (Hear, hear.) In this country, I think, we happily have this good feeling and trust (hear, hear,) and therefore the relation of landlord and tenant works very well. Even in times of great distress, under the tremendous strains of recent yeurs, it has not broken down ; but in Ireland the inheritance and memory of long years of conflict, and, I am bound to say, the additional animosity caused by the con. stant vacillation of the English Government, these have produced a state of feeling between landlord and tenant which makes it very doubtful, whether in regard to the main part of the land in Ireland that relation can be usefully continued; and we desire to increase to a very large extent the number of those who own farms which they occupy and cultivate. (Hear, hear.) We believe that if thac can be carried out it will trive a reinforcement, so to speak, to the garrison of property whioh will make property entirely inexpugnable, and we believe that until you have reached a s'ate of things of that description you will not have got rid of the most fruitful source of agrarian difficulty and trouble and discontent in Ireland. (Hear, hear.) Therefore, in our judgment, the first and most important thing, as soon as wo have restored order— the most important thing is to increase the number of occupyiug owners in Ireland. (Hear, hear.) I need not tell you that Lord Ashbourne's Act* have had this object in view, bur, I believe we may go much further with safety and profit. 1 look on legislation of that kind as affording great hope of the restoration of prosperity and happiness to Ireland. When you once have a largo number of occupying owners in Ireland I believe the cry for Home Rule will disappear, and that local self-government may be granted with perfect safety even in the most disturbed districts. (Cheers) But remember that it is not necessary that this measure should be taken first and in the present state of Parliament, when the view which the Opposition seems to entertain is that it is their first business to waste time and their main duty to prevent any measure being passed which may by any accident reflect some credit on the present Government. So long as that state of things exists in the House of Commons the passage of this measure, which we conceive to be a condition precedent to an amelioration in the condition of Ireland, will be exceedingly difficult to attain. (Hear, hear.) Perhaps I may say a word with respect to the causes that produce this obstruction in Parliament; which, ti my mind, is a great hindrance to the restoration of Irish prosperity. We cannot pass the measures we desire to pass for the benefit of Ireland, and so long as these measures are not passed the Session must be imperfect and uncertain, The cause, no doubt, is the hope which the Opposition entertain that they will be able by the sheer process of obstruction to put an end to this Parliament which they dislike so much. Of course they found themselves to a certain extent upon one or two adverse by-elections. Now, by-el etions are a very interesting study, and to those who try to cast the horoscope of the future general election they furnish undoubted matter for discussion and examination. As far as I have been able to study the precedents of the past it is not, to my mind, very easy to ascertain from by-elections what future general elections will be. (Hear, hear.) The conditions are so different ; it is so impossible in byelections to separate things of a purely local and personal character, which in a general election have little weight, that the one furnishes little guide for the judgment of the other. But, whether they furnish this or not, they are. of scarcely any value whatever to enable you to forecast what the immediate or the future progress of legislation during the present Parliament will be. l!y----electious, unless the majority is a very small one, are of entirely subordinate importance ; they cannot alter the majority—or cannot alter it seriously — which exists in the actual House of Commons. And if, as lam led to believe by certain utterances I have seeu, there are any people who imagine that by any process whatever, short of a vote of want of common confidence, they can procro a premature dissolution of the present Parliament, my impression is they ate very much mistaken. (Cheers and laughter.) If the House of Commons remains of its present mind, if the present members remain of their present mind, no event and no series of events can materially alter the position of parties in the House of Commons in respect to a vote of want of confidence, and nothing but a vote of want of confidence can procure the dissolution of Parliament. It therefore senilis to me that those who count on obstruction or abuse, or any other weapons of that kind, for the purpose of procuring such a dissolution are amusing themselves with a dream which will ouly disappoint them. (Cheers), ido not doubt that the present proces- of curing the disorders of Ireland presji.ts features which can be easily misrepresented in the eyes of the electors in this couutry; I do not doubt that such a process requires a certain length of time for its full justification, nor do I doubt that the full justification will have nrrire'l long before the present Parliament will have run its course. (Cheers). But in the meantime it is the function of Coustrvatives, and of all Conservative associations—it is the function of all who heat 1 me—to do all they enn to neutralize the falsehoods which are freely poured upon the public ear. We kuow that the truth will ultimately prevail (cheers), but the truth trickles down slowly but sure y through innumerable channels, whi e falsehood demands suddenly in or.e gn at volume, and for the moment seems to sweep all before it. It is our duty and function as members of the Conservative party by every means, and in every manner that we can, to make the people of this country understand that the buttb we are fighting in Ireland is their batiU as well as ours. (Cheers.) We are con tending that rights must be ascerts:ina.l by Parliament, and not by secret conclaves, we aro contending that laws must bo administered in obedieuco to 'bo statutes of Parliament, and not in obedience to any chance electioneering cry, and in contending these things we .ire struggling for the principles upon which all civilised society is based, and without which your own prosperity and industry would be ruined. (Loud cheers, which the noble marquis snt down.)