The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-07-02 00:00:00

sra GEORGE TREVELYAN ON THE
IRISH DIFFICULTY;
Mr. Halley Stewart has received the following letter
from Sir George Trevelyan :
"Dear Mr. Halley Stewart,—You are good enough
to think that my opinion may have some weight with
Liberals, who, like myself, was opposed to the Irish
bills of last year. Whether that is the case or not,
it is an opinion which lam very willing to give.
"In January of this year, 'Mr. Chamberlain and
other members of the Liberal Party, entered into eon-
ference and discussion, for the purpose of arriving,
if possible, at a basis of compromise, or agreement
and reconciliation.' These are Lord Hartingtcn's
words, and they exactly describe the case. Havirg
once consented to join in that Conference, I '
considered that, if the old friends with whom
we were negotiating were prepared to meet our terms
I should be bound, both by public duty and private
honour, to regard our differences as at an end. The
question now is whether our terms have been met.
Mr. Chamberlain, speaking to the Liberal Union on
the 14th- June, used these words: One thing must
have been made clear by Mr. Gladstone's speeches,
and it must be eminently satisfactory to every Liberal
Unionist. The Irish policy which was elaborately ex-
pressed in the two great bills of the late Government,
and for opposing which we have been subjected to
every obloquy, and reviled as apostates and renegades,
has been finally abandoned by its authors. At last we
have knocked the bottom out of the proposals which
were presented to us two Tears ago as a final, 'a full,
a satisfactory settlement of the Irish question. What
better justification can we have for our action than the
confession of those whom we opposed that the policy
to which we objected was incomplete in every im-
portant particular?'
"1 shall not attempt to describe the feelings with
which I, who went as Mr. Chamberlain's colleague
into a friendly conference, for the purpose of obtain-
ing certain concessions, have read the language in
which he taunts the other party in that conference
with having made the concessions for which we asked.
But about the meaning of his language there can be
no mistake whatever. It means that Mr. Gladstone
has expressed himself as willing to make changes in
the details of his Irish policy, which if they had been
made 12 months ago, would then have secured for it
the support of Mr. Chamberlain, of myself, and of
the majority of the Liberal members who voted
against the bill. Lord Herschell, Lord Rosebery,
Mr. Henry Fowler, and other leading politicians
of the Liberal party had already spoken to this
effect in language which proved that they re-
spected both themselves and us; and at Swansea,
on the sth of June, Mr. Gladstone approved
and emphasised their offers of reconciliation.
But their advances have not been met, the Liberal
Unionist leaders have undertaken to show cause why
the terms which would have brought about a reunion
of our party in June last, and in January last, should
not do so now; but they have failed to show it. One
of their allegations is that the old party lines are dis-
appearing, and that, if there is to be a union, it had
better be a union with the Conservatives. Lord
Randolph Churchill, on his side, states that the
Liberal Unionists have safely moored their ships
alongeide their political allies, and the alliance has
become not merely a defensive, but an offensive one.'
Of all the reasons for not joining our old friends
when they are willing to make the sacrifices necessary
to get us back, the very worst is that the Liberal
party, as distinct from the Conservative party, has
had its day and has done its work. The Establiehei
Church in Wales still exists. The liquor traffic is still
unregulated, in the only sense in which the mass of the
peopie,who suffer by its abuses, care to regulate it. The
House of Lords is still unreformed. The metropolis
is still in want of a real municipal organisation. Our
registration system still disfranchises wholesale the
working classes of our towns. From dealing with these
abuses, and dealing with them adequately, the Con-
servatives are restrained by their sympathies, by th-ir
electoral interests, and (I am glad to admit) by their
honest beliefs. And in matters which are more open
questions, it is difficult to believe that the party which,
only three years ago, was straining every nerve to pre-
vent the great majority of their countrymen from get-
ting the franchise of citizens, can bring themselves to
make a thorough, generous, and effective s Itlernent
of local government in England and Scotland and of
self-government in Ireland. These things can be well
done only by men who believe in them, and who
always have believed in them, that is to say, not by
Lord Randolph Churchill and the Conservatives, but
by the Liberal party, and any man who, after Mr.
Gladstone's speech at Swansea, votes against you, or
abstains from voting for you, is entirely wanting in his
duty as a Liberal.
"Another allegation is that, whatever concessions
may be made about the Irish bills of last year, the
Liberals have behaved so badly of late that the
Liberal Unionists can have nothing to say to them.
To this I reply that, if such be the case, the very
worst receipt for mending the conduct of a political
party is to leave its ranks, and induce everybody who
thinks with you to leave likewise. The Liberal
Unionists cannot kill the Liberal party; but., by with-
drawing from it their influence, and their moderating
counsels, they may turn it into more extreme courses
than it has followed in the past. And, in the next
place, the Liberals in recent months have shown very
weil by the side of their opponents. The Liberal
Unionists are quick to detect the mote in the eyes of
Liberals, but cannot discern the beam in the eyes of
the Conservatives. The Conservative method of treat-
ing Irish questions and Irishmen has been wrong in
substence and manner alike. They have deliberately
and for party purposes, entered on a course oe furious
denunciation of the representatives of the Irish people
on account of events which occurred years ago, before
the time when some leading Conservatives were
in close alliance with those very Irish represen-
tatives, and when all of them were silently and
gratefully accepting their political assistance. Having
in 1885 refused to strengthen the law in order to deal
with actual criminals, they now introduce cruel and
terrible penalties which may be used against poli-
ticians and press-writers, and they place these
penalties in the hands of an Irish Executive contain-
ing Ministers who signalised themselves by their
approval and defence of the most dangerous mani-
festation of Orange violence which has taken place in
our time. The appointment of Colonel King-Harman,
in the very crisis of the fate of the Coercion Bill,
proved that the Ministry have no desire to protect
law and order, when law and order are violated by
their own partisans; and that appointment should be
cohdoned by no Statesman who bad the honour of
being a Cabinet colleagne of Lord Spencer during his
nobly impartial administration of Ireland. Mean-
while the Irish members are treated, not as Parlia-
mentary colleagues; not as the representatives of a
large section of our people; not as they were treated
by Lord Mayo, by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach; not as
Mr. Campbell Bannerman and I tried to treat them;
but as public enemies, with regard to whom there is
no call to pick one's words, or be at any pains to
justify them.
"Au attitude of hostility and defiance, both in
speech and action, has been adopted towards the
majority of Irishmen by the Ministry which now
rules the country; and I trust that Lincolnshire
Liberals will, one and all, relieve, at any rate, them-
selves from the responsibility of a policy which can-
not fail to be disastrous in its results to both the
Sister Islands.
"Lord Hartington desires to settle the Irish ques-
tion in concert with the Conservative Party, as the
Reform question was settled in the year 18,85; but,
in that case, we must do as we did in 1885, and leave
no stone unturned to send good Liberals to Parlia-
ment, or we are not likely to get a very satisfactory
Irih settlement of the only Government which, for
40 years past, has openly paraded its Orange
sympathies. Liberals must make it their business
to see that, amidst all the talk of a Central National
Party, and a coalition with the Conservatives, Liberal
principles do not go to the wall.
" What is the Liberty Par,y ? It consists not so
much in any special. organisation, nor in the few
hundred gentlemen who represent it at Westminster;
but in the millions of quiet-living, hard-working men
in every town and village who, by their faith and
courage, and their refusal to be cajoled or coerced,
have enabled us to win all the Liberal triumphs of the
past, and to whose disinterested support the reputa-
tion of every Liberal and Liberal Unionist statesman
is due. In the newspapers, on the day when the Liberal
Union held its last banquet, it was announced that
a meeting of the Spalding Primrose League Habita-
tion had been held, and that arrangements were being
made for active work. Since Mr. Gladstone's speech
at Swansea, there is not the shadow of an excuse for
any one, who calls himself a Liberal, countenancing
the electioneering of the Primrose League, or doing
anything but resist it to the utmost.
"The essence of Liberalism is that people should
tie induced to vote by appeals to their reason, and
not by social pressure and considerations of their
personal interest. There never was a moment in out
day when a greater force than now of social tempta-
tions and social penalties was exerted in order to
, prevail on men of all ranks and classes to leave
Liberalism in the lurch. When Liberalism is fashion-
able there are always plenty of Liberals, but true
tr
he sepeeec i
cause
ses inn
tthhee
hourlo long u run paiddiffi o
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The
eh we hoo stand
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dispute.
of a year back is dead and gone. This is no longer a
question about the details of the Irish Government
Bill, as to which we are now substantially agreed
The Liberal creed and the future of the Liberal part)
are at stake. It is an honour for you to have stood
forward as their champion, and that honour is shared
by every elector who does his best to return you to
Parliament.—l remain, yours very faithfully, G. O.
TREVELYAN."

WIIAT is the difference between a summer dress in
winter and an extracted tooth ?—One is too thin, and
the other tooth out.

Is it true, Monsieur Baptiste, that parrots live for
several centuries ?-4Dartainly Mine. Pceliet. We
have one at my master's house that has been in the
family for four hundred years. To be sure it is
stuffed. _ _ _

A LITTLE girl at a cheap school in the North, who
tad brought with her only one penny to pa the'
_ _
weekly fecrofTwelletVe;ivstd se:Abet le by t
for the other penny. In a short time the schoolroom
door was jerked open by a red-headed Highland woman
leading the little girl by the hand, and, advancing
towards the desk, she shook her fist in the school-
mistress% face, bawling at the pitch of her voice:
Hoo daur you chairge tuppence for the lassie when
she's onl gottel ae e'e ?