The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-01-21 00:00:00

SIR M. lIICKS-BEACIT ON
IRELAND.

Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, speaking at Clifton on
Tuesday night, said that if Home Rule were granted
to Ireland the only change at Westminster would be
that instead of time being wasted over trivial Irish
discussions such questions as the commercial and
financial relations between the two kingdoms would
be discussed. At present it seemed to him that the
idea of Home Rule was enveloped in a kind of benevo-
lent flummery. Among the gravest symptoms of the
Irish difficulty he classed the facts that the men
sent to prison for breaking the law were treated
almost as heroes by the populace, and that sixty-five
of the Home Rule members were returned un-
opposed because of the anti-English sentiment in the
minds of the Irish electors. There was need for bold
and sympathetic statesmanship, and, though a
separate Parliament and Executive F hould be with-
held, the Irish members should be granted as great a
voice as the Scotch in the management of their own
national affairs. He would submit two considerations
to those who were inclined to sympathise with the
attacks made on the Government. If Mr. Matthews
and Mr. ilfour—(cheers)—had really deprived Irish-
men of free speech, and were using the Crimes Act
to torture and murder their political adversaries, it
would not require the personal abuse and scurrilous
language levelled at them to rouse the English people
against them. (Cries of "No.") Then, it was not
wise to believe implicitly everything we read in the
English newspapers, and that caution was specially
requisite in regard to Irish affairs. Our language
did not mean the same thing in the mouth of a fervid
and imaginative Irishnlan, and in the mouth of a
cold and cautious Englishman. If we heard that
an Englishman was killed we immediately la-
mented his death, but if an Irishman told us he
was killed we knew he was only seriously bruised.
(Loud laughter.) We ought to apply that rule
to all the fervid rhetoric, all the sensational crimes,
all the accounts of police outrages which from
one side or the other we saw culled from every part
of Ireland as the staple of the Irish news in our
London daily journals. (Hear, hear.) He believed
the Government had only acted strictly within the
limits of their constitutional duty, and that they had
deserved the thanks of the nation by making real
progress in the establishment throughout Ireland of
the supremacy of the law. (Cheers.) An English
Local Government Bill was to be the next important
business of the session, regarding which he would
only remark that he hoped the Government would
be wise enough not to attempt to ride rough shod
over local associations in order to secure a kind of
ideal, and that too much ought not to be expected
from it. Another great subject which must occupy
the time of Parliament was finance. He trusted the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, with his acknowledged
financial genius, would be able to make a great saving
to the nation by reducing the interest on the National
Debt. (Cheers.) A resolution congratulating him on
his return to health, and hoping he would speedily re-
sume his place as a Minister of the Crown having been
passed, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach said he had lost his
health in the service of the country, and if the country
required his services again he would give them as long
as his health permitted him to do so, but he was not
impatient to be in office.