The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1888-02-11 00:00:00

POLITICAL SPEECHES.

Lord Ripon and Mr. Morley have been presented
with the freedom of the City of Dublin in the City
Hall. After they had signed the Burgess Roll, Lord
Ripon said the object of their visit was to assure the
Irish people of the heartfelt sympathy of the Liberal
party of Great Britain, whose design was to accord to
Irishmen a full recognition of their legitimate
political aspirations. Mr. Morley said the arguments
which had been derived from the recent meeting in
Leinster Hall were the old ascendancy arguments,
which had lost all their force now that the franchise
was established on a popular basis. The Irish ques-
tion could not be settled according to the views of an
exclusive minority, but it must be decided in a
popular sense. The noble marquis and Mr. Morley
addressed a great meeting the same evening in
the Leinster Hall, which was presided over
by Mr. T. D. Sullivan. A resolution of thanks
to the visitors, Mr. Gladstone, and the Liberal
party for their efforts to restore the Irish Parliament
having been passed, Lord Ripon acknowledged it. He
said the eighty-seventh Coercion Act was being ad-
ministered with a paltry and vindictive bitterness
which would mark with the stamp of final failure this
worn-out and discredited system. The Government
expected either to tire out the Irish people or goad
them to acts of violence; he believed they would be
disappointed. Until the people of Ireland were given
the right to manage their own affairs trade and com-
merce in that country would never be prosperous.
Mr. 'Morley contended that the Coercion Act had
utterly failed. It had not facilitated the de-
tection of a single outrage ; and none of the
results which the Government had anticipated
had followed. As to the future, he said the
Liberal party had not adopted Home Rule as
a party stratagem; they meant business; and
when the constituencies had the opportunity he
believed they would enable them to give to
Irishmen the management of their own affairs and
their rightful place in the great organisation of the
Empire. He did not share the fears expressed that
the Liberal party would go to pieces over the settle-
ment of the details of the Home Rule scheme, be-
lieving that they could be arranged in concert with
the opinion and judgment of the Irish people. It was
not a "bastard nationalism" they were seeking, as
Mr. Goschen had said, but a true union of all Irishmen,
of all sections, and of all interests.

Speaking at Edinburgh, Mr. Childers advocated
the policy of Home Rule, referring to various countries
where it had been won or had been in force in recent
times. For this purpose allusion was made to the
United States, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Switzer-
land, and Canada; and he said that his study of the
subject for many years led him to believe that Ireland
might now be allowed to regulate her internal affairs,
leaving Imperial matters to Parliament.

Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, M.P., speaking at Bristol
on Monday night, said that he had been amused to find
that people even on his own side had accused him of
a tendency to follow Mr. Gladstone in his Home Rule
policy. Doubtless a good deal of what he said was in
direct contradiction to the absurd travesty of the
Unionist policy which was based on the vivid imagina-
tion and fervid boasts of the Home Rule party, but he
maintained it was absolutely in accord with the true
Unionist policy towards Ireland, which had never been
a policy of repression alone. While they had a Unionist
majority they should seek reform.

Sir Charles Russell, addressing his constituents at
Hackney on Monday night, stated his intention of
moving an amendment to the Address in relation to
the conduct of the police in Trafalgar-square on the
13th and 20th November, and on the state of the law
with regard to public meetings. He spoke at some
length in defence of the Liberal party in taking up the
cause of Home Rule, and expressed his strong con-
viction that the straining of the law in the direction
of coercion would ultimately have the effect of for-
warding Home Rule.

Mr. Goschen, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer,
was on Tuesday evening presented with the honorary
freedom of the Fishmongers' Company of the City of
London, the parchment of membership being enclosed
in a gold oblong casket, elaborately chased and
decorated, having on one side the arms of the com-
pany and of the Prime Warden, and on the other the
monogram and arms of Mr. Goschen.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in reply to the
toast of his health, expressed the belief that if the
great Liberal statesmen who had passed away were
alive now they would be the supporters of the
Unionist cause, a tribute of approval of which he
regarded the honour they had that day conferred
upon himself. Despite of the ceaseless efforts
of their opponents during the recess, Conservatives
and Liberal Unionists throughout the country were
alike of belief that they were much stronger as a
party than they were a year previously. .They had
an arduous Parliamentary session and an equally
arduous recess, but they were satisfied with the ses-
sion because it taught them they could rely on the
union, which was at the bottom of the strength of her
Majesty's Government, and they were satisfied with
the recess because, alike in England and Scotland and
Ireland, they had grown stronger by its continuance.
They had not succeeded in eliciting from their
political opponents the nature of the Home Rule pro-
gramme which they intended to ask Parliament and
the country to accept. The Unionists were entitled
to claim that the reason was that there was no pro.
gramme which could be produced without wreck.
ing the alliance. It was established as one of the
results of the recess that there was no Home
Rule programme that could be put before the country
with any hopes of its being accepted. The programme
was nameless—it was a cloud in which their oppo-
nents had enveloped themselves in combination against
those who had no doubt or mystery as to their
aims and purposes, whose great object was to main-
tain the Union—the legislative union—between
Great Britain and Ireland. (Loud cheers.) Another
result of the recess was the exposure of the difficulty
being experienced in keeping together the ranks of
their opponents, and it was indeed amusing to watch
the efforts of Mr. Morley at Dublin to satisfy the
feelings of the poetic patriot who held civic office
there, and at the same time not to shock the quiet
men in the Gladstonian party who had not seemed to
take much interest or personal part in the tournament
of the recess. They had missed the activity ,V the
Whitbreads and the Rathbones, and other gentlemen
who sat above the gangway; if they had indeed
spoken, their own press had not given their utter-
ances publicly. They had preferred to give promi-
nence to Mr. Cunninghame Graham, Mr. Labouchere,
and their new Irish allies. But they had a far more
satisfactory result of the recess. In Ireland there was
more confidence amongst the Unionist classes—there
was more determination to hold together and to assist the
Government and its allies in the policy in which it
was now engaged. These signs of increased hope
and confidence were most satisfactory, and he trusted
that there would not be in any quarter of the
Unionist party a disposition or a tendency to diminish
that confidence on the other side of St. George's
Channel. And there was no result of the recess
which had puzzled their opponents more than the
extraordinary activity of the Unionist party, for it
had been characteristic of the present struggle that
among Conservative and Liberal Unionists alike there
had been a determination to sink party for higher
objects, to forget differences which had hitherto
separated them, in order to face the greater danger
which threatened the constitution of the Empire.
They saw in a neighbouring country that the people,
under the pressure of a foreshadowing national danger,
rallied round the Government, ready to make all sacri-
fices with a view to maintaining their recently acquired
unity. In like manner we in this country, whose
unity dated from a much more ancient period, had
shown that we thought it worth while to sink party
differences, to sink personal considerations, to discard
personal affections and personal ties, in order to be
true to the cause which had caused them to assemble
there that evening. He could best close his remarks
by reverting to the past history of the company, which
had come forward in the most liberal spirit to support
a true Liberal doctrine, and which was not to be
deterred from so doing by a charge that they were in
any way untrue to political principles. He deeply
valued the compliment they had paid him. The sub-
sequent speakers included the Earl of Derby, Sir
Henrq James, and Mr. Courtney.

Sir W. Harcourt, addressing his constituents at
Derby on Tuesday night, compared the Liberal policy
with the Conservative policy for the past 30 years,
and contended that the Liberal measures had always
succeeded eventually. He described the Tory party
as a "tobogganing party," and said they were on the
top of the slide to Home Rule. Replying to Lord
Salisbury's remarks as to traditional policy towards
Ireland, he said the English policy towards Ireland
was the greatest blot upon English history. The
policy pursued towards Ireland had been an
erroneous one. Englishmen were becoming ashamed
of it, and desired that Irishmen should be treated
as fairly as Englishmen. He charged the Tories with
vacillation, with trying to combine with the Par-
nellites to get into office, and then making alliance
with the Unionists to keep it. He referred to the
enthusiastic reception given to Mr. Morley and Lord
Ripon in Dublin as expressing the sentiments of the
Irish people. He condemned the imprisonment of
Mr. Blunt and the Irish leaders. These matters would
have to be discussed in Parliament, and if that arena
was closed, they would arraign the Government on
every platform in the country, and he was confident
that their appeal would be the triumphant issue of a
policy 92 justice and wisdom.