The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-06-26 00:00:00

THE

GENERAL ELECTION.

SIR M. HICKS-BEACH.

Sir Michael Hicks-Beach has issued the following
address to the electors of West Bristol :

Gentlemen,—ln response to the request of those to
whose generous support I am already so much in-
debted, I again offer myself as a candidate for the
representation of the Western Division of Bristol in
Parliament.

It is not necessary for me to dwell upon those sub-
jects, however great their importance, which until
recently have divided parties and formed the main
topics of political discussion. My views upon them
were fully set before you a few months ago. Those
views then met with your approval, and have not been
changed.
At that time I ventured to warn you that schemes
more or less directly affecting the connection between
Great Britain and Ireland would be forced upon the
attention of the new Parliament. I expressed an
opinion that the adoption of the creed of which such
schemes formed a part would involve the commence-
ment of an era of political and social revolution; and
I asked your support for a uolicy very far removed
from such dangerous projects. My anticipations in
this respect have unhappily been more than realised,
for the attack has come not from Irish Nationalists,
but from Ministers of the Crown. In spite of his
previous utterances, on which not a few Liberal can-
didates in November last based their opposition to a
separate Irish Parliament, Mr. Gladstone has sud-
denly sprung upon the country an Irish policy
which has been not only opposed by the Con-
servative party, but repudiated by his ablest and
most trusted colleagues. Defeated by the indepen-
dent judgment of the House of Commons, he has
appealed to the constituencies, and I ask for your
support in resisting proposals which in my belief are
alike dishonourable to Great Britain and disastrous
to Ireland, and could only lead to separation or civil
war. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance
of the question thus presented for your decision, nor
can its various aspects be adequately discussed within
the ordinary limits of an election address. It will be
my endeavour by other means to place my views
upon it more fully before you, for I think you will
not be deluded by the suggestion that has been made
that the only matter for your consideration is the
principle of establishing a legislative body in Ireland
for the management of exclusively Irish affairs.
Your common sense and your regard for those condi-
tions which her Majesty's Government profess their
desire to fulfil will preclude your acceptance of such
a principle without proof that it could be carried into
effect consistently with the preservation of the unity
of the three kingdoms and the adequate performance
of our responsibilities towards Ireland. That proof is
entirely wanting, for the definite plan proposed by her
Majesty's Government and rejected by the House of
Commons is now disavowed by its authors, and nothing
has been suggested in its stead. We are told that the adop-
tion of the policy now offered to the country is but the
concession to Ireland of her just rights, ants that the
only alternative is" coercion.' I hold that the rights
of Ireland in this matter are neither more or less than
those of Great Britain. It should be our guiding
principle to equalise as far as possible political privi-
leges or disabilities throughout the United Kingdom,
and I believe it to be necesssary for this object that in
Ireland as well as in Great Britain the Imperial
Parliament should be supreme in practice as well as
in theory, and that sufficient power should be re-
tained in the hand of the executive responsible to that
Parliament to secure the just administration of the
law, and protect the lives and liberties of the people.
Under the legislative union Ireland has, at least, her full
share of Parliamentary representation, and of the
influence that flows from it in making and administer-
ing the law. Irishmen are endowed as largely with
political rights, and are as free to use them as
Englishmen or Scotchmen ; but neither in Great
Britain nor in Ireland can political organisations be
permitted to seek their ends through intimidation,
backed by outrage and crime. To prevent this is
the plain duty of any Government, for it is not
coercion but the necessary vindication of con-
stitutional freedom. We are promised that the
result of Mr. Gladstone's policy will be relief from
disaffection in Ireland and obstruction in Parliament,
and the inauguration of an era of cordial affection
between the nations. Such promises ignore the history
of recent Irish agitation and the character and objects
of its leaders, as described by the Prime Minister him-
self. The smooth speeches of to-day cannot obliterate
all previous records. The political instincts of Ire-
land cannot be satisfied by plans which deprive her
sons of their full share in the government of the Em-
pire and yet fall short of the declared objects of the
more dangerous fomentors of discontent. Such con-
cession, if made,would only be used to promote further
disintegration', and yet for this we are asked to break
up that Parliament which has been a model of
representative institution to other countries, and to
impose immense liabilities on the taxpayers of Gre t
Britain. For the moment the danger has been
arrested by the House of Commons ; it rests with the
constituencies by a clear and decisive verdict to
remove it. At such a crisis party prejudice should be
cast aside, old dividing lines be forgotten in one great
effort to preserve that unity at home on which depends
the strength of our Empire.—l remain Gentlemen,
your obliged and obedient servant, M. E. HICKS..
.BeAcii.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL. !
Lord Randolph Churchill has issued the follow*
address to the electors of South Paddington:
Gentlemen,—" A people's dissolution" has cone
upon us. Such is the title given by Mr. Gladstone to
the most wanton political convulsion which has in
our times afflicted our country. The caprice of an
individual is elevated to the dignity of an act of the
people by the boundless egotism of the Prime
Minister. The United Kingdom is to be disunited
for the purpose of securing in office, if only for a
little while, by the aid of a disloyal faction subsisting
on foreign gold, a Government deserted by all who
could confer upon it character or reputation. Mr.
Gladstone has reserved for his closing days a con-
spiracy against the honour of Britain and the welfare
of Ireland, more startlingly base and nefarious than
any of those other numerous designs and plots which
during the last quarter of a century have occupied
his imagination.
Nor are the results of the repeal of the union,
whatever they may be, a matter of moment to him.
No practical responsibility for those results will fall
upon his shoulders. He regards with the utmost un-
concern, or with inconceivable frivolity, the fact that
upon those who come after him will devolve the im-
possible labour of rebuilding a shattered Empire, of
re-uniting a divided kingdom. Let a credulous
electorate give him, for the third time, a Parliamen-
tary majority by the aid of which another Irish
revolution may be consummated, and this most
moderate of ministers will be satisfied—will compla-
cently retire to that repose for which he tells us
"Nature cries aloud." Nature! to whose cries he
has for so long turned a stone deaf ear.
This design for the separation of Ireland from
Britain, this insane recurrence to heptarchical
arrangements, this trafficking with treason, this con-
donation of crime, this exaltation of the disloyal,
this abasement of the loyal, this desertion of our
Protestant co-religionists, this monstrous mixture of
imbecility, extravagance, and political hysterics,
better known as the bill for the Future Government
of Ireland, is furnished by its author with the most
splendid attribute and clothed in the loftiest lan-
guage.
1. Under its operation a nation of slaves, paying
tribute, is to be filled with exuberant love for Britain,
which it now hates, but with which it is now on a
footing of perfectly political equality.
2. Persons who have subsisted and 'flourished on
the effects of crime and outrage are to be immediately
transformed into governors wise, moral, and humane.
3. A peasantry which has for years exhibited a
marked disinclination to pay contract rents to many
landlords, will instantly commence, and for the next
50 years will continue with cheerful alacrity and
111'314 to pay rent to one single landlord ; this land-
lord, moreover, assuming the garb of a foreign and
an alien Government.

4. A people without manufactures, longing for pro-
tection by which to create and foster manufactures,
are to become in a moment ardent converts to the
blessings of free trade.
5. A parliament in which any and every legislative
project, or deliberative proceeding or executive act,
may be vetoed for three years, is to abound in rapid
legislation, and to surpass our ancient historic Par-
liament in efficiency of procedure.
6. A financial system under which by no possibility
can revenue be adequate to expenditure, is to perform
prodigies of economy and "scatter plenty o'er a smil-
ing land."
7. A pauper population is to roll in riches!
8. Law and order and rights of property are im-
mediately to take their place as the most sacred and
cherished institutions of a country a great portion of
whose people hitherto from time immemorial have
regarded them only to deride them and violate them,
&c., &c.
The united and concentrated genius of Bedlam and
Colney Hatch would strive in vain to produce a more
striking tissue of absurdities.
Yet this is the policy, the last specific for Ireland,
which is gravely recommended by senile vanity to the
favourable consideration of a people renowned for
common-sense, the possessors of an Empire erected
and preserved by the constant flow of common-sense,
and, I doubt not, the progenitors of a posterity equally
powerful, equally courageous, and equally wise.
For the sake of this fifth message of peace to Ireland,
this farrago of superlative nonsense, the vexatious and
costly machinery of a General Election is to be put in
motion, all business o.ther than what may be connected
with political agitation is to be impeded and sus-
pended ; trade and commercial enterprise, now buffer-
ing sadly from protracted bad times, and which
political stability can alone reinvigorate, are to be
further harassed and handicapped; all useful and
desired reforms are to be indefinitely postponed, the
British Constitution is to be torn up, the Liberalparty
shivered into fragments I
And why? For this reason and no other—to
gratify the ambition of an old man in a-hurry.
How long, gentlemen, will you and your brother
electors tolerate this one-man power? Since 1868,
when this one-man power began to show itself in an
acute form, have yo tii enjoyed domestic security or
foreign credit?

From that time to the present day Ireland has
be-en a struggling victim in Mr. Gladstone's hands.
The Irish Church, a great agency for moral, social,
and civil order, has been swept away; two special
confiscations of landed property were confidently re-
commended to and accepted by Parliament as cer-
tain to produce peace; six Coercive Acts of the
most stringent character Mr. Gladstone has obtained,
and all to no purpose. Confusion has become
worse confounded; the fabric of Government in
Ireland has been shattered; lawlessness and disorder
have been triumphant and supreme. The present
state of Ireland is one of "grave disease," says
Mr. John Morley; and the blame is east by Mr.
Gladstone on the system, on the Constitution, on the
Union.

It would be as reasonable to cast the blame upon
the Equator.
The blame for this disgrace cannot be cast upon
the system, or upon the Coustitution, or upon the
Union.

The blame must be borne by the man who has been
Minister, and who is Minister now.
Under the baneful insecurity which is inseparably
connected with his name, your trade has gone from
bad to worse, your Parliament has become demora-
lised, your foreign credit shaken, your colonies
alienated, your Indian Empire imperilled.
Naturally enough Ireland has suffered most of all,
for Ireland, of all the Queen's dominions, was least
able to stand a strain.

What frighful and irreparable Imperial catastrophe
is necessary to tear the British people from the in-
fluence of this fetish, this idol, this superstition,
which hats brought upon them, and upon the Irish,
unnumbered woes.

The negotiator of the " Alabama " arbitration, the
hero of the Transvaal surrender, the perpetrator of
the bombardment of Alexandria, the decimator of the
struggling Soudan tribes, the betrayer of Khartoum,
the person guilty of the death of Gordon, the patentee
of the Penjdeh shame now stands before the
country all alone, rejected by a Democratic House of
Commons.
No longer can he conceal his personality under
the shelter of the Liberal party. One hundred members
of that party in Parliament, representing thousands of
electors, refused in spite of all manner of blandish-
ments, deceit and menaces, to support his Irish
measure. All his colleagues have abandoned him.
From the Duke of Argyll to Mr. Bright, from Lord
Hartington to Mr. Chamberlain, one by one he has
shed them all; none is near him of his former
colleagues save certain placemen unworthy of notice.
Last, but not least, the leading lights of Noncon-
formity, such as Mr. Dale and Mr. Spurgeon, hitherto
the pillars of the Liberal party, stand aloof in utter
dismay.
Known to this country under various aliases,
"The People's William, "The Grand Old Man,"
"The Old Parliamentry Hand," now in the part of
'The Electioneering Agent," he demands a vote of
confidence from the constituencies. Confidence in
what?

In the Liberal party? No; the Liberal party, as we
knew it, exists no longer.
In his Irish project? No; it is dead, to be resusci-
tated or not, either wholly or in part, just as may suit
the personal convenience of the author.
In his Government? No; they are a mere collec-
tion of "items," whom he does not condescend to
consult.

In himself? Yes. This is the latest and most
perilous innovation into our constitutional practices.
A pure, unadulterated, personal "plebiscite "—that is
the demand; a political expedient borrowed from the
last and worst days of the Second Empire.
Gentlemen, it is time that someone should speak
out. I have written to you plainly—some may think
strongly; but whatever the English vocabulary may
contain of plainness and strength is inadequate to de-
scribe truly and paint realistically the present political
position.
At this moment so critical we have not got to deal
with a Government, or a party, or a policy. We have
to deal with a man; with a man who makes the most
unparalleled claim for dictatorial power which can be
conceived by free men. It is for that reason that I
have deliberately addressed myself to the personal
aspects of the question, and that I have drawn the
character of the claimant from recent history, from
facts well within the recollection of all. _

Mr. Gladstone, in his speech in Edinburgh on
Friday, recommended himself to the country in the
name of Almighty God.
Others cannot and would not emulate such auda-
cious profanity; `but I do dare, in soliciting a renewal
of your confidence to recommend to you the policy of
the Unionist party, in the name of our common
country, our great Empire, upon whose unity and
effective maintenance so large depend the freedom,
the happiness, and the progress of mankind. •
I am, Gentlemen, yours obediently,
RANDOLPII S. CHURCHILL.
2, Connaught-place, June 19, 188 G.