The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-12-03 00:00:00

lINIO.NIS T DEMONSTRATION IN
DUBLIN.

The great Unionist demonstration at which Lora
Hartington and Mr. Goschen were the chief speakers
took place in the Leinster Hall at Dublin on Tuesday
night. The great hall was crowded in every part,
and an extensive annexe recently erected upon the
occasion of the visit of Prince Albert Victor to
Dublin was densely packed. Both halls were decorated
with union-jacks and other flags. In the Leinster
Hall at the rear of the platform, an enormous
union-jack hung from the ceiling, and small flags
were displayed amongst the audience, both in the
body of the hall and on the platform. So great was
the anxiety to obtain admission that large crowds
gathered outside the doors as early as half-past five
o'clock, and patiently waited for the hour and a half
before the doors were opened. When at length they
were admitted there was a tremendous rush for seats,
and at a little after seven both halls were prac-
tically filled. At eight o'clock the Leinster
Hall was crammed from roof to floor.
When Lord Hartington and Mr. Goechen
appeared upon the platform the entire audience rose
to its feet, there was an outburst of cheering which
lasted for several minutes, flags were raised on sticks
and waved in the body of the hall, and in the ga:leries
hats and handkerchiefs were frantically waved. A
band was stationed at the rear of the platform, and
"Rule Britannia" was struck up. The tune was
taken up by the people assembled, and sung over and
over again with the wildest enthusiasm. No more re-
markable demonstration has ever been witnessed.
There were heard counter cheers from the other hall,
delivered with less vigour.
Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen stood for nearly
10 minutes upon the platform before the enthusiastic
outburst subsided, and before the chairman, Mr.
Wigham, Hon. Secretary of the Dublin Chairman of
Commerce, who presided in the absence of its presi-
dent, Sir Richard Martin, was able to utter a word, it
was observed by many that notwithstanding this
outburst the vast audience was orderly to an extra-
ordinary degree. Every sentence in the speeches of
Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen was followed with
profound attention. Letters of apology were
announced from Sir Henry James, M.P., Mr. John
Bright, M.P., Lord Selborne, the Duke of Westmin-
ster, the Duke of Argyll, and others.

THE MARQUIS OF HARTINGTON'S SPEECH.

After an address of welcome to the two statesmen
had been read by the chairman, the Marquis of
Hartington rose to speak, and was again received
with enthusiastic applause. In alluding to the Crimes
Act he expressed sympathy with the Government, the
officials, and especially the constabulary, who weee ex-
posed to attacks from men whom, until lately, they had
been serving as loyally and faithfully as they now were
the present Government. With regard to Home Rule,
it was a question of honour whether it was competent
for them to abandon engagements deliberately entered
into to an inferior assembly, and to leave to the
latter the lives and liberties of the loyal subjects. If
the majority in Ireland in favour of Home Rule were
really representative of the industry, conscience, and
deliberate opinion of the country, it might be their
duty, even then, to refuse the demand which they
believed to be injurious to the Empire as a whole.
The noble marquis proceeded to maintain the
Unionist position in forcible language and at great
length, bringing his speech to a cloi,e by saying: I
believe tbat you are perfectly justified, not only in
resisting the measures which were introduced last year,
but in refusing your assent to any supposition that any
partial modification or changes of these measures can
render them at once acceptable to the majority of
the Irish people, and at the same time consistent
with the benefits of the maintenance of the British
connection. I have, on other platforms, taken up
and maintained that position. 'I have been accused of
ignoring, discarding, and insulting Irish national sen-
timent. I have keen accused of going back from what
I have said upo., the question of the extension of local
self-government in Ireland. On the latter question I
will not detain you to-night; but I say that those who
accuse me of ignoring or insulting Irish national
opinion have either not taken the trouble of reading
what I have said, or have wilfully misrepresented it,
(Cheers.) National aspirations, national sentiment,
national patriotism, does not necessarily require a
separate Parliament, or an inferior and subordinate
system of Parliamentary government, in order to give
expression to it. (Cheers.) No one can deny
the existence of national aspirations in the
kingdom of Scotland. (Cheerr.) No one can say
that the love of Scotland and the pride in Scottish
traditions and Scottish history burns less strong in
the hearts of Scotchmen than the love of Ireland does
in the hearts of Irish patriots. (Cheers.) But
Scotch national sentiment does not require a separate
or subordinate Parliament or Government in order
to give effect to its aspirations, (Hear, hear.) In
the case of Scotland one Parliament aria one Execu-
tive Government has been found to be compatible
with the existence of a totally independent
system of law, with an independent and separate
National Church, and with an independent
and distinct system of national education, and
the only condition which has been attached to •
this recognition of national feeling and national
sentiment, even it may be of national preju-
dive, is that Scotchmen shculd acknowledge one Par-
liament as the supreme legislative authority and one
Government as the supreme Executive. (Hear.)
The case has been very different in Ireland. If less
deference has been paid in Ireland to the opinions
and the feelings of Irishmen, and if they have had
less inilueuce in the ccunsels of the Imperial Parlia-
ment, this has arisen mainly, I believe, from the fact
that Irishmen have in times past—as they are unfor-
tunately doing now—showed their unwillingness to
conform to the law of Parliament, even when it is a
just law; or to respect the authority of the Impe-
rial Executive Government. (Cheers.) But, gentle-
men, whatever may have been the cause in times
past, I believe that now—when the democracy of
Great Britain is fully and fairly represented in the
Imperial Parliament, when no other desire exists in
the mind of any subject of Great Britain than to do
fair and equal justice to Ireland—it is in the power
of Ireland and of the leaders of the Irish people to
obtain for themselves and for their constituencies
equal deference to their opinions and an equal share
in the government of their own country—equal atten-
tion to their own grievances, equal attention to every
representation which they may make, and that with-
out resorting to rebellion and forcible resistance to
the law, but by simply acknowledging the existence of
facts which have taken place, and which are irrecover-
able, and by reposing in the people of the sister
island that full measure of confidence which we on
our part are only too willing and too ready to extend
in a full measure to the people of Ireland. (Loud
cheering.)
--
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER'S
ADDRESS.
Mr. Goschen said :—" Fellow Unionists End fellow
loyal subjects of her Majesty the Queen—(loud
cheers)—lt is the first time that I have stood upon
an Irishman platform, and before an Irish audience
since the ex-Prime Minister startled the loyalists of
Treland—(Fro.ana)--bv vroolairaine his conversion to

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ztome .ttuie, and since the loyalists were told that the
fortunes of the island were to be withdrawn from the
congnisance of the Imperial Parliament, and to be
handed over to a band of triumphant revolutionists.
(Cheers.) Allow any adherents of the band of revolu-
tionists—(a Voice: 'There is none ")—who may have
had access to a meeting by forged tickets or otherwise.
to remain in the hall, for I wish that I could have before
me some thousands of the dupes of the National
League. (Cheers.) I wish that it were in the power
of some of us to find an audience to whom we could
tell how they have been cajoled by those who profess
to be their friends. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, I was
going to say that side by side with my noble friend
Lord Hartington, side by side with Lord Salisbury—
(loud cheers)—side by side with Unionists—
(cheers)—and all standing opinion and belonging
to different creeds—(cheers)—l have denounced
to my fellow countrymen the abandonment or the
loyalists of Ireland. Well, so far the people
of England and Scotland have been true to their
fellow-subjects on this side of the channel. But I
tell you that I have been put to a sore proof.
Every flattery and cajolery, every misrepresentation
of facts, every misstatement of motives, every
perversion of argument, hearsay gossip retailed on the
authority of responsible lips—(cheers)—every device
of the demagogue, and every art of the rhetroician
have been pressed into the service in order to mislead
the English people and to suborn them as accomplices
for the Home Rule cause. (Hear, hear.) But so far
they have stood firm, and it has not been possible to
palaver them—(laughter and "Hear, hear")—into
the belief that two Parliaments would conduce to
the oneness of the Empire, or that justice and
duty required them to instal the National League a 4
a Parliament in College Green. Well, if the mass
meetings which we have held on the other side of the
Channel, if they have helped to increase the innate
conviction of the British public, that this sepa-
ration which is proposed is so fatal to the in-
terests of both, that there was dishonour in the course,
that there was folly in the course, and that
there was shame in the course, I say we
have so far not laboured in vain. The
interests of the British public are the in-
terests of a loyal and of an Imperial people, and
I trust that Ireland may be able to continue to
rely on the support of their loyal fellow subjects
both in England and Scotland. We are speaking
here to men who have the advantage of studying the
gospel of the League in its native vernacular—
(laughter and cheers)—and not in any edition got up
ta suit the taste of the simple English Radical.
(Laughter and cheers.) Mr. Goschen having paid a
high compliment to the Irish Secretary on the gallant
manner in which he carried out his policy, proceeded
to show what was the position of the commercial,
the mercantile, the professional, and the industrial
classes in the Home Rule question, and said that
the Nationalists were aiming at a bastard
nationalism which could only produce unendurable
friction, and which could never satisfy the national
aspiraticns or promote the prosperity of Ireland. The
right hon. gentleman concluded by saying: The rebel
party have claimed to annex a noble phrase as a mono-
polyof their own to turn to the traitorous use,but uttered
with as deep a devotion to this fair portion of the
British Empire, and inspired by as profound a hope
that peace and plenty and every national blessing may
revisit this troubled land, there rings from the hearts
of British Unionists and of loyal Irishmen the
common cry" God save Ireland."

Both Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen subse-
quentlr addressed the overflowing meeting.