Morning journal and courier., 1886-02-26

meetings, you must lock up d1sagreeable speakers, you must regulate disagreeable newspapers, you must suppress books and pamphlets, you must search mems houses for arms, you must suppress the Irish repre- sentation. do not deny that that could be
 done, but it cannot be done for nothing. If
 you use remedies of that kind, you will have
 to pay the price. You will instantly have
 the whole island honeycombed with secret so-
 cieties; secret press will pour out furtive
 poison far more deadly and virulent than any
 that is now poured out; you will have mid
 night drillings; you will be very fortunate
 if you do not have a passive resistance
 against the collection of taxes and the pay
 ment of rent. The money that is now going
 to the open purposes of the league will then
 go to the more execrable purposes of dyna-
 mite. At the end of all this black confusion
 your last state will be worse than your first.
 You will be driven then by force of opinion the opinioi1 of the whole civilized world-to try that policy of conciliation which we ask
 you to try now.
 There is in Ireland, no doubt, plenty of un
 sound material. There are men whose ends the British citizen can never sympathize with and can never sanction, but there is, l am perfectly sure-and am not speaking as
 a new hand in the consideration of Irish affairs-a sound element in the population of Ireland not confined to Ulster and the north.
 There is all over Ireland a sound element,
 which, if we were wise and prudent, and if
 the people of this island will have pa
 tience, we shall succeed in rallying to the side of order and to the support of the State.
 I would say more Among those Irishmen
 in America who send over their contribu
 tions for political purposes in their native land, even there you have to discriminate
 between the sound and unsound portion. 1 believe that it is not at all beyond the reach of the genius of English statesmanship and the fortitude of English citizenship to set up a system which shall draw out the sting even from the hostility of those who are now op- posing us across the Atlantic. 1 was reading a very brilliant book the other day about the history of Ireland, and the historian said that some passage other in Irish history had gone wrong because there cropped up what he called the sfinfernal clement that is always prominent in the Irish nature. l do not believe for an instant in the presence of any particularly internal element in the Irish nature. What the Irish are, our institutions and our government have made them. In many respects they have qualities which must command admiration. You con stantly hear the Irish taxed with laziness
 Why, wonder who of you in Northunber land here would have been so industrious the Irish peasants have been for generations and generations if you had known that the harder you worked, the more thrifty you were, and the more self denying you were, the more certain was the landlord to come and eonfiscate the humble fruits of all your thrift and self-denial in the shape of back rent. No; the Irish have faults, so even have Northumbrians. But they have great virtues, and they are virtues which, l am persuaded, if one approach them in frank and cordial spirit, will enable us in course of time, not, perhaps, us-we are first begin ming this workout will enable our success sors and generations that to come, to knit together the population of these two islands.
 Concession, gentlemen, is either right or wrong. If concession, gentlemen, is right, we need no thanks and if it is wrong, deserve no credit. You asked why We should have different system of govern ment in Ireland from that which we have in England. Well, why should We shrink from different system of government in Irelands Why, you have had a different sys tenn in Ireland ever since the Union. You have Lord Lieutenant, which is a differ ence; you have different local franchise, you have had different system of local gov ernment; above all your fifty or sixty coer- cion acts made difference which you would do well not to leave out of sight. Therefore, why should you be shocked by proposals which recognize the fact of this difference, and only insists that we should begin by fac ing the facts as they are, by not contentiIg ourselves with the old slovenly, shilly-shally policy of half measures, but at last grapple with the problem in all it's difficulties, fac ing every fact that is to be met, and making whatever sacrifice may be necessary either of our time, our energies, or our thought, ill order to put end to state of things which has brought much wrong and sorrow to Ireland, that has brought so much humilia- tion and danger to Englands I do not con ceal-there is no harm in saying it-I do not conceal that I approach in the Irish ques- tion as do all others in politics, from the point of view of citizen of great State. It is not merely because we wish to bring peace to Ireland, but because we see need of giving strength to England. Ireland is not only our humiliation but she is our weakness. They talk of the integrity Of the empire, but what is the test and measure of the integrity of the empire? Why it is unity in the face of the enemy, and that unity we cannot have so long as Ireland remains sullen, ,disaffected, dangerous. It is because we want to see our legislature able to get on with it's own pfoper work, able to get on with meas ures of which you have heard so much dur ing the last three months for ameliorating the condition of the English people-it is for that reason, as well as for the pacifcation of Ireland, that I ask you to support the government of which am @ very humble member I say that it is better to fail in such an attempt as we are about to make than never to make that attempt at all We may fail, this ministry may fail; but the course upon which we about to enter is the only course by which the problem can be solved. We may fail, we may fail soon, we may be a short government; but I hope and I am sure, when think of the nerve and the humor of the leader of the ministry at this moment, we shall not be weak a waver- ing government. The line will be fixed upon, has been fixed upon. MT. Gladstone is not the man to leave it. He is not the man to take great work in hand and then to turn faint of heart, and I think he will find that some of his lieutenants are resolute and as intent as he is. I, at any rate, not going to forget what I have written hundred times, thousand times-that justice is the sovereign and supreme virtue in all relations, whether between man and man, or between State and State. That justice, the common wealth, the strength of the realm will be the ,uif!inp stsrs of our Do1icy