St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-04-09
GLADsTON GREAT SPEECH,
In which He Outlines His Irish
Policy.
Mr.. Gladstone said:

MT. Gladstone SalQ:
1 could wish that it had been possible to
eXpound to the house the whole policy and
intentions of the government with reference
to Ireland. Although the questions of re-
form in the tenure of land and Irish govern
ment are so closely and inseparably con-
nected, it is yet impossible TO undertake TO
elucidate the questions together. do not
know of any previous task laid upon me in
volving so diversified an exposition. In con-
templating the magnitude of this task am
flied with painful mistrust, but that mistrust
is absorbed in feeling of the responsibility
that will be upon me if l should fail to bring
home to the public mind the magnitude and
the various aspects of the question. We
should no longer fence or skirmish with this
question. Loud cheers. We should come
TO close quarters with it. GCheers. We
should get at the root of il. We should take
means not merely intended for the wants of
to-day or tomorrow, but should look into the
distant future. We have arrived at a stage
In our political transactions with Ireland
when the two roads part, one from the other
not soon, probably, TO meet again.
THE TIME HAS COME
when it is incumbent on the duty aud the
honor of parliament TO come TO some decisive
resolution on this matter. Our intention is
therefore, 10 propose TO the commons that
which, if happily accepted, will, we think
liberate parliament from the restraints under
which of late years ii has Intellectually strug-
gled to perform the business of the country,
and will restore British legislation to its
natural, ancient, unimpeded course, and also
establish harmonious relations between Great
Britain and Ireland (hear! hearD in the free
institutions to which Englishmen, Scotchmen
and Irishmen alike are unalterably attached.
Loud cheers, prolonged by the home rule
members. After reviewing the condition
and crime existing in ireland since 1888. Mr..
Gladstone described the coercive legislation
enforced during the same period as not eX-
ceptional, but habitual. He compared Ire
land during all this period to a man trying to
find sustenance in medicine only meant for
cure. Coercion, however, had, he said proved
no cure. Serious disaffection continued TO
prevail in Ireland and if England and Scot
land had suffered similar hardships, he be-
lieved the people of those countries would re-
sort to means similar to those the Irish had
used TO ventilate their grievances. Parnell-
ite cheers.
COERCION FAILURE.
Coercion was admitted to have been a fail
ure for the past fifty-three years. only two of
which had been wholly free from repressive
legislation. mol Coercion, unless stern and
unbending and under an autocratic govern
ment, must always fail. Such coercion En-
gland should never resort TO until every other
means had failed. The basis of the whole
mischief was the fact that the law was dis
credited in Ireland. 1t came to the Irish
people with a foreign aspect, and their alter
foreign character and invest il with domes-
tic character. Loud Irish cheers. Ireland,
though represented in parliament numeri-
cally equal with England or Scotland, was
really not in the same position politically.
England made her own laws. Scotland had
been encouraged TO make her own laws as
efectually as if she had six times her present
representation. The consequence was that
the handspring of the law in England and
Scotland was felt to be the English or the
Scotch. The handspring of the law in Ire
land was not felt by the people to be with the
Irish. He therefore deemed it little less than
mockery TO hold that the state of law which
he had described conduced to the real unity
of this great
NOBLE WORLDWIDE EMPIRE.
Something must be done. Something is
imperatively demanded from us to restore in
Ireland the first conditions of civil life the
dividual in the exercise of every legal right,
their confidence in the law and their SYM
pathy with the law, apart from which no
country can be called a civilized country
What then was the problem before him? IL
was this: Not to reconcile imperial unity
with diversity of legislatures. Mr.. Grattan
| held that those purposes were reconciliable
More than that. he demanded q severance Of
the parliaments, with view to the contin-
uity and everlasting unity of the empire.
Was that an audacious paradox. Other
| countries had solved the problem and under
much more difficult circumstances. We our
selves might be said to have solved il with
respect to Ireland during the time that Ire
| land had a seperate parliament. Did it
destroy the unity of the British empire.
| TCheersl. Mr.. Gladstone then pointed to the
case of Norway and Sweden, which countries.
he said, united upon a footing of strict legis-
! latiua jndAnansaDca and enualitv. Than