THE EMPIRE AND THE WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11771, 28 September 1901, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE EMPIRE AND THE WAR.

GREAT SPEECH BY MR. CHAMBERLAIN". Last month a great unionist demonstration ■was held at Blenheim Palace, the residence of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. The gathering was addressed by Sir. !>alfour and Mr. Chamberlain. The former said the present Administration, alone among all those which had succeeded each other since the great Reform Bill, had survived a general election in undiminished strength after five years of official life and public criticism. Nor did he see the smallest symptom of diminution in the public confidence. Not. their merits so much as 'heir opponents' demerits were the cause of this strange and wholly unexampled phenomenon. In large measure the Opposition were avowedly an unpatriotic party. This country would never accept an unpatriotic or a hopelessly divided party. There was an extraordinary parallelism between the tactics now being pursued by their opponents in South Africa and in the House of Commons ; and as it was sure and certain that in South Africa, at no distant date, final success would crown our arms, it was not less certain that the avowed* tactics of petty obstruction in the House of Commons would fail of their acknowledged object. We would, neither sacrifice our Empire to the Boers nor our Constitution to the bores.

Mr. Chamberlain, who was received with the singing of " For he's a jolly good fellow" and loud cheers', said : —My lord duke, my lords, ladies, and gentlemen,— think it is only natural that in the first place I should express what I am sure is the universal opinion hereour gratitude to the duke and to the duchess for their splendid hospitality. (Cheers.) It was, 1 think, a. kind ana a useful thought to give my friend Mr. Balfour arid myself an opportunity of meeting those who in their several districts contributed so powerfully to the success of the last election, and who for 15 years have held --.loft the standard of union for this kingdom and for the Empire. (Cheers.) The issues which ,we have been contesting are the greatest issues which could be put before a patriotic party. (Cheers.) What is this unionist alliance of which we boast ? It was brought into existence to defend, and it has successhilly defended, the United Kingdom against the greatest danger which lias menaced it throughout the last century, and it has been welded together by the crowning sense of Imperial interest of the obligation and the duties of Empire which the last few years have involved. (Cheers.) And day by day it has grown stronger. Day by day the old jealousies have faded into the past. Dav by day we have been engaged shoulder to shoulder in battling with the common enemy and in building up the foundations of a truly national part}'. (Cheers.) And auring hat time on what have our opponents been employed ? (Laughter.) They have been (inking lower and lower. (Laughter aid cheers./ Fifteen vears ago they were a great and powerful and a united party, and they were led by Mr. Gladstone. To-day they ore a Rump", and they are led by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman—(laughter)—a gentleman who has illuminated his name as a. political wobbler, who has elevated the art to the level of an exact science. Undei. .these conditions can you wonder that what remains of the Liberal party is sinking daily deeper and deeper into the pro-Boer and j Little England marsh, from which not all the efforts of all the Liberal Imperialists in the world will ever be able to extricate it l (Laughter.)

THE LIBERAL IMPERIALISTS. What shall we say about the Liberal Imperialists? Gentlemen, my heart bleeds for them. (Laughter and cheers.) They are good men struggling with adversity; they are good men, but they are weak men. They are trying to do what few politicians have done with success, to ride two horses at the same time without getting a. fall. They want to preserve the Empire and effusively to support Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman ; and, believe me. the two things are entirely incompatible. They form at the present moment an example end a warning. I do not know whether Lord Rosebery meant to hi taken seriously, or whether he was only indulging a cynical humour, when lie wrote the other day to the Liberal Imperialist Association, the Imperial Liberal Association —(laughter)—that they ought in future to call themselves Liberal Imperialist and to put the " Imperialist" in brackets- (Laughter and cheers.) But that was indeed a .pregnant suggestion; it implied that their Imperialism is only a political parenthesis to be withdrawn without injuring the sense. (Laughter.) Imperialism in brackets ! That is the kind of thing that led Lord Rosebery to make a, brilliant speech about the predominant partner and a week afterwards to withdraw it under threats from the Irish party. Whether we are Conservative or whether we are Liberal Unionist, we will have nothing to ' do with Imperialism yi brackets. (Cheers.) The reasons tor our position have not weakened during the past 15 years. During, that time the Liberal Home Rulers have not renounced their heresies; until they do so we will not enter then communion. (Cheers.) In spite of everything that -has passed, in spite of the open contempt poured upon them by the Irish Nationalists, we still find them in close alliance with them. We still believe' that they are willing as before to sell the interests of the country—(cheers) — for 80 Irish votes. And what is the Irish party? It consists of 80 persons, more or less, who have all taken the oath of allegiance, and who openly avow themselves to bs the enemies of this country. Pretty allies for an English party! It is led by a gentleman who only a few days ago in the House of Commons prayed God that the resistance of the Boers might be prolonged —(" Shame") —that they might he revenged upon the British Empire, and that once more the Republics might regain their independence and their freedom. ( Never.'') Well, Great Britain is strong enough to be contemptuous of this toyshop treason, which takes advantage of our toleration in order to shout for the Mahdi or King Prempeh or President Kruger or anyone else with whom We may happen to be engaged in hostilities. THE LIBERALS AND THE IRISH. But although we can afford to be contemptuous, we cannot be indifferent to the fact that those who profess to cany foiWard the traditions of one of the great honourable parties in British life should be mixed up with these men. that those who are the only alternative, who are for us the only alternative to the present Government, should still be willing to give Home Rule to Ireland, to set up an Irish independent Parliament, which would make effective the hatred these men now impotently express, arid which would enable them in the very heart of the Empire tc weaken the great system and organisation of which we are so proud, these me'n now, as Mr. Balfour has told you, are engaged in the attempt to degrade the House of Commons—for them a very congenial task I do not believe that in the three kingdoms you could find men better qualified to fulfil it. (Laughter.) But their policy ought to excite the indignation of everyone, of every friend of the free institutions of this country. But instead of that, if yon had watched over proceedings, if you looked at oui divisions, !■ you would find that night after nigh* that the Radicals, and, I am sorry to say, many • of the Liberal Imperialists also, troop into the lobby at the tail of Mr. Swift MacNeill and his colleagues, and give them at all events a tacit assent and approval of their proceedings. ('-'Shame.") It is my convictif/'n that the nation is taking note of t'besa proceedings. I think they expect that the mother of Parliaments will knov» how to defend herself against these attacks (hear, hear)—attacks by men who by our liberality come to us in numbers, altogether disproportionate to the wealth, to the intelligence, a'nd to .the population which they xepresent. (Cheers.) But this great question, which has now become urgent, was not before you at the last general election. Then it was a question of the war that we have been waging in South Africa ; it was a question of which party should conduct it to its conclusion, which party should make the settlement', the satisfactory and final settlement, at its close. (Hear, hear.) You know that our opponents tried to confuse the issue. They were Dot allowed to do . bo—(hear, hear)"; they had to fight on that line whether they liked it or no, and they ■ «id not like it. (Laughter and cheers.) But . the result has been such a mandate from the people' of this country as has never been given before to any Government, so clear, . so defined, by such an enormous majority, » mandate on which we are acting and on w» intend to act. (Cheers.,) The

task had been, we all admit, much greater than we supposed, greater than Anyone anticipated; but that fact has not in the slightest degree altered the determination of the people of this country. (Cheers.) It has only made them more resolute. (Hear, hear.) They have risen to the crisis by which they are confronted. All Europe has been looking on with no too friendly eyes— hear)—expecting, hoping, believing that there would be some weakening in our determination, some divisions in our ranks which would hand us over to the mercies of our opponents. (Cries of •'Never," "Not for Joe," and cheers.) But they have been disappointed—(hear, hear)— and in this world's theatre, in which a great drama has been played, there are other spectators besides the nations of Europe. (Hear, hear.) THE EMPIRE AND THE WAP. There is the British race throughout the world. (Loud cheers.) There are our fellow subjects of every race looking, looking to see if we are indeed worthy of the primacy which has been conferred upon us—(cheers) — see if our hands are strong enough to bear the burden that lias been imposed. And it is their plaudits that we seek; it is their approval which will sufficiently compensate for all the sacrifices, for all the labour attendant upon the war. (Cheers.) I remember a passage in a- speech by the great French orator Gambetta, in which he said that now that the democracy had secured the power it had still to show that it had the capacity to govern. (Hear, hear.) Here in this country, too, the democracy is all powerful powerful, 1 believe, than in the ease of any other civilised nation on the face of the world—-and now in this crisis in our history the democracy has proved itself equal to its task. It has borne the test, I do not know anything to compare -vith the attitude of the people in this country, through good report and evil report, in success and in defeat, always steadfast, always patient, always generous to its leaders. (Cheers.) There is nothing like it, unless a parallel may be found in the history of the Civil War in America in the case of the attitude of the North. It is interesting to recollect that there also in that great war there were men in the North, as there are men here, who took the side of their opponents, en who within a few months of the termination of that colossal struggle approached President Lincoln with a demand that the war should be stopped at all costs, spoke to him in terms of indignation at the barbarity with, which it was conducted, spoke in terms of pessimism of the probable result of the war, and of the irreconcilable enmities which it would leave behind it. In the political phraseology of that day they were called the "Copper Heads" of Iho North. We have our copper heads. (Laughter, and hear, hear.") A few days ago, at Peckham, having escaped from the supervision of Mr. Asquith and Sir Edward Grey, I Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman delivered one of his usual harangues. He said that the war would never stop if they entered on the policy of extermination indicated by Mr. Chamberlain, and it was only the intolerable arrogance of the Colonial Secretary—(laughter and shame)which could advocate such abominable practices. What are the abominable practices which my intolerable arrogance leads me to advocate '( They are that the men who shoot our wounded, that the men who murder the natives who are loyal to the British cause—that they in turn shall nave meted out to them the sternest penalties. (Loud cheers.) Yes, the—what shall I say ? —the intolerable folly of Sir Henry OampbellBannerman glozes over these things, finds excuses for the men. who commit them, and has not a word of sympathy for our soldiers. for our native subjects, who suffer from the barbarities of the enemy, (Beat-; hear.) And when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman comes to us and asks us to make peace at any price we will answer him as President Lincoln answered the copper-heads of r.a North, and history will justify us as it justified President Lincoln. And, in order that pur policy way succeed, all we ask is a continuance of the co-operation which you have already given to us. We ask you to go back and once more to spread the light in all the districts of Great Britain, to explain and make clear the great issues for which we have been fighting, and to strengthen our efforts to give peace and security to South Africa, to maintain the honour and the interests of this country, and to hand down untarnished 'and unimpaired the strength and glorv and the unity of the British Empire. 0 (Loud and prolonged cheers.)