LORD CARSON’S SPEECH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18466, 30 January 1922, Page 10

LORD CARSON’S SPEECH

IRISH DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS. ONE DISCORDANT NOTE. (Faoii Octe Own Cobbespondent.l LONDON, December 15.. Not in the ’House of Commons, but in the House of Lords, was to be found the real drama of yesterday’s sitting of Parliament to discuss the Irish question. At something after 6 p.m. Mr Lloyd George, waving aloft in the Commons the treaty with Southern Ireland, or _ the Articles - of Agreement, as the King’s Speech called them, claimed for them the making of a new “order of things in the world. On the stroke of 7 p.m. Lord Carson, knowing nothing of the Premier’s gesture a little earlier, waved the same document in his clenched fist and declared it to be England’s shame. “I defy anybody,” he declaimed in his rich brogue, “to find in that any one condition but that Great Britain should scuttle out of Ireland.” And a moment later he declared, “It will make public life and politics stink in the nostrils of the country.” Lord Morley and Lord Dunraven bestowed blessings op the treaty. Lord Crewe hoped the people of Ulster would make the best of things and see if it was not possible to carry but the terms of the agreement in a manner that would do no .harm to their real interests; and Marquess Curzon of Kedleston claimed that the treaty brought peace with honour. He appealed for a united- Ireland, and hoped that he would live to see such a consummation. Then rose Lord Carson, grim, defiant. He spoke from immediately behind. Lord Morley. “Is it necessary,” he said in one of his early passages, directed toward Lord Ciirzon, and referring to the tone of his speech, “that because a man turns his ooat he should divest himself of every part of his raiment? Must ho go naked”? He spoke with overmastering passion, and there were moments when, because of it, his voice sank too low'to, be heard. But often ho blazed forth, with clenched fist behind his words, as when he cried, “I speak for all those who are relying on British honour and British justice.” He spoke of his Ulster comrades, who, “haying given their best services to: the Stale, now see themselves passed - aside without one single sign of recognition.” ULSTER BETRAYED. The burden of his whole speech was that in the signing of the treaty Ulster had not been consulted, and had been betrayed. “The noble marquis paid one generous and noble tribute to Michael Collins,” he cried, glaring at Lord Curzon, “Michael Collins, the head of the murder gang, as Sir Hamar Greenwood described him only a few months ago. Perhaps you did , not know he was. one of them. He committed many murders with his own hand, the hand you now so willingly grasp. I had a long lecture from the noble marquis, which, I may say, I hope in (ho future he will spare me. A man who lias betrayed: me has no right to lecture me afterwards.” He was sari castic al the idea of “how beautifully it had all . been managed.” It was a die-hard speech through and through, and he poured scorn pn the . idea that England should have declared to the world tnat she was unable to : put down rebellion. The Government had simply given way with a ro- ' volver at its head. He quoted telling passages from the Premier’s recent speeches, and used them with all the art of consilmmato advocate that he is. One of his most furious passages was a reference to his former political comrades and the days “when I was fighting with friends .whose friendship 1 hope 1 shall lose from tonight.” . ' . > PUPPETS OF THE GOVERNMENT. “The people of Ulster,” he • ironically continued, “are expected to be the complacent puppets of the Government, and, without demur, take off their hats to the Foreign and the rest who, have done everything which they have previously said would ruin the United Kingdom. Like everybody' else, the Government lias betrayed Ulster,” The constant preaching at Ulster was nauseating: Mr Austen 'Chom-.. berlain, having agreed to the terms, appealed to the comradeship of Sir James Craig To submit to the domination of Sinn Fein.' “That,” said ,Lqrd Carson.,“is like shooting a-mari-in-tho batik, and'-toon going iup to'. bihi' and 'pitting l)im on the shoulder, saying, ‘ Good man', die as quietly'as, you can.’ ” ; -• .■■■•,.■ • ' Lord Carson scornfully hoped that the Government was proud of its, treaty,; but he added that it was an innovation which that House ought to consider: before entering ..into a treaty between different.parte, of one "kingdom. •• (aiapitte" ih 'The; ‘‘ Government coming dowriv with a treaty between England and the coal mine owners of Yorkshire and Derbyshire and elsewhere. He declared with passion that there was never a greater outrage attempted in Constitutional history than was being attempted by the Coalition Government. CAMPAIGN OF FALSEHOOD. The description on the face of, the document was false. I Before it was signed they never asked Ulster, nor was she a signatory to it It is a lie/and was put in there purposely. He denounced the press, the whole vitriolic power of which, he said, inspired by Downing Street, had been carrying on week after week a campaign of falsehood and misrepresentations agamstvlJlster. Why ail this attack on Ulster? • What had Ulster done? She had stuck too well to this country, and people thought that because she was loyal they cotud kick her when they lilted. What had happened to change the attiudo of the ..Unionist leaders since 1914? As to the financial proposals, under the Treaty, he said: “Ulster is not for sale. Her loyalty does not depend on taxes. Ulster values; hear heritage as part of the United Kingdom, and she will not be terrorised by talk about her having to pay/ more income tax.” It was an extraordinary idea of (British justice, he added, that because they would not join the enemies of the country, and because they would. not go under the murder gang in Dublin, therefore they, must pay higher taxation. Referring to the provision in the treaty for the raising of an army, Lord Carson asked what was this required for if not to invade Ulster? Was it to invade America or the Mo of Man? He urged Ulster to trust her own right arm. Sarcastic references to Lord Ourzon’s tribute to Mi- Michael Collins—“the head o' a ‘murder gang,’ as he was described ijy Sir Hamar Greenwood a few months ago”— were followed by a vigorous protest against “the greatest outrage ever attempted on constitutional liberty. “If Mr Gladstone or Mr Asquith had attempted to do the same thing what would Lord Curzon have said about it?” ; Lord -Buckmaster provided a mild antidote to this acid outpouring, and their lordships then adjourned the debate. ‘ Lord Carson, the man, 1 and the Morning Post, the paper, stand in isolation to-day. Ulstermen the world over have sunk their private feelings in the hope that this hardlywon agreement may bring happiness to an unhappy people. As the Daily Express says: FORGOTTEN" NOTHING—LEARNED NOTHING. “Lord Carson may be said to have forgotten nothing—and learned nothing. His outburst in the House of Lords will be deplored by all moderate-minded men—that is to say, by 90 per cent, of the citizens of the British Empire. We may understand the sentiment which prompted him, without seeing any effect but harm in what he felt obliged to say. Extremism, whether on one side or the other, has been ■ the especial curse of the Irish problem. Lord Carson’s speech can only serve needlessly to embitter a situation that calls for the maximum of tact and suavity, to inflame passions that especially need calm, to irritate a soreness that demands soothing. ”