DUST OF THE PAST

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1935, Page 13 (Supplement)

DUST OF THE PAST

STATESMAN AND WRITER

‘By

“Historicus.”)

Edmund Burke, statesman and writer, famed over all men of his time for eloquence and political foresight, died on July 9, 1797, at Beaconsfield'. Like a great many men who have risen to fame Edmund Burke Was destined by his parents for the law. The legal atmosphere, however, had no charms for him, and ultimately he abandoned the idea altogether. It was not long before he justified a university reputation for literary talent. Rapid popularity brought a train of eminent friends. A private secretaryship to Lord Rockingham commenced his Parliamentary career, and his eloquence soon earned him the reputation of “the first man in the Commons.” Few men have been the subject of higher panegyric than Burke and few have been more deserving of praise. The champion of the American colonist, had his policy of conciliation been adopted America might have been saved a war of independence. He prepared the way for the >aolition of the slave trade. His concern for India laid the foundations of a just, philanthropic and responsible public opinion in England for that country. His speech against Hastings, opening the most remarkable trial, perhaps, in the history of the world, is celebrated as one of the greatest ever made by any. orator. Richly endowed intellectually, of spacious imagination and indefatigable industry, the possessor of unparalleled richness of language, he yet, somewhat unfortunately, possessed defects that largely neutralised their influence. Imperious of spirit, and, in a great degree, intractable, party politics were unsuited to him. The man who at first had held the House of Commons by his eloquence, finally began to empty it by the monotonous splendour of his oratory. To his enemies he became “Dinner Bell” Burke because when he rose to speak a great part of the House went out. Modern Parliament.

February 2 was the birthday of modern Parliamentary obstruction in the British Parliament, and of the antidote to that, the closure. The former came to a head on February 2, 1881, and the latter was invented in the morning of the same day by Mr. Speaker Brand, who, appearing at nine in the morning, after the Irish Nationalists had been obstructing for forty-one hours without a break, declared the debate closed—an action authorised neither by the rules of the House nor by precedent—and put the question to the vote. The Irish had said that they would keep the debate going as long as (hey had breath in their bodies. They numbered 61 and each was good to speak for many hours, so the debate might have gone on for The Speaker’s decision to stop it was described at the time as the most drastic interference with Parliamentary liberty since Cromwell, but the Liberal Government of the day accepted it, and standardised the “closure” with the assent of the House. Since then the safeguards against wilful and needless prolongation of debate have been multiplied and strengthened, both at Westminster and in the other Parliaments of the Empire —but the disproportion of talk to achievement is more glaring than it was before Biggar and Parnell devised obstruction and Gladstone and Brand set themselves to cure it. A system of closuring big debates has resulted in a determination to discuss all business, even the smallest, and, if speeches lasting for hours are discouraged, modern Parties are recruited with members practically all of whom can speak for half or a quarter of an hour, if need be, in succession. The Speaker having trumped the Nationalist- trick, Mr. Dillon devised a new method of silent defiance by standing on his feet, with arms folded, when the Speaker had risen. He was suspended from the House, and 36 others after him, the withdrawal of whom, one by one, at the demand of, the Sergeant at Arms and four attendants, took over three. hours. Never, save once, since has there been such prolonged and large-scale defiance of the Chair at Westminster.

“Manchester Massacres.” No better evidence of the orderliness of the English people and the moderation Of its executive could possibly be adduced than the fact that 108 years after the event England remembers “Peterloo” or the “Manchester Massacres,” an affray in which a political meeting, assembled in the heart of Manchester, was dispersed by yeomanry and regular cavalry, five or six civilians being killed and others trampled upon or struck with the flat of the troopers’ swords. Whig tradition, which permeates all the school histories, has made “Peterloo” out to be the culmination of an era of anti-de-mocratic repression, organised by Lord Sidmouth and Lord Castlereagh, then at the head of the Ministry. Disraeli, in “Sybil” has recorded something of the other side, painting a picture though at a slightly later date, of mobs of ragged rioters from the slums of the industrial districts, marching on London or on the county towns, led by ignorant agitators. To the “Peterloo” meeting—so called in ironic comparison with Waterloo and because it mustered in St. Peter’s Field, Manchester, there marched contingents from the neighbouring spinning and weaving towns, but though some of them had been drilling and more brought staves with them, they do not seem to have been intent on riot. Their purpose was to elect an unauthorised representative to the House of Commons, ss a demonstration in favour of Reform. Their chairman was the famous “Orator” Hunt, regarded by the authorities as a dangerous and seditious demagogue. The meeting, like a famous gathering at Amritsar a century later, was forbidden in advance as illegal. It met in wilful defiance. As at Amritsar the military were called into disperse it, the magistrates having failed to disperse the ringleaders. A Colonel L’Estrange became famous for ordering the cavalry to charge. It did so and the crowd burst asunder, people running belter skelter and falling on each other. The magistrates erred in calling on the troops to charge but one good result came of the error. By demonstrating the unsuitability of armed troops for dispersing crowds, it hastened the provision of an adequate civilian police throughout England,