THE PARNELL TESTIMONIAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 42, 15 February 1884, Page 19

THE PARNELL TESTIMONIAL.

Dublin Dec. 11 Mb. Pars ell, in response to the toast of his health, after ike cheers had subsided, said — My loid Mayor, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — I do not know how adequately to express my feelings with regard, not only tjyour lordship's address, not only to the address of the Parnell Tribute Committeebut also regarding this magnificent demonstration. But I prefer to leave to the historians of the future the description of to-night, and their expression of their opinions as regards the results which to-night must produce. (Cheers.) My Lord Mayor, you have recalled to our memories the historic occasion of the assembling 100 years ago in this hall, and we trust that those who come after vs — I not only trust, but I feel sure that those who come after us to celebrate the next centenary anniversary will occupy a better and higher position, as our country occupies a higher and better position than it did then. (Hear, hear.) I shall not attempt to reply in any way to youi lordship's eulogy. Speaking as an Irishman to an assembly of Irishmen and Irishwomen, I shall only say that I believe, arid I think that the result of the great movement of the last few years shows that I am right in that belief, that there must have been many an Irishman who thought andJE elt as I did, many undoubtedly more able and more willing thau I was (".No, no ") to give effect to my thoughts and wishes as an Irishman. 1 have no dpubt, iircommon with many other thousands of my countrymen, I looked around me and saw artisans in the towns struggling for a precarious existence, with a torpid trade, and with everything against them. I saw, also, the tenant-farmer trembling before the eye of his landlord (groans), with the knowledge that in that landloid's power rested|the whole future of himself and his family ; that his position was literally no better —physically, not so good — as the lot of the South African negro ; that he was endeavouring t« make both ends meet, and that his life was a constant struggle to keep a roof over his head and over the heads of his family. (Cheers.) I saw, as you have seen, the Irish labourer, whose lot up to this day has been but very little improved, but for whom I trust there is now also a ray of light and of hope— l saw the Irish labourer, the lowest of the low, the slave of the slave, with not even a dry roof over his head, with the rain from heaven dropping on the couch on which ne was forced to lie, dressed in rags, subsisting on the meanest food ; and whether I looked on one side of the social system or on the other side, the irresistible conviction was borne back on me that here was a nation carrying on its life, striving for existence, striving for nationhood under such difficulties as had never beset any other peop'e on the face of the globe. (Cheers.) Many of us saw these things ; to many of us those same thoughts recurred, and some three years ago we resolved, and I am proud and happy to see that at this board to-night there are many present who joined in that resolve, that these things should no longer be i£ we could help it, and the historian of the future will say for the Lani League movement, if he be an unprejudiced and faithful historian, that never was there a movement formed to contend against such an infamous and horrible system, a system which even the Government of the Lords and Commons of England has already practically admitted to be a gigantic system of robbery and fraud (cheers) : that never was there a movement formed to contend against such a system with such odds against it, in association with which there was so much moieration, and such an utter absence of crime and the strong passions which lead to crime. (Cheers.) My Lord Mayor, ladies, and gentlemen, we have still very much before us. Ireland is not in a normal condition. If she ever had been we never should have had the system of landlordism— that to which Mr. Davitt has devoted himself with the object of extirpating it. (Hear, hear.) We never should have had it, and certainly should not have it now. (Hear, hear.) We all know that this system is upheld by a stronger nation and a stronger power than our own. and considering and calculating what we can do in the future, we always will have to take it into account that no matter how we may strive to keep within the limits of the Constitution, this stronger power outside of in, and practically opposed to us, will always meet us with the rule of fo:c*, and in striving for and obtaining any practical justice that we have yet obtained we have been always met with this rule of foice. (Hear, hear.) Look about jou on every side. Yon see over 30,000 of the regular army retained in Ireland. You see another and more efiiciebt army of 15,000 policemen. (Groans.) You have seen the ancient law of Habeas Corpus repeatedly thrown to the winds in Ireland, and the mo3t significant •example of that particular breach of the Constitution out of the many which are constantly male in the unfortunate British Constituion in Ireland was when 1,000 Irishmen were thrown into prison by the late lamented Buckshot Forster. (Cheers and laughter.) We are now living under a Coercion Act, which is the combined result of the study of the Irish question, and how to meet it by coercion, by all the lawyers and statesmen of England. Well, in the face of all this, in face of tbe fact that no man's life, or much less his property, is his own at the present moment, Lord Hartington has the •coolness to tell us for the Liberal party (ironical cheers and laughter) to abandon our unconstitutional ways and use constitutional methods. I would rather bare preferred to put it this way — that, until the Liberal party abandon their unconstitutional ways and pledge them--selves to observance of British constitutional liberty, there can certainly be no co-operation between English Liborals and Irishmen in respect of thesa matters. There must be no more coercion and there must be no more emigration. (Loud cheering.) We regard any system of emigration which has yet been S3t on foot in this country as a murderous blow against the life of our nationality (cheers), accompanied by untold sufferings for tbe unhappy victims on whom the experiment is being tiied. It is useless for Mr. Tuke's committee to present ns with their carefully selected cases of certain individuals who have prospered in their new home beyond the Atlantic. We know by practical experience what must be the fate of the unfortunate man who has to emigrate with his family at the rate of five pounds a head, including his passage money. We have full and (irresistible proof to show that three-fourths

of the emigrants who have been sent oat from Ireland daring the last year or two have been compelled to find their homes in the miserable garrets of New York, Boston, and Montreal. Whatever Mr. Take's individual motives may be, and he may be a philanthropist for aught I know of the purest water, the proceedings of his committee stand exposed as an indecent attempt to assist the Government to get rid of the Irish difficult/ by getting rid of the Irish people (cheers), and to shield that Government from the responsibility which rightly belongs to it of providing for the inhabitants of this country so long as it insists on the right to govern ns. (Cheers.) We can hold no parley with emigrationists or coercionists. If we are to be emigrated and coerce! we prefer to have the dose administered by our national enemies, the Tories, rather than by those wolves in sheep's clothing, the Whigs. (Cheers.) If emigration must be had, if it is such a wonderful thing for this people, why should they not nave tried it on some of their congested districts in London ? If I mistake not, no attempt has been made to bring into practical operation the theories of Lord Spencer and Lord Derby. And, by the way, we never hear of Lord Spencer taking any child out of the slums of St. Giles's to put it on board an emigrant ship. Now, gentlemen, we have not arrived at our present position without having had to submit to and haviDg had to suffer a very great deal. Ifc is the history of every measure of reform, of every advance in the direction of popular liberty in Ireland, that it is to be accompanied by great sufferings to the people, by great sacrifices on the part of individuals and by relatively very small gains in proportion to the exertions which have been made. Who can doubt what would have happened to landlordism in any other European country if it had been brought face to face with the movement of the last few years ? It would no longer have been a source of trouble. But we have in our country hard facts to meet, and to grapple. We have such individuals as Lord Spencer and Mr. Trevelyan (groans), and I do not think I exaggerate when I say that, although these two individuals have been vastly helped by the Coercion Act, of whicb they have made such ample use, I do not think I exaggerate when I say that the Irish Executive is probably characterized by greater meanness, by greater incapacity, than any other of its predecessors, and that it is certain, just as certain as when our poor friend Mr. Forster was obliged to retire (groans) precipitately from this country, or rather was not allowed to •' Come back to Erin," that this present Government in Ireland will prove sooner or later, and probably rather sooner than later, as great and as conspicuous a failure as any of its predecessors. For Spencer there is, of course, some excuse. He does not owe his position to the fact that he has distinguished himself in the walks of literature (laughter), to the fact that he is even a representative of the people, or to the fact that he has been distinguished by any of those qualities which go to make a statesman. (Hear, hear.) He simply came over to Ireland as an assistant to Mr. Forster, and it is most desirable, since we hear so much about his mingled gentleness and firmness — I think that is the usual phrase about Lord Spencei — it is most desirable that we should always remember that the present Lord Lieutenant came over here as a soi-t of inferior bottle holder to Mr. Forster. (Hear, hear.) It was, therefore, to be expected that Lord Spencer would distinguish himself by the administration of the new Coercion Act, by a stern refusal to spare that pillar of English rule in Ireland — Mr.JMarwood — any of the duties of his office, by his imprisonment and his tortures, and by his police quarterings upon an unoffending and guiltless peasantry. We are not surprised, I say, that Lord Spencer should do his little best to imitate the biggest of the big Cosrcionists who have ever come to Ireland, and that be should desire to give full play to the unbridled insults and passions of the foreign garrison in Ireland. But what can we say of Mr. Trevelyan, the distinguished and good nephew of his great, grand uncle 1 Mr. Forster used to have a trick of overwhelming us by saying that his great ambition was to enable everybody in Ireland to do what they had a legal right to do (ironical cheers) ; but Mr. Trevelyan's great ambition seems to be to prevent anybody in Ireland from doiog what he has a legal right to do. Take, for instance, as an example, the salient features of Mr. Trevelyan's rule in Ireland, his imprisonment of my honourable friend, Mr. Harrington, his seizure of the Kerry Sentinel, his imprisonment of the editor, and, lastly, his suppression by proclamation of the National meetings in the North of Ireland. Mr. Harrington thought he might tell some of his tenant-farmer constituents that if they did not do something for the labourers, the Irish members in the House of Commons would cease to exert themselves for the admission of leaseholders within the Land Act, the amendment of the Healy Clause, and so forth. Mr. Harrington, of course, had a perfect legal right to do this in Westminster, but he had not a legal right to tell his constituents in Ireland that he was going to do this in Westminster, and accordingly he was put into prison, and he was taught on a plank bed that, although he might have a legal light in Westminster, he had no legal right at all in Ireland. (Cheers.) Take the second example— the proceedings in reference to the suppression of the Kerry Sentinel. Mr. Harrington's brother was engaged in the perfectly legal occupation of bringing out a country newspaper, a country weekly newspaper. It was not even suggested that this paper had set any large portion of the West on fire, and I am not aware that it had even set any large portion of the county of Kerry on fire. At all events, Mr. Harrington's brother was engaged in bringing out this weekly newspaper for 20 months during the existence of Forster's Coercion Act without ever having been reasonably suspected of a single tliiug. But Mr. Trevelyan was going to change all that. He knew fiat the brothers Harrington were very dangerous men (laughter) ; and one day, when a printer's devil (laughter), who bad by some misfortune got into Mr. Harrington's employment, took it into his head to beguile an idle hour by snatching what purported to be an " Invincible " notice fiou Mr. Harrington's type, the great excuse was found. The printing press of the Kerry Sentinel was seized, the type was seized, the newspaper was seized, and they were all sent up to Dublin Castle. The boy admiitad he had done this thing without the knowledge of the editor or of any responsible person about the place. The notice in question presented all the intc-raal and external evidence of want of authority. • No child even.

would have said for a moment that it really was what it purported to be. As well might you flog a schoolmaster because an idle schoolboy drew an idle picture on his slate. (Hear hear.) But Mr. Harrington was made to suffer in person and in property for the fault of that boy ; and as we stand round this banquet board I think no greater example in a small way could be given as to the utter unscrupulousness of our rulers and their want of common honesty (loud cries of "hear, hear ") than the fact that Mr. Harrington is still retained as a common felon, wearing prison clothes, lying in a prison bed, and eating prison fare for an offence of which, as it must be perfectly well known to these men in Dublin Castle, he is as absolutely innocent as I am. (Loud cheers, and a voice, "We will have our revenge.") A gentleman says we will have our revenge. I wish just to tell him that he will have to showmuch patience before he gets his revenge. I come now to my laßt example of this most pernicious and extraordinary Government— the suppression of the northern meetings. Mr. Trevelyan may be able across the water to hoodwink the simple people of Galashiels, but he is not going to throw dust into the eyes of any section of the Irish people. Neither Irish Orangemen nor Irish Nationalists will believe that Mr. Trevelyan does himself the honour of believing what he has told the people of Galashiels. All through his speech there it is ea3y to detect the self-satisfied chuckle of the man who exaggerates for his own purpose the danger likely to arise from the action of a few wretched Orangemen, (hear, hear), and who deliberately apply for the same purposes the resources for mischief at the disposal of the landlords who hire them. He admits the illegality of their proceedings fiom top to bottom. He describes them in most forcible language, while he enormously magnifies the results likely to arise from it. And what is his excuse for the action of the Government ?— an action, you must remember exactly in accord with the wishes and demands of the transgressors and lawbreakers. His excuse was that it would take IjOOO infantry and cavalry, to protect the right of public meeting, and to enable those seeking an alteration in the laws to do what they had a le^al ri°-ht to do. (Cheers.) Nationalists meet together for the purpose of obtaining an amendment of the Land Act, or an alteration in any Act of Parliament. If the Lord Mayor goes up to Derry to deliver a lecture on the extension of the franchise to Ireland the excuse for proclaiming the meeting in the one case, and for winking at proceeding of the assassins who fired at him (cheers), is that it would take a thousand infantry and cavalry to do anything else. Did the Government hesitate to protect the Lough Mask expedition in 1880 because it took 1,000 infantry and cavalry to protect them? (Cheers'.) Did they ever refuse protection to any landlord engaged in the extermination of his tenants— to any engaged in forestalling the Land Act by selling out the interest of the tenants 1 (Cheers.) Was the English Government ever known to refuse all the men, all the arms, and all the money that might be necessary for such protection ? ( " Never.") Did the Government shrink from holding 1,000 untried men in prison for 12 long months in 1881 and 1882 lest any impediment should be offered to the legal rights of the landlord class ? (Cheers.) No : all our experience of English force ia Ireland results in this conclusion —that they are always willing to employ the force to the fullest extent and at every risk to the masses of the people where it is a question of protecting the so-called lights of the minority against the majority (cheers) ; but when it comes to extending the protection of the law—the forces at the disposal of the law— to the majority against the minority in the assertion of their legal rights, then we find abundant excuses and abundant reasons in the minds of our English rulers for evading their legal and their just obligations. (Loud cheers ) The proceedings in the North teach once more the oft-taught lessoa that the law in Ireland is ouly powerful where the minority appualg to its protection. It is then quick to strike vengefully and unmercifully. (Loud cheers.) But where it may happen that a statute survives, a statute of beneficial imp»rb to the people of Ireland-survives even in a mutilated conditionthe two Houses of Parliament, wefind that the operation of the law in putting in force that statute is slow and ineffectual. (Hear, haar.) And until English statesmen learn English Liberals and English Radicals learn, the first lesson of their political creed— that every nation, that every country, has a ri^ht to be governei according to the law of the majority of that country (cheers)— they will fail, as they have always failed, in their task of governing the Irish people. Gentlemen, we are told about the franchise that the Liberal party is going to be great and generous aud going to extend the franchise to Ireland. I am very much inclined to think that were it not for tue fact that there exists in the H ouse of Commons a solid band of 40 men who would vote steadily against any extension of the suffragj in England if Ireland were left oat, we should see very little of the inclusion of Ireland iv the Bill. (Cheers.) We can survey these questions and contests of English parties with perfect equanimity. Our position is a strong and a winning one in any case. Whether they extend the franchise or whether they do not, we shall return bitween 70 and 80 members in the next election. (Loud cheers.) Our cause is undoubtedly a winning cause ('« Hear, hear"), and though the progress we maybe making at present, and in the face of coercion, must be slow, yet still we are making progress. We are making up the force and adding to the impetus which was given to the Irish national cause in the days of the great Land League movement (cheers) ; and although it is hard— although our blood often boils in witnessing the indignities, the sufferings, and the persecutions which many of the people of this country are obliged to submit to by day and by night (" Hear hear')— we must be patient. We have every reason to be patient. We shall win if we are patient. The miserable character of the shifts ajrl evasions which the Irish Exceutive ha 3 daily resorted to show iuat we are winning ; coercion cannot last for ever. (Cries of ♦ No.") This Coercion Act is running out, »nd we are living it down. There is one thing that it is very well for us to remember and to remind English people of— that if there be one fact more certain than another it is that if we are to be coerced again, if the present Coercion Act or any part of it is to be renewed, if the Constitution is to be restored to ua, these things shall be done by a Tory Government, and not by a Liberal Government (cheers), and shall carry with them, in the share

of increased taxes and foreign wars penalties in excess of those inflicted upon us. Bayond a shadow of doubt it will bg for the Irish people in England— separated, isolated as they are— and for your independent Irish members to determine at the next general election whether a Tory or a Liberal Ministry shall rule England. (Cheers). This is a great force and a great power. If we cannot rule ourselves, we can at least cause them to be ruled as we choose. (Great laughter and cheering.) This force has already gained for Ireland inclusion ia the coming Franchise Bill. We have reason to be proud, hopeful, and energetic — determined that this generation shall not pass away until it has bequeathed to those who come after us the great birthright of national independence and prosperity. (Great cheering, amid which the hon. gentleman sat down.)