THE SPENCER BANQUET.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 22, 25 September 1885, Page 19

THE SPENCER BANQUET.

(The Nation, August 1.)

Certainly no person in Ireland, and very few, wo imagine, even in England — where people are infinitely more sjutlible and more ready to be bamboozled by the talk of " respectabilities " — are at all likely to be very ranch impressed by the proceedings at the Spencer banquet. That demonstration was held, in p >pular, phrase to whitewash the political character of the late L >rd Lieutenant of Ireland, which was felt to have been sorely damaged in the judgment of all impartial men; but it was a case of the accused — or rather the convicted— passing a eulogium on themselves. It wis as if a gang oC discovered sharpers bad met and voted confidence in their own integrity. The Marquis of Hartington presided at the feast, and he was surrounded, it was proudly boasted, by hundreds of the leading men, peers and com* moners, of the "Liberal" party; but the Marquis of Hartington and those " noble " lords and •' honourable " and •• right honourable " gentlemen were viituilly as much in need of vindication on the occasion as the dejected and blubbering guest of the evening himself. They were either colleagues of L ril cipencer, and with him devised the brutal and infamous policy which has had, for him in especial, sj disastrous a result ; or they gave him his powers, which he uted so mercilessly in Ireland, and defended him for three years in their exercise. In either case, they were all, equally with him, on their trial for high crimes and misdemeanours, and their self -rendered verdict of not guilty was, therefore, simply a pie^e of characteristic Whig audacity. The speeches at the banquet, however, were exceedingly instructive, and, now that the general election ia approaching, well deserve the attention of the Irish people in Ireland and in Great Britain. In the first place, they show that the regime associated with the detested name of Spencer cannot be defended even by its admirers. Lord Hartington ami Lord Spencer — we put out of consideration the pitiful deliverance of th • now halfwitted member for Birmingham and exploded humbug, John Bright — evidently laid themselves out for a grmil self- vindication which posterity would regard as conclusive on th : subject at issue. They stated their whole case in all the amplitude of dttail ; yet not even once did they attempt to answer the damninj indictment wbich has been brought against them by the Ir.sh nation. Every word they said was wide of the issue, and judgment was let go by default. They knew well what they had really to answer. Maaratrasna, Barbavilla, Tubbercurry, Jam>»s Ellis French — those names and others were ringing in their ears, and conveyed to their minds charges which they were bound to answer if they could, and not to answer wbich a^' plainly and as directly as possible was to destroy absolutely and for ever their political reputation ; but these topics they avoided as if they were the plague. They, therefore, we repeat, stand befoTe the world self-convicted of political crimes and misdemeanours of the gravest character. That is the first great fact brought out by the Spencer banquet. The second is scarcely less, if it is not more, important. Hitherto it has been possible for the chiefs of the so-called Radical section of the English •■ Liberal " party to pre Und by hints, insinuations, and ambiguous livings out that they disapproved of, and ought not to be hel I responsible for, the doings of Lord Spencer. Such pretences an n>w out of the question. They can be no longer indulged in, and accoidingly we sh »11 hear very little more of them— till, perhaps, it is thought that the disclosures of the past few days have faded out of the public recollection. By the statement of Lord Hartington and by 'he words of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain himself, we are now entitled to say that the brutal and bloody policy of Lord Spencer in Ireland from beginning to end was the policy not of him alone but of the whole Gladstone Cabinet as well. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain and Sir Charles Dilka are now tarred with the same stick as Speucer and Trevelyan. We may add that Mr. Chamberlain, in addition, has since the Spencer banquet joined the cowardly gang of coercionist libellers who are trying to cover their own defeat and shame by flinging charges which areas false as they are vile at tbe heads of the Irish party. It is well. It is a matter on which to congratulate ourselves that such wolves in sheep's clothing have been denuded of their disguise and are thus rendered comparatively harmless. The words " English Radical" will henceforth stink in the nostrils of Irishmen just as much as does already the word " Whig " of unsavoury recollection. The whole whitewashing demonstration, in fact, and the proceedings in the House of Commons to which it has given rise, are calculated to be of great service to the Irish cause in various ways ; and for the benefit, unintentional though it has been, we tendf r our thanks to the Whig and Radical schemers who played the chief parts in boih.