MR. HERBERT GLADSTONE RESPONDS TO "IRELAND A NATION."

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVIII, Issue 4, 23 May 1890, Page 7

MR. HERBERT GLADSTONE RESPONDS TO "IRELAND A NATION."

At the National Banquet in London, in celebration of St. Patrick's Day, the chairman (T. P. O'Connor, M.P ) said be was glad to say that for the first time in his experience tbey had an Englishman to answer to the toast of " lieland a Nation," and theie was only one name which would occur first to every Irish lip in connection with the toa-it, and that was the name of Gladstone (loud cheers).

Mr. H. Gladstone, M P., who was warmly cheered, in the course of his speech said he wished to recall to their minds one or two circumstances connected with the political situation ten years ago, which, to his mind, bore strictly upon the question the judges had to consider. Nine years ago he happened to be associated in a very humble degree with the Government of Mr. Forster, and he landed in Ireland on the very day that Mr. Parnell was arrested, and he had some experience, therefore, of what was going on in the Castle and out of it at that time. He said, and he said it deliberately, that many things were done by the Government of that day, by the officials of the day, which directly provoked crime, outrage, and disturbance (loud cheers). Mr. Forster acted with great einglemindednes3 and unselfishness, and was desirous of doing his best towards the Irish people, but the state of things in Ireland when Mr. Forster was Chief Secretary was the state of things in a civil war. When he (Mr. Gladstone) arrived in Dublin Castle, in the Upper Yard were two field guns commanding the gate. The Com-mander-in-chief had the troops and the police already organised for a rising in the city, and the town seemed as if it were in a state of siege. What was done at that time? There was a systematic straining of the law (hear, hear). Those responsible did not so much what the spirit, the intention, and the justice of an act was, but how far it could be used in carrying out the policy of the day (cheers). The state of things then existing completely justified the policy of the Land League and National League (cheers). But here was another point. In the first week in November a circular was sent round to the police instructing them to offer Bums of money for information leading to convictions for outrages (shame). He did not remember that that circular ever saw daylight, but these things ought to be known. And what did it mean? It meant that a temptation was spread broadcast all over Ireland for people to come forward and give false evidence (cheers). Was not that another overwhelming justification of the policy of the League in defending prisoners 1 Of such kind were the acts of Dublin Castle, and for his part he believed a great deal more had to be revealed in regard to the methods of Dublin Castle, and he did not speak altogether without experience in the matter. He wished, with their chairman, that the Irish question could be settled on a broad national basis, but he had very little expectation of it. He was proud to Bpeak to the toast. He was proud of the, alliance with the Irish party. They were all proud of it. He was, for his part, confident that the historian of the future would write that it was an alliance which had great effects, and which tended for the honour, the glory, the greatness, and the power of the British Empire, and the undying happiness and freedom of Ireland.