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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XLIX, Issue 21, 1 June 1922, Page 7

*My own small contribution to the debate had the disadvantage of following a weighty speech from the Marquis of Hartington, whose warnings were still tolling in English ears with the solemnity of a funeral bell. All that can be claimed for it is that is was true to what has been, from the morning watch even unto the twilight shadows, the creed of my life in relation to England—- " Friends, if you will; rebels, if we must!" It is significant of much that it was almost solely because the speech came from the man who was at the moment the incarnation in English eyes of the most uncompromising violence in word and deed that could wound the vanity of England in Ireland and in the House during the five previous years, that an inordinate amount of respect was paid to my words by- the most crusted enemies of Home Rule. Said the Spectator: "In some respects the speech of the evening, which told most heavily on the side of the Government, was the speech of Mr. William O'Brien, the Editor of United Ireland, and when he entered the House the most violent, though also one of the most honest, of the Irish Party. . . Irish member were not there to- offer exaggerated assurances to the House. Some risk must be run. But were there no risks in the rejection of the Bill? Mr. O'Brien promised well for the tolerance of the Irish Parliament towards the Ulster Protestants, who might quite conceivably make their influence predominant in the Irish Assembly. In a word, a more effective speech for Mr. Gladstone's policy than Mr. O'Brien's could not 'possibly have.been made in the House of Commons." The Echo (then the organ of the revolting Liberal Unionists): "If I were a Tory M.P. I should dread the effects of half-a-dozen speeches like William O'Brien's. It was the most remarkable speech of the evening, and it derived additional impressiveness from the known honesty, unselfishness, and high-mindedness of the speaker. Of course it was the spirit rather than the politics of his speech which even the Tories cheered when Mr. O'Brien resumed his seat." ....,_ ■ The. Dublin Evening Mail itself: "These debates will be recorded among the highest flights of Parliamentary oratory. Mr. " Gladstone, Mr. Parnell, Lord Hartington, "and Mr. O'Brien all spoke as men do speak when they believe their audience is accessible to persuasion. They were all careless of ornament, indifferent to admiration, and bent exclusively and with desperate energy on the winning of votes. The consequence was that they attained a high reach of real eloquence, and Mr. O'Brien's speech in particular was eloquent from first to last." ' Violence is the only way of ensuring a hearing for moderation.* That is, in a nutshell, the history of what is absurdly styled "constitutional agitation" in Ireland.