Annie Besant

“ In Ireland, when the Bill becomes law, matters will assume a graver aspect. No Liberal who justifies the English Revolutions of the seventeenth century can deny that the Irish might rightfully resist this confiscation of their constitutional liberties. But though they have right on their side they have not might, and to take up arms against England would be a heroic folly. All that a nation can do by passive resistance carried to extremest lengths, ought, however, to be done. ”

“ At last the Irish both at home and abroad grew weary of the continual drain, and those abroad more especially began to question whether they might not utilise their hard-earned money better by helping their friends at home to resist the landlords' exactions than by continually filling the pockets of Ireland's worst enemies. The struggle in Ireland against unjust rents began, and the American Irish contributions began to swell the receipts of the Land League instead of the rent-roll of the landlords. ”

“ In Ireland, when the conscience of the people revolts against a law, the law is enforced from outside.
Without going beyond the fifty years of Queen Victoria's reign it is easy to see how the agrarian rebellion has been brought about by the landlords, and I can scarcely be said to be appealing to ancient history if I confine myself to the events of the present reign. The famine of 1845 onwards was an artificial famine manufactured by the Irish landlords, who drained the country of its agricultural produce and left the people who raised the produce to starve. ”

“ Then to meet the threatened evictions and to save the people from outrages that would madden them into reprisals, a wise and gentle man formulated the famous Plan of Campaign. By the adoption of this the whole tenantry on an estate was bound together; the rich tenants made common cause with the poor; a fair rent was always to be tendered to the landlord, and only on his refusal to accept it was to be lodged in the hands of trustees. A few "good landlords" voluntarily made reductions; many bad ones were driven into making them by the fear that if they did not yield some they would lose all ”

“ The result of this famine caused wholesale emigration, and was the building up of an Ireland beyond the seas, a New Ireland which gazed ever lovingly and longingly on the Old, ever wrathfully and revengefully on England. At first the Irish emigrants sent money across the Atlantic to their relatives at home for the payment of the landlords' exactions, and the landlords lived for awhile on the funds supplied by the American Irish. ”

“ The Parliamentary opposition is in good hands, and it may be impertinence even to make a suggestion. But to a humble outsider like myself it seems as if every possible means should be adopted to delay the passage of the Bill. The more the closure is applied during the course of the debate the more obvious will it be that the Bill is being forced through the House against the will of a very large minority. The longer the question is kept in debate the more familiar will the English democracy become with the odious principles embodied in the Bill. ”

“ Clause 7 authorises the Lord Lieutenant to proclaim "any association which he believes to be a dangerous association", and anyone who assists in any way the proclaimed association becomes liable to six months' hard labor. By this monstrous clause the Lord Lieutenant is given the power to destroy any political association of which he disapproves; all liberty of combination vanishes, and secret conspiracy is left as the only weapon of the oppressed. What this clause may become in the hands of a Tory Lord Lieutenant, egged on by irate landlords, it is easy to conceive. ”

“ Every Government official should be rigorously boycotted, and so should be every non-official who makes common cause with the officials. Every eviction should be passively obstructed in every possible way. ”

“ Yet Englishmen from their own struggle for liberty ought to be familiar with the way in which juries have stood between technically guilty but morally praiseworthy prisoners and the penalty oppressors longed to wreak on them. ”

“ In clause 2 a list of these offences is given, and they are brought within the punitive authority of the courts of summary jurisdiction, the punishment awardable by the court being six months' imprisonment, with or without hard labor (clause 11) . The offences are:
" (1) Any person who shall take part in any criminal conspiracy to compel or induce any person or persons either not to fulfil his or their legal obligations, or not to let, hire, use, or occupy any land, or not to deal with, or work for, or hire any person or persons in the ordinary course of trade, business, or occupation ”

“ It would have been shorter to have said, "any association formed for the purpose of protecting poor and helpless tenants against heartless and wicked robbery by tyrannical landlords". The law which throws out a young child to die in a pigstye is so admirable a thing that none ought to wish to interfere with it. ”

“ The Plan of Campaign will have to be carried on secretly when this clause becomes law. (b) and (c) , under (3) will delight the hearts of the existing landlords, for a man will be liable to six months' hard labor if he obstructs the sheriff's officer by locking his door against him. It ought to be made a crime for a man not to offer to carry out his own furniture when he is ejected from a cabin built by his own hands. ”

“ Of course, the condition of the success of such a policy is that there should be no violence; but the Irish people have lately shown so strong a self-control that it does not seem impossible that they may offer to the world the sublime spectacle of a small nation standing like a rock against the oppression of a large one, and guarding its rights with bruised but unstained hands.
One thing at least is gained by the protest going up day by day both from inside and outside Parliament. Ireland sees that the wrong inflicted on her is felt to be a wrong by large numbers on this side St. ”

“ The impossibility of getting verdicts from fairly chosen juries in agrarian cases has long been matter of complaint; the present Bill abolishes trial by jury in the most commonly occurring cases in order to avoid the difficulty. ”

“ Any person who shall wrongfully and without legal authority use violence or intimidation" to make anyone do or abstain from doing, or to punish anyone for having done or having abstained from doing, any legal act. ”

“ Any person who shall commit any offence punishable under the Whiteboy Acts as defined by this Act. (5) Any person who, by words or acts, shall incite, solicit, encourage, or persuade any other person to commit any of the offences herein-before mentioned. ”