Irish MPs

“ If this Bill granted to Ireland a free and independent Parliamentary Assembly with full powers over the Executive, as proposed by the Prime Minister, there would inevitably come a time when either the payment of the interest due, or some other cause, would bring the Irish Parliament into antagonism with the English. If they were to endeavour to demand what was necessary, whether payment of interest or what not, and to threaten to use force, could any one suppose that the great body of Irish Americans would stand by silently and see that done? ”

“ Had Ireland a separate Parliament, no British Minister would have been mad enough to propose the extension of this act over that country, where it is certain to excite disaffection and disloyalty, arouse slumbering hatreds, and impede the march of National and Social improvement. An Irish Parliament, with specified powers and duties akin to those of an American State Legislature, would be a great relief to a British Parliament and Ministry, a great support to Irish loyalty and Irish improvement, and no harm to anybody. ”

“ The establishment of this separate Parliament is necessary, because we must give Ireland the opportunity of doing what we ourselves are unable to do, to find the best machinery they can to carry on the business of government. But, when this machinery is once found and invested with the resources and influence of a Government, we cannot suppose that our troubles will be at an end. If disputes arise in the working out of the new Irish Constitution, the popular majority will not be slow to call in the aid of the American Irish who have founded the National League. ”

“ I do not believe for a moment that Ireland is going to be regenerated on political, measure-making Parliamentary lines. Her regeneration will have to come out of herself. So much of it as has already been accomplished has come wholly out of herself, and not out of legislation at all. The rest will follow if the Irish people have a mind to deal as straightly with themselves in the future as they have dealt with themselves in the past. And I should say that at all costs the potato-and-pig habit, as it now exists in Ireland, should be broken, and got rid of, and utterly wiped out. ”

“ They cannot stand still. They have already discovered that one act of repression leads to another, and they will find ere long that they have no alternative except Home Rule or the suppression of Parliamentary Government in Ireland. Men may talk lightly of the ease with which eighty-six Irish members may be kept in order in Parliament. They forget that the Irish people are behind the Irish members. How is Ireland to be governed on Parliamentary principles if the voice of her representatives is to be forcibly silenced or disregarded? ”

“ And yet Ireland, like the rest of the United Kingdom, is supposed to live under representative institutions! No doubt I may be reminded that the Nationalist Members are in touch with local opinion in Ireland, and that they are the informal allies of the Liberals; but the Nationalist attitude is concerned with little else but Home Rule, and it is just because, in existing circumstances, the Irish do not declare themselves, or perhaps even form an opinion, on ordinary political issues, that our representative system has broken down so much more severely in Ireland than in England or in Scotland. ”

“ The next blow was on the feeble and factious Parliament. The Irish Legislature was extinguished at a blow; and its fall was as ignominious as it was judicial. Its national pride and acknowledged talent gave way without a struggle, and with scarcely a remonstrance. It had already lost the respect of the nation. The mind of Ireland disdained the deliberations which had suffered the dictation of a mob. Parliament, existing without national honour, perished without national sympathy. ”

“ It is to me astonishing that so little weight is attached by many to the fact that Irish wishes of self-government were represented only by a small minority.
Now what voting power are the eighty members to have? Ireland is to be represented here fully; that is my first postulate. My second postulate is that Ireland is to be invested with separate powers, subject, no doubt, to imperial authority. Ireland is to be endowed with separate powers over Irish affairs. Then the question before us is: Is she or is she not to vote so strongly upon matters purely British? ”

“ Ireland, being eighteenth century in its retarded political mentality, believed, and still believes, in the marvels of political liberty, so that the Parliamentary Party was naturally outraged by the ficklessness of the anti-parliamentarian campaign. Electors and elected equally believed in party politics, and the Irish Party could show, with reasonable pride, a record of definite parliamentary achievement, unequalled by any other minority party in the British House of Commons. ”

“ They ought to say that Irish Local Government is far too large a question to be dealt with by a moribund Parliament; they ought to say that there is not sufficient agreement among their supporters as to the nature and extent of such a measure such as would favour the chances of successful legislation, and that they have determined to reserve the matter for a new Parliament when the mind of the country upon Irish administration has been fully ascertained. ”

“ One is to get rid of the Irish members altogether; the other is to make them, by the concession of their just demands, contented and loyal members of a truly united Parliament. The experience of the Parliament of 1880, which was mainly occupied with Irish business, and began, being a strongly Liberal Parliament, with a bias toward the Irish popular party, showed how difficult it is for a House of Commons which is ignorant of Ireland to legislate wisely for it. In the House of Lords there is not a single Nationalist ”

“ The desire for a separate Irish Parliament is certainly a national aspiration, it may even be called a right; for the people of the island can justly complain of being at the mercy of a rival nation, of which they are supposed to form a part, and are consequently heavily taxed for the support of it without any adequate return. ”

“ Irish trade was being handicapped by English ministers anxious to gain the suffrages of the great trading towns of Bristol and London, and they attempted to impose restrictions on Ireland through the medium of the Dublin Parliament. But the descendants of the Elizabethan and Cromwellian 'undertakers' would have none of it. Their idea was that all Irish affairs should be under the control of the Irish Parliament because they were the Parliament. ”

“ He could not see that the more he wrestled for the independence of a sham Parliament, while resisting its transformation into a real Parliament, the more he strengthened those influences, because he inevitably widened the gulf between Parliament and the Irish people. The glamour his brilliant gifts had thrown over the Irish Parliament only served to divert his own mind and the minds of other talented and high-minded men from the seat of disease in Ireland. ”

“ Can any reflective person really suppose that the democracy of Great Britain will consent to refuse to share with the Irish people the boon of self-government which will be offered to themselves next year? Any attempt to exclude the Irish from the benefits of such a scheme, after all the promises of the last general election, would almost certainly wreck the government; for constituencies have ways and means of impressing their wills on their representatives in Parliament even without a dissolution. ”

“ The House of Commons is a platform which all Europe looks upon, and the Irish Party must teach all Europe to understand the iniquity of English government in Ireland in the way they understood the case of Italy or of Poland. This course would not only revive the sympathy of foreign nations, but win that of just Englishmen; and, still better, would gain the trust of the Irish people by effectual work done on their behalf. In an assembly so divided as the British Parliament, against party leaders so weak as those who governed England in our time, such a league would be formidable. ”

“ It disgusts me therefore to hear men of liberal politics say, "What is the use of a Whig Government? The Ministers can do nothing for the country. They have been four years at work on an Irish Municipal Bill, without being able to pass it through the Lords." Would any ten Acts of Parliament make such a difference to Ireland as the difference between having Lord Ebrington for Lord Lieutenant, with Lord Morpeth for Secretary, and having the Earl of Roden for Lord Lieutenant, with Mr Lefroy for Secretary? ”

“ The liberal leaders have promised to make home rule the leading issue at the next parliamentary election, which will probably occur in two years or so. In the meantime the Irish party in parliament will continue to pursue the policy that has already been so successful in securing concessions for the relief of the people and the promotion of the welfare and prosperity of Ireland. ”

“ My idea, therefore is, that the Irish Parliament must be enabled to meet the struggle, if struggle there is to be, by having the means put into their hands of calling forth all the resources of that country; which, if called forth, I believe to be very great indeed. That this may not ultimately lead to some drain upon the purse and force of this country, is more certain than any man would affirm, who sees what has passed in France. But the probability is, I think, against it. ”

“ The Restrictions are one and all of them limits upon the powers of the Irish Parliament; they are none of them limits upon the powers of the Irish Executive. The new constitution does not contain—from its nature it hardly could contain—a single safeguard against abuse of power by the Irish Ministry or its servants. Yet in all countries there is far more reason to dread executive than parliamentary oppression, and this is emphatically true of Ireland. ”

“ Parliament is to meet to-day: that is not of much importance to 'we-uns': it is a matter of course that if the Government venture to bring forward a gagging-bill they will not venture to make it anything but an Irish one. For my part I should rather like the Liberals to get in again: for if they do, they must either push on the revolution by furthering Irish matters, which will be a direct gain to us; or they must sneak out of the Irish question, which would be an indirect gain to us, but a far greater one, as it would turn all that is democratic sick of them. ”

“ The next crime with which the Irish nation stands charged, is their early and zealous efforts for parliamentary reform.—It has been enumerated as one of the causes which have produced the present horrible system of administration in Ireland, that shortly after the establishment of their legislative independence, a convention met in Dublin, consisting of representatives from the different Volunteer Associations, by whom the country had been saved from the common enemy, and who were supposed to have contributed much to the establishment of her independence. ”

“ It is hard to see why they should be regarded as more exotic in Irish Dublin than in French Quebec: Sir Wilfrid Laurier cannot be termed a failure as a parliamentarian; British parties at Westminster have been inconvenienced by the parliamentary skill rather than by the parliamentary incompetence of Irish members; and the present menace to parliamentary institutions does not come from Ireland. ”

“ No previous failure counted for anything against this project, because there never had been such an Irish Party in the British Parliament. For it must be distinctly understood that it was not by consent of Parliament, but in spite of it, not by its grace and favour, but because of its utter impotence against the right, vigorously asserted, that we would succeed. This Irish Party must be kept pure and above suspicion by a pledge never to ask or accept favours for themselves or others from any Government, and must exhibit no preference between Whig and Tory. ”

“ But it is well known that the Irish influence in that Parliament is almost null, and that their presence there frequently is productive of no other result than to countenance laws injurious to their own country. Does, can Ireland hope to derive any political or social benefit from her representatives in London beyond whatever may accrue to her from their vain remonstrances and ineffective speeches? ”

“ The retention of the Irish members breaks up our whole system of Cabinet government. This system has some inherent defects, but it cannot work at all with any benefit to the country unless the Cabinet can depend on the support of a permanent majority. The result of what has happily been described as the 'in-and-out plan,' that is the scheme for allowing Irish members to vote on some subjects and not on others, will be the constitution of two majorities, and it is more than possible that the one majority may belong to one party and the other majority to another. ”

“ It is dangerous and mischievous to use vague language on such a subject. Those who speak ought to say exactly what they mean. It will be found that Home Rule includes an independent separate Irish Parliament, and that all guarantees and securities, whether for the protection of minorities or for the security of the Empire, are absolutely illusory.
'"At the same time we are to continue to receive Irish representatives at Westminster in the Imperial Parliament, and we shall not even get rid of their obstruction and interference here by the concession of their independence in Ireland. ”