Читать книгу Imperialism and Mr. Gladstone - Various - Страница 9

Source.—The Times, August 1

Mr. Parnell and his special friends greatly distinguished themselves in the House of Commons last night by the multiplicity of the motions in committee on the South Africa Bill. The Government adopted special means to wear out the tenacity of the members who thus consume hour after hour, for it had arranged that the House should sit until the work should be done, even if the discussion should last till breakfast time. But it does injustice to Mr. Parnell. He is the most misunderstood and most ill-used man in the House of Commons. Such is the burden of the long letter from him which we printed on Monday. He has been accused of trying to stop public business by floods of irrelevant speech. He has been charged with something like open disrespect for the authority of Mr. Speaker. He has been suspected of a wish to make Irish members intolerable, in the hope that weary Englishmen and Scotchmen would bid them begone to enjoy the beatitudes of Home Rule. He has made the Leader of the House, although the mildest of men, propose to banish him to the penal settlement of silence, and the House has done him the honour of framing two new rules to impede the flow of his speech during the rest of the Session… The incorrectness of that accusation, he replies, is proved by the comparatively small use he has made of almost boundless opportunities. If his enemies speak of what he has done, he appeals to what he might have done. Has he obstructed every clause of every Bill? Has he even obstructed every Bill? Has he exhausted all the forms of the House even yet? These questions oppress us with a sense of his moderation. If he has done so much, he might have done so much more! As most Bills have at least ten clauses, as most clauses contain at least a hundred words, and as at least one amendment might be moved after each word, Mr. Parnell could have opposed each Bill with at least a thousand amendments, and he himself, Mr. Biggar, and Mr. O'Donnell could each have delivered at least a thousand speeches.