Book Description

Excerpt from The Speeches (in Full) Of Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M. P., And William O'brien, M. P., On Home Rule: Delivered in Parliament, Feb; 16 and 17, 1888 Mr. Gladstone. In following the right honorable gentleman, I shall only touch those portions of his speech which go the heart of the question. In my opinion, they constituted a very small part of his address (cheers), the rest being criminatory and incriminatory matter, which, however amusing to a portion of the House, really assists us very little in getting at the root of the great question before us. I do this particularly because there is a great difficulty, owing to the enormous range of the question, in confining the debate within the narrow limits to which we all desire to confine it. My honorable and learned friend, the member for Inverness (Mr. Finlay), last night, when no member of the Government seemed in a condition to follow the speech of the honorable member for Northeast Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien), (Opposition cheers), gallantly stepped into the breach, and performed that office on behalf of ministers, which has so often been performed by those who are sometimes termed "Dissenting Liberals"; namely, that of finding expedients of defence for the Government which they and their adherents behind them have been unable to discover. (Opposition cheers.) My honorable and learned friend said he thought it high time that the debate should draw to a close. I can perfectly understand reasons why he should desire that there might be no debate at all on this subject (laughter and cheers), but when he says that the discussion has extended to unreasonable length, I point to the speech of the Attorney-General last night, of the length of which I am far from complaining, but which was evidently in sharp contradiction with the view of my honorable and learned friend. Why, sir, it has not been possible to include in this debate a number of questions which deserve, and may yet have to receive detailed criticism. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.