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scowl and not a smile. I miss the soft, fond voice, the tender clasp, the loving word. I look upon the hands reached out to grasp me to punish me; and lo, great stains, blood-red, upon those hands; and my sad heart tells me it is the blood of my widowed mother, Ireland. Then I answer to my ac“You have no claim on me on my love, my duty,

cusers

my allegiance.

You are not my mother.

You are not my mother. You sit indeed in the place where she should reign. You wear the regal garments torn from her limbs, while she now sits in the dust, uncrowned and overthrown, and bleeding from many a wound. But my heart is with her still. Her claim alone is recognized by me. She still commands my love, my duty, my allegiance; and whatever the penalty may be, be it prison chains, be it exile or death, to her I will be true."

But, gentlemen of the jury, what is that Irish nation to which my allegiance turns? Do I thereby mean a party, or a class, or creed? Do I mean only those who think and feel as I do on public questions? Oh, no. It is the whole people of this land—the nobles, the peasants, the clergy, the merchants, the gentry, the traders, the professions—the Catholic, the Protestant, the Dissenter. Yes. I am loyal to all that a good and patriotic citizen should be loyal to; I am ready, not merely to obey, but to support with heartfelt allegiance, the constitution of my own country-the Queen as Queen of Ireland, and the free Parliament of Ireland, once more constituted in our national senate house in College Green.

And reconstituted once more it will be. In that hour the laws will again be reconciled with national feeling and popular reverence. In that hour there will be no more disesteem, or hatred, or contempt for the laws; for, howsoever a people may dislike and resent laws imposed upon them against their will by a subjugating power, no nation disesteems the laws of

its own making. That day, that blessed day, of peace and reconciliation, and joy and liberty, I hope to see.

And when it comes, as come it will, in that hour it will be remembered for me that I stood here to face the trying ordeal, ready to suffer for my country-walking with bared feet over red-hot ploughshares, like the victims of old. Yes; in that day it will be remembered for me, though a prison awaits me now, that I was one of those journalists of the people who, through constant sacrifice and self-immolation, fought the battle of the people and won every vestige of liberty remaining in the land.

SALISBURY

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OBERT ARTHUR TALBOT GASCOYNE CECIL, Marquis of Salisbury, a distinguished English statesman, was born at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, February 10, 1830, and educated at Eton and Christ Church College, Oxford. He entered Parliament for Stamford in 1853 as Lord Robert Cecil, and was soon known as one of the ablest speakers in the House of Commons on the Conservative side. On the death of his elder brother in 1865 he assumed the title of Viscount Cranbourne. He was secretary of state for India, 1866-67, but resigned from the cabinet on account of his unwillingness to support the Reform Bill upon which the other ministers were agreed. By the death of his father in 1868 he succeeded to the title of Marquis of Salisbury and took his seat in the House of Lords. In November of the next year he followed Lord Derby as chancellor of the University of Oxford, and on the return of Disraeli to the premiership in February, 1874, he again became secretary of state. He was appointed special ambassador to Turkey in November, 1876, and in 1878 received the appointment of minister of foreign affairs. Since the death of Disraeli in 1881 Salisbury has been the recognized leader of the Conservatives. From June to November, 1885, he was prime minister and after a brief Liberal administration was again at the helm as premier in 1886, remaining such until 1892. His conduct of affairs was marked by an aggressive foreign policy and repression in Ireland, the ministry finally succumbing on the Home Rule question. In 1895 the Marquis became premier for the third time, the most important event occurring within his latest administration being the war with the Coer republics in South Africa. Salisbury is an able and impressive, but not persuasive, orator, and the occurrence of an injudicious phrase here and there sometimes destroys the effect which his speech was desired to produce. He is an enthusiast in scientific matters and his inaugural address before the British Association at Oxford in 1894 attracted general attention for its arraignment of Darwinism.

TAMPERING WITH THE CONSTITUTION

SPEECH DELIVERED IN 1875 TO THE MIDDLESEX CONSERVATIVE

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ASSOCIATION

Y LORD MAYOR, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, -I listened to the resolutions which were read one after another from the various deputations which constitute this very remarkable, significant, and representative meeting, and I could not help wondering why it was that the truths which seemed to be so obvious had not made their

impression upon her Majesty's government. Why, having this great work to do, did they deliberately depart from the practice of all which had gone before them and raise up gratuitous difficulties in their way?

It was not from any ignorance on their part of the importance of redistribution as an integral portion of reform. I need only quote that sentence of Mr. Bright's which has been quoted again and again, but which I should like to see prefixed as a sort of text to every conservative sermon.

"Repudiate without mercy any bill that any government whatever may introduce, whatever its seeming concessions may be, if it does not redistribute the seats that are obtained from the extinction of small boroughs amongst the large towns."

But their knowledge was not such ancient history as that. Mr. Bright seems to imagine that he has entirely explained away his utterance given publicly in 1859 by reciting a private note which he says he wrote to Lord Beaconsfield in 1867, and he concludes in the most self-satisfied way that he has entirely explained his previous declaration.

But his colleague on the platform was not less conscious of the necessity of a redistribution of seats. Only on Saturday Lord Hartington is reported to have said, "We admit the inconvenience which will arise if a dissolution should take place."

If a dissolution should take place, as if Mr. Chamberlain and the wire-pullers were not perfectly resolved on that matter!

"We admit the inconvenience which will arise if any dissolution should take place with the extended numbers of the existing constituencies. We know that that will be no fair representation of the people."

Well, at least Lord Hartington knew perfectly well what he was about. Then, what was the motive which induced them to undertake this eccentric and abnormal plan of reform? Well, we had some difficulty in measuring it at first. We were told that it was the extraordinary block in the House of Commons, as if blocks in the House of Commons had never existed before the year 1884.

But, fortunately, as the controversy went on candor increased. It is one of the advantages of the thorough discussion which I hope this question will receive between this and November that all false pretences and all hollow pretexts will be dissipated, and the cause which logically and constitutionally is in the right will be triumphantly established.

You know that Mr. Gladstone at the Foreign Office told us that it was necessary that some pressure should be applied to the House of Commons, that he could not hope to pass his Redistribution Bill unless it was put before them in such a manner that they were to understand that if they had no Redistribution Bill they should have to go to the existing constituencies with the new franchise.

That speech of Mr. Gladstone's at the Foreign Office has been apologized for and slurred over. People intimate that he was not exactly possessed of his usual presence of mind when he made it, and that indeed must have been the case, or otherwise how could he deliberately impute to me words which I never uttered, and not only impute them, but make them the basis of a long, and elaborate, and most injurious indictment? He could not have made that statement if his memory had been in its usual condition.

But now Lord Hartington comes forward and explains to us that it was not merely some spontaneous exuberance of

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