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let it beware of any such concession to the requirements of a majority as shall leave the minority disabled from continuing discussion. This liberty of debate is the very essence of our Parliamentary system. Without it the House of Commons becomes only an inconvenient and cumbrous machinery for carrying out a policy which has been devised elsewhere. Any attempt to give to a majority that odious supremacy which has been denominated in other countries the clôture is simply high treason against the Constitutional liberties of the English people. The moment that this issue is fairly put before the constituencies, the verdict will be unmistakable. Arm your authorities with what powers you think fit to crush the frivolous or mischievous excesses of any member who abuses his privilege of debate; simplify, and, if need be, shorten the course of legislation upon Bills in general: this much will be willingly accorded to you; but the moment in which you propose to limit the right of minorities to discuss the measures supported by majorities, by the decision of those majorities themselves, you will have terminated the Parliamentary history of Britain, you will have destroyed the very raison d'être of the House of Commons itself.
One more consideration may deserve a moment's thought. What is called the Irish party is barely, even after two years' experience of the present Government, a majority of the Irish members. It is certainly a very small minority of the House of Commons taken altogether. It will not be difficult, in the event of the clôture being adopted, to legislate for Ireland as a general rule over the heads of this minority after they have been gagged by an obsequious rush of those gentlemen to whom "coercion is only a hateful incident." What will be the moral value of laws so enacted? What will be the practical effect of such legislation in Ireland itself? Will it not be that the world which now stands amazed at the forbearance of the Imperial Government in dealing with Irish disorder and Irish outrage will speedily come to realise that in the England of Mr. Gladstone Parliamentary forms may serve only to mask a hypocritical despotism, and that you had only to scratch the modern Russophile to find something more autocratic than the Tartar Autocrat? Difficult, well-nigh hopeless, as the task of governing Ireland has been made by the apostles of "Force no Remedy," it will be rendered desperate indeed by the policy of "Free Speech no Parliamentary Privilege." This is only one of the alarming results which must be developed by the policy now foreshadowed. Let us trust that the country will speak out in time to prevent its consummation.
