John Morley

I cannot consent to a measure which is so offensive to the whole protestant population of Ireland, and to the whole sentiment of the province of Ulster so far as its loyal and protestant people are concerned.

If I could believe them loyal, if they were honourable and truthful men, I could yield them much; but I suspect that your policy of surrender to them will only place more power in their hands, to war with greater effect against the unity…

One thing I may remark, that it appears to me that measures of the gravity of those now before parliament cannot and ought not to be thrust through the House by force of a small majority.

For thirty years I have preached justice to Ireland.

I am as much in her favour now as in past times, but I do not think it justice or wisdom for Great Britain to consign her population, including Ulster and all her protestant families, to what there is of justice and wisdom in the Irish…

He took few secondary arguments, but laboured only to hold up to men’s imagination, and to burn into their understanding, the lines of central policy, the shame and dishonour from which it would relieve us, the new life with which it would…

Gladstone’s grasp was unshaken, and though he saw remote bearings and interdependent consequences where others supposed all to be plain sailing, yet if the principle were only saved he professed infinite pliancy.

Such things were trifling with parliament, trifling with a vital constitutional question, and trifling with the social order which the government professed to be so anxious to restore.

You pronounce that obviously the motive of the government is to ensure their own continuance in office.

They prefer that to all the considerations connected with the great issue before them, and their minds in fact are of such a mean and degraded order, that they can only be acted upon, not by motives of honour and duty, but simply by those…

Their boat was driven straight upon the rocks of coercion by the influence of the great orator who had never in all his career been more eloquent than when he was denouncing the mischief and futility of Irish coercion, and protesting that…

The bill, he said, was the concoction of the prime minister and the Irish secretary, and the cabinet had no voice in the matter.

To treat a vote on the second reading as a mere vote on a principle, without reference to the possibility of applying it, was a mischievous farce.

Could anybody dream that if he supported the second reading now, he would not compromise his action in the autumn and would not be appealed to as having made a virtual promise to Ireland, of which it would be impossible to disappoint her?

All this side of the case was put by the speaker with the straight and vigorous thrust that always works with strong effect in this great arena of contest.

The construction of the speech was a masterpiece, the temper of it unbroken, its freedom from taunt and bitterness and small personality incomparable.

She asks a blessed oblivion of the past, and in that oblivion our interest is deeper even than hers.

You have been asked to-night to abide by the traditions of which we are the heirs.

Go into the length and breadth of the world, ransack the literature of all countries, find if you can a single voice, a single book, in which the conduct of England towards Ireland is anywhere treated except with profound and bitter…

No, they are a sad exception to the glory of our country.

They are a broad and black blot upon the pages of its history, and what we want to do is to stand by the traditions of which we are the heirs in all matters except our relations with Ireland, and to make our relation with Ireland to…

So we treat our traditions, so we hail the demand of Ireland for what I call a blessed oblivion of the past.

She asks also a boon for the future; and that boon for the future, unless we are much mistaken, will be a boon to us in respect of honour, no less than a boon to her in respect of happiness, prosperity and peace.

Think, I beseech you; think well, think wisely, think, not for the moment, but for the years that are to come, before you reject this bill.

He knew of no instance where a ministry defeated under circumstances like ours, upon a great policy or on a vote of confidence, failed to appeal to the country.