LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

question that compels the House to-night

       Is not of differences in wit and wit,

       But if for England it be well or no

       To null the new-fledged Act, as one inept

       For setting up with speed and hot effect

       The red machinery of desperate war.—

       Whatever it may do, or not, it stands,

       A statesman' raw experiment. If ill,

       Shall more experiments and more be tried

       In stress of jeopardy that stirs demand

       For sureness of proceeding? Must this House

       Exchange safe action based on practised lines

       For yet more ventures into risks unknown

       To gratify a quaint projector's whim,

       While enemies hang grinning round our gates

       To profit by mistake?

       My friend who spoke

       Found comedy in the matter. Comical

       As it may be in parentage and feature,

       Most grave and tragic in its consequence

       This Act may prove. We are moving thoughtlessly,

       We squander precious, brief, life-saving time

       On idle guess-games. Fail the measure must,

       Nay, failed it has already; and should rouse

       Resolve in its progenitor himself

       To move for its repeal! [Cheers.]

      WHITBREAD

       I rise but to subjoin a phrase or two

       To those of my right honourable friend.

       I, too, am one who reads the present pinch

       As passing all our risks heretofore.

       For why? Our bold and reckless enemy,

       Relaxing not his plans, has treasured time

       To mass his monstrous force on all the coigns

       From which our coast is close assailable.

       Ay, even afloat his concentrations work:

       Two vast united squadrons of his sail

       Move at this moment viewless on the seas.—

       Their whereabouts, untraced, unguessable,

       Will not be known to us till some black blow

       Be dealt by them in some undreamt-of quarter

       To knell our rule.

       That we are reasonably enfenced therefrom

       By such an Act is but a madman's dream....

       A commonwealth so situate cries aloud

       For more, far mightier, measures! End an Act

       In Heaven's name, then, which only can obstruct

       The fabrication of more trusty tackle

       For building up an army! [Cheers.]

      BATHURST

       Sir, the point

       To any sober mind is bright as noon;

       Whether the Act should have befitting trial

       Or be blasphemed at sight. I firmly hold

       The latter loud iniquity.—One task

       Is theirs who would inter this corpse-cold Act—

       [So said]—to bring to birth a substitute!

       Sir, they have none; they have given no thought to one,

       And this their deeds incautiously disclose

       Their cloaked intention and most secret aim!

       With them the question is not how to frame

       A finer trick to trounce intrusive foes,

       But who shall be the future ministers

       To whom such trick against intrusive foes,

       Whatever it may prove, shall be entrusted!

       They even ask the country gentlemen

       To join them in this job. But, God be praised,

       Those gentlemen are sound, and of repute;

       Their names, their attainments, and their blood,

       [Ironical Opposition cheers.]

       Safeguard them from an onslaught on an Act

       For ends so sinister and palpable! [Cheers and jeerings.]

      FULLER

       I disapprove of censures of the Act.—

       All who would entertain such hostile thought

       Would swear that black is white, that night is day.

       No honest man will join a reckless crew

       Who'd overthrow their country for their gain! [Laughter.]

      TIERNEY

       It is incumbent on me to declare

       In the last speaker's face my censure, based

       On grounds most clear and constitutional.—

       An Act it is that studies to create

       A standing army, large and permanent;

       Which kind of force has ever been beheld

       With jealous-eyed disfavour in this House.

       It makes for sure oppression, binding men

       To serve for less than service proves it worth

       Conditioned by no hampering penalty.

       For these and late-spoke reasons, then, I say,

       Let not the Act deface the statute-book,

       But blot it out forthwith. [Hear, hear.]

      FOX [rising amid cheers]

       At this late hour,

       After the riddling fire the Act has drawn on't,

       My words shall hold the House the briefest while.

       Too obvious to the most unwilling mind

       It grows that the existence of this law

       Experience and reflection have condemned.

       Professing to do much, it makes for nothing;

       Not only so; while feeble in effect

       It shows it vicious in its principle.

       Engaging to raise men for the common weal

       It sets a harmful and unequal tax

       Capriciously on our communities.—

       The annals of a century fail to show

       More flagrant cases of oppressiveness

       Than those this statute works to perpetrate,

       Which [like all Bills this favoured statesman frames,

       And clothes with tapestries of rhetoric

       Disguising their real web of commonplace]

       Though held as shaped for English bulwarking,

       Breathes in its heart perversities of party,

       And instincts toward oligarchic power,

       Galling the many to relieve the few! [Cheers.]

       Whatever breadth and sense of equity

       Inform the methods of this minister,

       Those mitigants nearly always trace their root

       To measures that his predecessors wrought.

       And ere his Government can dare assert

      

Скачать книгу