One hundred years ago
IN his speech at Lowestoft on Saturday, Mr Gladstone capped completely his speeches of the previous day by saying that what is alleged concerning the atrocities of the Mahommedan officials in Armenia, is nothing to compare in guilt with the atrocities of the Irish Constabulary in Ireland, considering that the one country is Mahommedan and the other Christian. He declared also that the alleged Siberian atrocities of the Russian police are just of a piece with the atrocities at Mitchelstown three years ago, though he described the Siberian outrages as consisting in the ruthless shooting-down of a number of prisoners 'without judicial process, without either the form or the substance of law.' It appears, according to Mr Gladstone, that innocent Irishmen, not convicts, like the Russian prisoners, but citizens engaged in a lawful occupation, were on that occasion shot down by the police without excuse of any kind; the fact being, as Mr Balfour explained in his speech on Wednesday in Essex, that these innocent and peaceful citizens had driven the police back into their barracks with blackthorn sticks, assailed them with showers of stones, had nearly killed one police officer, and were only fired upon by the police in self-defence. The same thing happened under Mr Gladstone's Government, and on one such occasion two women were killed, but Mr Gladstone was at that time unconscious of the plusquam Mahommedan cruelty in such attempts of the police to defend their own lives.
The Spectator, 24 May 1890
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