The Evening Telegram

JUSTICE FOR IRELAND.

MR. GLADSTONE'S REPLY TO PROTESTANT CLERGYMEN.

Condition of the German Emperor—Another Monarch Dying—Killed by Moonlighters—General News.

LONDON, May 10.—Mr. Gladstone addressed a large congregation of Nonconformist ministers and others at the Memorial Hall, on Farringdon street, yesterday afternoon. He was presented with an address by the ministers numbering over 8,700 approving his contention for Home Rule.

In the course of his reply to the address he reviewed the whole subject of Home Rule, his own attitude towards it and that of the Liberal and Liberal Unionist parties. He charged the latter with voting for all the bad English legislation of the Conservatives—legislation which ought to have been repugnant to their liberal training and principles—rather than consent to Home Rule for Ireland. He wanted to know how long the people of England would tolerate this sacrifice of their interests.

Entering upon the Irish question in general, he launched a series of magnificent denunciations against the Mitchelstown massacre, the continuous sentences pronounced by the Crimes Act courts with a view to deprive prisoners of their right of appeal, and that last refinement of cruelty, the increasing of terms of imprisonment when the prisoner did appeal from sentences already unjust and excessive.

He said he was not prepared to vindicate the plan of campaign, which had not been approved by the Irish party itself, but he asked that it be judged fairly. He laid the responsibility on the Government for the necessity of the resort to such a measure of self-defense, and declared that Messrs. Dillon and O'Brien were merely instruments.

Mr. Gladstone's words and manner aroused his clerical hearers to unusual enthusiasm. Having a sympathetic and highly appreciative and intelligent audience, the orator was in his most eloquent vein, and the speech is voted by all who heard it to have been one of his most successful efforts.