The Life Of Charles Stewart Parnell Vol - I

190 CHARLES STEWAliT PAHNELL [1879
was accurate, and the sight of the 'instruments of torture' proved fatal to the position of the Government. ' Abolish flogging/ urged Mr. Chamberlain on this same day (July 5), ' and your Bill will be passed at once; otherwise it will be systematically opposed and obstructed.'
Colonel Stanley asked Mr. Chamberlain to suspend further opposition until the schedule was put in. * Agreed/ said Chamberlain, and he appealed to Parnell to let the clauses then under consideration go through. ' No/ cried Parnell, and he moved to report progress on the instant, showing a relentless front and keeping the committee sitting for three hours longer.
On July 7 Colonel Stanley announced that the Government had resolved to abolish flogging in all cases except when death was the alternative.
Mr. Chamberlain expressed his dissatisfaction with this arrangement, and urged that flogging should be wholly and unconditionally abolished. Lord Hartington supported the Government, when Mr. Chamberlain denounced him in a bitter speech as : * The noble lord, lately the leader of the Opposition, now the leader of a section of the Opposition.' Bright stood by Chamberlain, and Parnell and the Irish took the same side.
On July 15 Parnell and Mr. Chamberlain still showed fight, when Lord Hartington promised that if they allowed the Bill to pass through committee he would move a resolution on the report to give effect to their wishes. They agreed, and on July 17 Lord Hartington, on behalf of the whole Liberal party, moved: ' That no Bill for the discipline and regulation of the army will be satisfactory to this House which provides for the retention of corporal punishment for military offences.' This was the final struggle. The Government stood