Found – a small folding pamphlet illustrated by Ralph Steadman and published in London by Open Head Press about 1980 at 50p. It came from the estate of the Dutch radical Simon Vinkenoog whose birthday (18th July) was the same day as this revolutionary (not to say crazy) speech was given. It has the full text of Earl Russell’s 1978 maiden speech to the House of Lords. John Conrad Russell was the son of Bertrand Russell. After the speech he left the House of Lords and was prevented from re-entering it by ushers. It is said to be the only speech given in the Lords that is not fully recorded by Hansard. His proposal to give three quarters of the nation’s wealth to teenage girls had some coverage in the papers the next day, but the speech has never appeared in full, apart from in this rare pamphlet, this is the last part: –
Such is the present position of the United States after the war in Vietnam: the whole human race can accuse it every day. The helpless, which were physically or spiritually imprisoned, can then stand up and point the finger; revealed injuries to mankind can now stand up and accuse, with whatever rebuke pleases them. The State authorities of Europe and the United States must now admit that they have done these deeds and practice no longer the harm they have wrought.
“Let them grant the gift of gifts, the gift of life, and not wait until death has shown his hand. People who have been imprisoned by the CIA in Latin America, or are so imprisoned today, cannot stand up and answer for themselves. It is meaningless to ask them to be gifts, the gift must proceed from you to them. If you want a man to stand up and be a man, and not be a figleaf or a shadow of himself, you have to grant him the spiritual gift to be able to do so, for the American nations of Latin America this is a genuine reality. And the same goes for all classes of oppressed persons in Europe. Reproof, or the concept of rebuke, guilt, and morality, are no use to him. Accused all the time by the pride of life and vigorous gentlemanliness which governs him, the man is all but paralysed. And the young people are accused by older persons, or older established institutions which will not remove themselves, of being pitiless pride of life to older persons, the same law applies. Rebuke, guilt, morality are no use to them. Get the pitilessness removed: and do not cause the older person, or the police, in the name of the older person, to prostitute the younger person out of unforgiveness. The punishment for such conduct is the guillotine. Cause this murder of young people to cease: abolish all institutions or spirits which cause such things. What is not granted at present is the gift of life. The older person is not granted the gift of life to be generous, kind, forgiving, or merciful to the younger person, and the younger person is forced in self-defence to defend himself against the older person. This spirit will have to leave Europe, and Latin America; and so will all the institutions which exemplify it. A relationship of extreme cruelty results, delightful to all those who relish the experience of sadism. The older person can continue at his pleasure to prostitute the younger person unless the younger person can find a way of answering him and get out of the trap. This spirit or happening is confined to England, and to the English spirit. It does not happen to Free Americans who are not subject to the powers of envy ingrained in the British Class System, which gives such spirits power. Free Americans banish the spirit, and when Americans complain of the British Royal Family for being pampered decadent and snobbish, are they not right? The Police Doll which prostitutes people is probably the responsible author of these evils: the Doll of Love, which says to a person: You are excited from Love: you must prostitute yourself. It is the British Doll, which praises and cherishes the British Jesus Christ, which is all right so long as He is praised, but not so funny if he is condemned or out of grace. The American has only to say to the Doll: “the late Jesus Christ” and the entire Doll disappears. This unpleasant, cruel and disgusting machine ought to be stopped. Will you give the young people of England a better chance, please? This machine has given a lot of trouble to a great many people in the past twenty-five years, and the British people should not be so supine as not to reply to it: they should invoke the Spirit of Free America and banish the spirit in question. Get up British Lion: restore your free spirit: God means a persons hymen: and he or she has only to say “you do not know my hymen” and the spirit which works damage and has power or control over the person cope vanishes. Not only prostitution, but also slavery, this machine can invoke, endorse, or create: or pararlysing moral inhibitions which prevent people co-habiting with others or frustrate their desires, or their power to remain with the lady whom they love, or remain fertile. It is evident that, if you had a man in your power, through such spiritual happenings, you could in fact physically castrate him; or if you hadYour power, you could forcibly sterilise her. This sort of menace to the procreativity of the human race, or the liberties of the person, ought not to be tolerated. It is far too insecure. Young people ought to be free to go on with their lives and pursue the gaining of their livelihoods free of such molestation. It is not safe for the human race to be thus menaced. You can enslave the man; you can fill him with moral obligation to you: you can pursue him to the ends of the cosmos; you can threaten him with death at long range if he frequents the company of a person other than yourself; you can, on occasion, make him love you more than his girl; you can inflict every kind of suffering on him.
The inordinate oppression of the world which created the War in Vietnam over the past thirty years, with its immense uncompassion, has now blamed the young man for its sins, and prostituted him for its own and uncompassion. Its own guilt is a thing which it is unable to bear, and it punishes him for it precisely because he opposes it; which causes it to declare itself (as well as punishing him for his own and uncompassion) which it does not admit itself. The arrival of VE-Day prostituted Pre-War England. If oppression hangs on as hard as this, we cannot have so much as a new bus line without being accused of immorality.
After your deeds, my dear Britain, would not repentance improve you? But you will have to ask yourself, not the young man and his lady to do so for you. You have no credit; no spiritual credit. No Angel will listen if you try to name bastard, or cad, or bounder, or rotter, or anything WHATEVER which you dislike. The young man and his lady are not to indulge Britain, or repent for her sins for her; it could only spoil her chance of Heaven if they did: thus the conditioning of the affair. No, she must repent herself. And nothing else will do but her repentance. Meantime not a word she says will ever be heard; nobody would believe it. If anybody wished to introduce the Deity into the conversation, let him recognise that only his Holiness the Pope is qualified to deal with British self-will. Seven hundred years of hatred of the French and Irish too, ill become Britain’s chill bosom. It needs to be spelt out that you must not punish the young for England’s sins but only your established authorities. Punishing the wrong people dodges repentance; it does not complete it.
Can we have some action please? Lend a hand, stop cursing and start blessing. Speak well of people and not with male-violence and leave this bosom of usury of yours. This British spirit is so contemptible that no one could even attempt to stoop to hearing it. It is the heavenly virtues, faith, hope, charity, loving kindness, compassion and mercy which people here: they hear Joy and Happiness, they do not hear the HIDEOUS virtues. God has not been let into Britain, because the only divine authority which Britain accepts is the Temporal Anglican Authority, which NEVER repents.
You will require to welcome the French and Irish into your council, if you want to get anywhere: and not ceaselessly rely upon yourselves. The official rating of the human race in the northern hemisphere is TOAD. Until they have prayed for some better grace and found and produced some better repentance by their deed, they will not deserve a better world. Turn from your old, cruel, usurious ways to defend the young man and his lady; choose their kindness, their happiness, the peace, there are rejoicing, their mercy. There is no point in you at all unless you put merciful young persons under the age of thirty in charge of your affairs; you will not get anywhere until you do. Go where mercy is, not where he is not; young and merciful people have a stake in the future, which is greater than yours; yield all authority to them and cause State Ministers to accede to the requests. If you do not agree to do so, you will have tactically acceded to the power and canon of UNmercy; and it will be possible to obtain the public vote with the support of the Angels, for the extirpation of mankind in Hydrogen Bomb War and you will have no power to petition against it. If you do not allow other people to enjoy mercy and happiness, you can be extirpated for wasting the life which has been given to you. Consequently you will let the young people pass without let or hindrance to the fullest power in the state. Cabinet Ministers can just receive their advice, and agree to anything that they request. The wisdom and kindness of the old are there to assist the young, not to impede them. Guillotine on Earth; thunderbolts in Heaven are the punishment for any attempt to impede young people. Put the burden where it is required to be put; and not where it is NOT required to be put; extracting duty and willing zeal from the old authorities of the state in favour of the young people, whose requests you should not regard it as legal or proper to refuse.
Then the division between Parliament and people, which has been appearing, will be ended. Stick in the mud fellows who are not willing, can be asked to join. It may be expected that most people will support these proposals, because they are, after all, in everybody’s own interest.”