§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether any liability to criminal proceedings accrues to persons who have contributed funds to the maintenance of the "Freiheit" newspaper, well knowing the character and objects of the paper; whether it is a fact that two Members of Her Majesty's Government did contribute under such circumstances to the support of the "Freiheit" newspaper, 875 at a time when, in the absence of such support, the newspaper must have ceased to exist; whether the fact of their being Members of the Government now increases or exempts them from such liability; and, if the former, whether it is his intention to instruct the Public Prosecutor to include them in the criminal proceedings now being carried on against the "Freiheit" newspaper by the direction of the Secretary of State for the Home Department?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)Sir, the House will observe that the noble Lord asks me if two Members of Her Majesty's Government, well knowing the character and objet of The Freiheit newspaper, have contributed to its support. If I had had to reply only to the Question on the Paper I should have contented myself with acting upon probabilities, amounting, in my mind, to certainty, and, without inquiring from my Colleagues, should have given a denial to the charge suggested by the Question; but the noble Lord has with frankness informed me that he intends to make the charge it contains against my hon. Friends the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Sir Charles W. Dilke) and the Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. T. Brassey). When this communication was made to me I, of course, informed my hon. Friends of it; and now, Sir, on their authority, I desire to reply to the noble Lord's Question, and in language the most distinct and emphatic that Parliamentary usage permits me to employ, to say that the charge preferred is wholly and entirely without foundation. There is no ground of any kind upon which it can be made. I must presume that the noble Lord has been imposed upon, and that someone has placed before him a fabricated statement upon which he has thought right to act. I must leave it to the noble Lord to determine whether there are not many considerations, some of a public nature, which ought to have caused him, before putting the Question, to test the reliability of his information by inquiry from two Members of this House on whose word, from personal association, he knows he can rely. But in answer to the concluding portion of the Question, which asks whether it is intended to prosecute criminally my two hon. Friends, I have to ask the noble Lord, both on behalf of my hon. Friends and on ac- 876 count of more general considerations, that he shall forthwith place not only in the hands of the Law Officers of the Crown, but before this House and the public, the sources and the nature of the information which have caused him to prefer a charge so grave, so groundless, and, he must permit me to say, so recklessly made.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLSir, I should have preferred, owing to the important statement which is about to be made by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, to defer my explanation until to-morrow night; but in reply to the direct appeal which has been made to me, I have now to inform the House and the public that the person who gave me the information is a Mr. Maltman Barry, who is prepared to state, if necessary, at the Bar of the House, that he received from the hon. Baronet the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a subscription for the support of The Freiheit. I can also produce the gentleman who acted as treasurer for the funds of The Freiheit, who will be prepared to state also, if necessary, at the Bar of the House, that he received a sum of money from Mr. Maltman Barry, who told him that it was the contribution of the hon. Baronet, but was to be entered on the records in an assumed name. This, Sir, is the information on which I based my Question; and I am perfectly prepared, if necessary, to produce these two witnesses to its truth. I do not now wish to further detain the House; but I beg to give Notice that I will to-morrow, at the meeting of the House, ask the permission of the House to make a further personal explanation, and, if necessary, I will conclude with a Motion.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)Will the House forgive me for a moment while I say, in the absence of the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, whose statement I have in writing, that the charge is entirely without foundation; that the noble Lord has made no mention or given any reason why the charge should have been made against him.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLI beg the hon. and learned Gentleman's pardon for the omission. The fund to which I am informed the Civil Lord of the Admiralty contributed was 877 not the fund for the support of The Freiheit; it was a different fund—an election fund, which was being raised in this country to defray the costs of the election of Herr Most and his colleagues at the dissolution which took place after the attempted assassination of the Emperor of Germany.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKESir, I think it only duo to the House, to myself, and to the Government of which I am a Member, that I should say at once, and without waiting until to-morrow, that I never saw The Freiheit newspaper until I saw the number which contained the article now the subject of the prosecution; that I never read any article in that newspaper, except the one to which I refer; that I never heard of Herr Most or the The Freihet newspaper until about three or four weeks ago; and, as it is scarcely necessary for me to add, that the statement which has been made is utterly untrue.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLAll I have to say is that I am very glad to hear the statement of the hon. Baronet, whose thanks I shall expect to receive for having been the means of dispelling an injurious rumour.