HC Deb 08 June 1888 vol 326 cc1533-6
MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If the following extract from his Battersea speech on May 16 was correctly reported in The Times:— Then Mr. Gladstone goes on to state another fable, which I may say has been disseminated broadcast over the land by his organs. It is that lads and poor men have been put in prison for selling copies of Irish newspapers in which there were reports of suppressed meetings; and he went on to ask how these lads and poor men could be expected to know that in their papers there were reports of these suppressed branches. That statement has been met over and over again; it has been absolutely and categorically contradicted on the authority of the Irish Government. There is not a fragment of truth in it. No lad and no poor man has been put in prison for selling copies of any Irish newspaper of which he did not know the contents. The whole is absolutely a fiction; it is a gross libel on the Government of Ireland; and if Mr. Gladstone knew that it was untrue when he stated it, he behaved as no responsible statesman in this country has behaved, and if he did not know it, he has failed to make himself acquainted with the most elementary facts of contemporary Irish history; and, if he would grant a Return of the depositions made against newsagents and newspaper proprietors prosecuted under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, setting forth the charge in the summonses in the following cases, and the result of the prosecutions:— 20th November, Denis M'Namara, Ennis, newsagent; 29th November, John Breen, Killarney, newsagent; 29th November, J. D. Brosnan, Killarney, newsagent; 5th December, John Malony, Tralee, newsagent; 12th December, Thomas O'Rourke, Tralee, newsagent; 23rd December, Denis M'Namara, Ennis, newsagent;—December, Edward Harrington, Tralee, newspaper proprietor;—December, Timothy Harrington, Tralee, newspaper proprietor;—December, T. D. Sullivan, Dublin, newspaper proprietor; 2nd March, Patrick Ferriter, Dingle, newsagent; with the names of the Resident Magistrates who convicted?

THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)

The report, as now amended by the hon. and learned Member, is substantially accurate. But I fail to see any connection between the first and second half of the Question he has placed upon the Paper; nor is it possible that any light could be thrown on the statement I made at Battersea by the Return asked for by the hon. and learned Member. The allegation I was dealing with—contained in the speech made by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) and the Nonconformist Ministers—was to the following effect:— Lads and poor men selling copies of newspapers in the streets are made responsible and put in prison because they contained reports of branches of the National League,…and those men were to ascertain for themselves, I suppose, whether in the particular places the League had been declared illegal by the Lord Lieutenant."—(The Times, May 10, 1888.) To this I replied in the strong, but not, I think, too strong, language quoted by the hon. and learned Member for Longford. Now, it cannot be contended that any of the newspaper proprietors, Members of Parliament, and others mentioned in the second part of the Question, come under the description of "poor men and boys selling copies of newspapers in the streets;" nor can it be alleged that they were ignorant of the illegality of the notices contained in the newspapers they were selling, since in every case the offence was committed with every circumstance indicating a deliberate intention to violate the law.

MR. T. M. HEALY

asked the right hon. Gentleman, whether there were any other persons amongst those convicted for selling newspapers who were not newspaper proprietors nor Members of Parliament, but who really were poor men?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, no; they did not come under the description of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian of poor men and boys selling newspapers in the streets. He begged pardon. He ought to say selling papers of the contents of which they were ignorant.

MR. T. M. HEALY

asked, was the right hon. Gentleman's point that these papers were sold in shops and not in the streets?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, he was afraid, if he had not made his point clear by the answer he had given, no further explanation could bring it home to the mind of the hon. and learned Member; but he ventured to say that the hon. and learned Member would be alone in his incapacity to understand it.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON (Kerry, W.)

asked, whether Mr. Ferriter, who was in gaol for three months, was not known to be a poor man, and also Mr. O'Rourke, of Tralee, and Mr. Breen, of Killarney, and Mr. Brosnan, of Killarney; and, whether Mr. Breen was not prosecuted on the second occasion for actually selling papers in the streets, having established a kind of sentry-box in the street in order to avoid selling them in his house?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, the hon. Gentleman appeared not only to have misunderstood his (Mr. Balfour's) speech, but the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian. The point was the allegation that these people selling newspapers in the streets, like the ordinary boy selling copies of The Pall Mall in the evening, were ignorant of the contents of those newspapers; but, as a matter of fact, not one of those who were convicted, whether they were poor or rich, was convicted of the illegality in ignorance.

MR. T. M. HEALY

asked, had it been proved whether they had that knowledge or not? He asked that the evidence against these men should be produced. Would the right hon. Gen- tleman oblige the public to rely on his statement alone, or would he produce the evidence?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, he did not think anything would be gained by producing the evidence in question. The statement he made was perfectly clear.