IRISH ADMINISTRATION. (Hansard, 20 March 1890)

§ MR. J. O'CONNOR

I do not wish to stand between the House and the suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman, but I should like, for a few moments, to protest against the charge made by the Chief Secretary against hon. Members ou this side of the House. He stated—and I repudiate the accusation— that we brought forward these charges this evening for the purpose of obstruction. The subjects touched upon were not stale, but new, and some of them are subjects of the greatest interest to my constituents in Tipperary. I should have been wanting in my duty to the people who returned me to Parliament if I had not dealt with them. The right hon. Gentleman complained of interruptions whilst he was speaking, but if there 1348 were interruptions, they were evoked by the right hon. Gentleman's inaccuracies, which were only equalled by the insolence of his manner towards the Irish Members. His conduct here to-night was anything but what the conduct of anyone occupying his position ought to be. The assertion of the right hon. Gentleman that punishments were inflicted because offences were committed in time of riot was absolutely inaccurate, the magistrates having declared that there had been no rioting. As to the case of Cullinane, he was described as a "paid organiser of the League," but such is not the fact. He was only a Poor Law Guardian, and the proceedings in respect of which he was sentenced were not, as were declared by the right hon. Gentleman, riotous and disorderly, but perfectly orderly, as the magistrate had admitted. Then in the case of the 16 young men sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, the right hon. Gentleman, when he declares that they were prosecuted for having taken part in riots, was absolutely and entirely inaccurate. It was the making of such statements as these which compelled us to interrupt him, and which compels me to occupy the time of the Committee for a second time to-night against my wish. With regard to the policemen against whom a Tipperary jury have returned a verdict of wilful murder the right hon. Gentleman says that the law will take its course and that the policemen will be brought up at the Spring Assizes. But I should like to know why they could not be brought up at the Winter Assizes? Why should they be allowed to remain under the stigma fixed upon them by the verdict of the coroner's jury any longer than is necessary? With regard to the boycotting of the funeral, the Chief Secretary did not deny that the grave was desecrated by the police, and his only reply to our charge was to bring forward two other cases of boycotting at funerals. The answer to him is, as has been pointed out by some of my hon. Friends, that two wrongs do not make a right. I do not, however, take my stand upon that, but I say that the truth of the allegations brought forward by the 1349 right hon. Gentleman has been categorically denied in the Irish Press. Then the right hon. Gentleman has made no answer to the complaints we have made as to the treatment of prisoners in the Irish gaols. He has not disproved the accusation that the rules made for the benefit of political prisoners have been turned to their disadvantage through the operations of the Irish Prisons Board. The right hon. Gentleman has not met my case, and I still contend, and shall continue to do so, both in and out of the House, that Irish political prisoners have been deprived of the privileges which the English people intended them to enjoy. Neither has the right hon. Gentleman met my case as to the Resident Magistrate Roche and Crown Prosecutor Bolton, the conduct of whom has been nothing more nor less than an incitement to murder. The inaccuracies of the Chief Secretary have been wilful, and they, together with his insolence and discourtesy, provoked the interruptions of which he complained. The right hon. Gentleman in his attitude towards Members of this House is sowing the storm, and one of these days he will reap the whirlwind.

§ *(11.55.) MR. P. O'BRIEN (Monaghan, N.)

I desire to deal with one statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, as it bears upon a subject of which I have knowledge, but of which he has none. He said that coffins for the burial of a policeman and a policeman's child were ordered from a local undertaker, who stated that he must get leave from the League before he supplied them. The right hon. Gentleman wished to convey the impression that the coffins were refused, but that is absolutely untrue, as I can vouch on the authority of the most respectable people in Tipperary. He also said that Tipperary had been in a state of riot; that I deny. It is not the fact that Tipperary is in a state of riot, or that there is any disposition on the part of the people to riot; and if riot occurs it will be the minions of the Government who will bring it about, backed by Members of the Government, who have formed a syndicate to help an evictor, which syndicate they support by the forces of the Crown. On the syndicate are the Duke of Devon- 1350 shire, the Duke of Westminster, and the Earl of Lathom. There are also on it Cabinet Ministers—Lord Cranbrook and Mr. W. H. Smith. Yes, the leader of the House has contributed money to back up an evicter, and now he lends his influence in the Government to get the syndicate to which he has subscribed supported by the forces of the Crown. These are the people who are responsible for all the troubles taking place in Tipperary. But their efforts are useless. Old Tipperary stands where she has always been, but empty and desolate; whilst new Tipperary is rising up like a flower, and Smith-Barry, with all his syndicate and Crown forces, cannot get tenants for the premises and farms, from which he has evicted the people, nor will he succeed in letting them until they are back in possession of their old homes. I desire here to give the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Hayes Fisher) notice that on a future occasion I shall have something to say of him in his capacity of emergency man in chief at evictions. If he goes over to Ireland again on the same errand I warn him that I shall be on his track, and I hope the Government will not do as they did on the last occasion when he superintended the evictions on the Olphert Estate in Donegal on the last Queen's Birthday: that is to say, allow the hon. Member who has no connection with Ireland within the cordon whilst keeping me—the Representative of an Ulster Division—outside.