The Marquess of Clanricarde:1 rise to call your Lordships' attention to a flagrant breach of your Lordships' privileges. I have never yet had any occasion to bring under the notice of this House any report of anything which has fallen from me here, but there has been so gross a misrepresentation made of what I said the other night in a paper of to-day, that I am compelled, in justice to myself and to the matter in question, to bring it before your Lordships' notice. With your Lordships' permission I will read to you a sentence from a leading article of the Times newspaper of this day, which says, in reference to me, that I,—
Admitting that the declaration of the Go- 1222 vernment was sufficient notice, had it been officially notified to all her Majesty's servants, yet proceeded to tell the House of Lords and the country, that as Lord Ffrench and his brother magistrates had only had intimation of this declaration through the newspapers, ' which,' says his Lordship, ' they were not likely to read,' therefore it was to be presumed that these poor innocents had been acting in well-intentioned ignorance, and had considered, forsooth ! that their presence as magistrates at these meetings was calculated to preserve order!I think it is hardly possible to combine, in the same space of any speech, or of words in that speech, a greater mass of misrepresentation than is contained in the sentence 1 have read. Three facts are distinctly misrepresented. First, that. I admitted that, under any circumstances, a declaration in Parliament could be a justification of an executive act of a Government: on the contrary, 1 declared, that founding an act of the executive Government upon a speech in Parliament was contrary to parliamentary and constitutional law, and, in this instance at least, contrary to common-sense. Next, J did not say, that it was not likely that Lord Ffrench would not read the newspapers; but 1 did say that it was absurd, as well as contrary to constitutional and parliamentary law, to expect magistrates to shape their conduct in accordance with speeches made in Parliament; and that this was especially the case with respect to Ireland because Irish newspapers were those generally in circulation there, and the Parliamentary reports in those papers were of course necessarily and naturally much more abridged than those in the English newspapers, and therefore it would be absurd to suppose that justices of the peace in remote districts would be aware of every speech made in Parliament. What I said was merely intended to he used as an argumentum ad absurdum. I did not mean to imply that Lord Ffrench was ignorant of the speeches in question. The third misrepresentation is, I am stated to have argued that those gentlemen attended these meetings because they "considered forsooth that their presence as magistrates at these meetings was calculated to preserve order." I said nothing of the kind. I said that if one were to go into the question of whether it were wise to dismiss magistrates for attending those meetings, that then the question would arise whether more mischief would ensue from the magistrates attending them, 1223 than from their staying away. I have thought it right to notice this matter, because the subject is of great importance, and whether the objections which have been raised to the conduct of the Government with respect to Ireland are or are not relevant and well founded, it is, at all events, most important that they should be fairly stated. 1 do not think it necessary to move that the writer of the passage, or the printer, should be called to the Bar of your Lordships' House, but I hope that the notice which I have thought it my duty to take of the matter will set me right with your Lordships and the country, and so I leave the matter in your hands. Subject at an end.