MR. OWEN STANLEYsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he has read a Letter of Colonel Wilson, of the City of London Militia, as printed in The Times, in which Colonel Wilson states that he was an eye witness of the grossest outrages and robbery of respectable persons by the mob following the regiment; that he saw policemen rolled in the mud and cruelly treated when down; and that the captains in command of companies would gladly have assisted the police had they been allowed; if it would not be the duty of an officer witnessing such things to interfere and assist the police in apprehending the offenders; and, if the right hon. Gentleman will, in conjunction with the Secretary of State for War, issue such orders as will authorize the military on such occasions to lend assistance to the civil power, or in their absence, to act themselves in the preservation of the peace?
§ MR. GATHORNE HARDYIn consequence, Sir, of the notice which the hon. Member gave of this Question, I referred to the letter of Colonel Wilson, which appeared in The Times of the 12th of June, and which I had not previously seen. That letter certainly gives an account of a most extraordinary state of things in connection with the march of the regiment from a certain point. I may, perhaps, be allowed to mention that in the private note which the hon. Gentleman addressed to me on the subject, he asked whether the police had received notice beforehand that the march was to take place. On a former 1861 occasion I stated that I had made inquiries of the Chief Commissioner, who had informed me that the police had not received any information. I have since made further inquiries on the subject, and have learnt from the Chief Commissioner of Police that no information was forwarded to him of the line of march, and he pleads that circumstance in extenuation of there not being a sufficient force of police to restrain the violence of an organized mob. As to the Question respecting the duty of an officer under the circumstances, I feel some difficulty in answering the hon. Gentleman, for I do not know what military law there may be which would prevent an officer assisting in putting down such disturbances as those described by Colonel Wilson. Looking, however, at what has recently been laid down in the case of the Volunteers, I should imagine that a soldier does not so entirely put off the duties of citizenship, that it would not be his duty, when he saw acts of violence being committed, to assist the civilians around him in preserving the public peace. That is my opinion; but, at the same time, there may be certain duties devolving upon military officers, and on them, of course, I can express no opinion whatever. As to the third and concluding Question of the hon. Member, it seems to me that as I represent what may be called the civil department of the State, I have nothing whatever to do with instructions to the military concerning their duties when under arms; and I am not in a position to say what course my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War may think proper to adopt.
MR. OWEN STANLEYsaid, he would give notice of his intention to repeat the Question to the Secretary of State for War, as he understood that similar disturbances frequently occurred on the occasion of changing the guard at St. James's.