SECOND READING. (Hansard, 12 May 1868)

MR. SERJEANT BARRY
said, he proposed that the second reading of the Bill should be postponed.

§ MR. VANCE
complained of the Bill being continually put on the Paper and then adjourned. It was inconvenient to Members to have to attend and then find that the Bill was put off.

MR. SERJEANT BARRY
said, that being the case, he would move the second reading of the Bill. His object in postponing it was to suit the convenience of Members. The object of the Bill was to assimilate the law of England and Scotland to Ireland with reference to the presence of the military at Parliamentary elections. The military were not only allowed to be present at elections in Ireland, but were employed to escort voters to the poll, thereby causing great dissatisfaction, and interfering with the freedom of election. The practice not only caused dissatisfaction amongst the people of Ireland, but was objectionable to the military engaged in the service. The English Act, passed in 1741, provided that the military should be removed two miles from the place of election; and, if the Secretary of War neglected to carry out the law, he was to be deprived of his office. There must have been an exception made in favour of the Household troops; because it appeared that the presence of the Guards at an election of Westminster caused the House to pass a Resolution declaring that it was a violation of the law. In 1847 another Act was passed, directing that, instead of removing the military two miles from the place of election, they should be confined to their barracks during the election, and that was the Act which he proposed by this Bill to extend to Ireland. In England, the military might be called on in case of necessity; but it must be shown that the necessity was so strong as to supersede the law. If they searched the records of English elections, they would find a degree of disorder utterly unknown at elections in Ireland; and therefore it could not be urged that, though the law might be fit for England, it was not for Ireland, in consequence of the greater prevalence of rioting at Irish elections. Even if there were a peculiar tendency to riot at elections, it was caused 173 by peculiar and exceptional legislation, which provided that, if in any other place than the polling-place rioting takes place, the troops could be employed to protect the voters ostensibly, but in reality to bring the voters to vote against their own convictions. The tenant-farmers of Ireland were perfectly well able to go to the polling-place, and protect themselves in recording their votes; but, unfortunately, in Ireland the tenant-farmers could not vote according to their convictions, but must vote in obedience to the orders of their landlords. The general process was to collect the voters in a mass like a herd of cattle, and, having been put in the centre of a large military escort, they were marched off to the poll; the military being nominally their protectors, but in reality their custodians. Any attack made upon such a cavalcade—which in England or Scotland would create the utmost indignation—was not for the purpose of molesting the voters, but for rescuing them from their most unconstitutional imprisonment. Therefore the employment of the military at elections was most objectionable. If hon. Members were in earnest about protecting voters in the free exercise of the franchise, let them protect them by the ballot. He would only refer, out of many cases, to that of the last Waterford Election, in which two lives were lost under circumstances which he, as a lawyer, averred were perfectly unjustifiable, and which had produced an amount of ill feeling and irritation not alone in the locality, but throughout Ireland, which it would take some time to subside. It was clear that, at Dungarvan, two persons, unoffending spectators of an election disturbance, were deliberately killed by a trooper of the 12th Lancers. The coroner's inquest found a verdict of wilful murder, which would have been respected in England, but was not in Ireland, on the occasion to which he referred. It was true that there were technical difficulties in the wav of detecting the trooper who was actually guilty of the crime. He thought that a great indiscretion was committed when, in the triumphal cortège which escorted the Prince of Wales and his bride on their entrance to Dublin, the place of honour was accorded to the 12th Lancers, whose presence called from the people execrations, both loud and deep, and cries of "Duugarvan butchers"—the name by which they are now called in Ireland. He hoped this Bill would be read a second time.

THE EARL OF MAYO
regretted that, without Notice, the hon. Member had arraigned the conduct of the stipendiary magistrate at Dungarvan, and at a time when no reply could be given had made charges which might have been made a year and a half ago. The case might have been brought before the ordinary legal tribunals by the hon. Member or any of his friends. They had not done so; and therefore the House might assume that it was not proper to rake up the occurrence now. From his own personal knowledge, he could state that, though some hisses were heard when the 12th Lancers passed in the late procession, there was no foundation for the statement that execrations were heaped upon the men of that gallant regiment during the recent visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to Dublin. With regard to the taste of the hon. Member in mentioning this circumstance as he had done, he would say nothing. It is deeply to be regretted that necessity so often compels the Executive to call out the military in aid of the civil power, at the time of elections in Ireland. All Governments had been compelled to take this course; and, so long as the present tendency to riot existed, troops would be required, the use of which it was quite a mistake to suppose was unconstitutional. Soldiers are not called out except on the advice of the magistrates for the preservation of the peace; and he would like to see the Government that could venture to refuse to listen to such advice. He objected to any interference with the Government in Ireland in reference to the employment of military on these occasions. No candid man could believe that, unless this protection were afforded, loss of life would take place. The hon. Gentleman, in trying to persuade the House that any influence was brought to bear on the voters in this way, was acting entirely at variance with facts. The only way to get rid of the presence of military at elections was for the people of Ireland to discontinue their tendency to riot. He moved that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

§ MR. VANCE
thought that the subject had been sufficiently discussed.

§ SIR PATRICK O'BRIEN
then moved that the House do now adjourn.

§ MR. MONSELL
appealed to the noble Earl the Secretary for Ireland to allow the debate to be adjourned, as it was at the instance of the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. Vance) that the question had been forced on at that late hour.

THE EARL OF MAYO
said, that if hon. Members were determined to persist in this course it would be useless to enter into a contest. If the hon. Baronet (Sir Patrick O'Brien) would withdraw his Motion for the adjournment of the House, he would consent to the adjournment of the debate.