§ MR. J. LOWTHER (for General FORESTER)asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether Mr. Denis FitzPatrick, who in 1864 was Judge of the Small Cause Court at Delhi, and Agent to the Government of India in defending two suits brought against them in the Deputy Commissioners' Court at Delhi by the representatives of the Begum Sombre, and who, as it appeared by evidence in that Court, in the same year was found to have abstracted papers from the Public Records in the Government Collector's Office at Meerut, is the same Denis FitzPatrick who for upwards of three years has been, according to the Indian official Civil List, receiving a salary of £1,600 a year for superintending the said suits in this country on the part of the Government of India?
MR. GRANT DUFF, in reply, said, the Question had taken him very much by surprise. He had that morning made every possible inquiry about the matter, and found that no one at the India Office had ever heard a whisper of such a story. He was told that Mr. FitzPatrick, whom he never saw, and about whom he knew nothing whatever personally, had the highest reputation for honour. It was a very great pity that the right hon. and gallant Member, before he asked a Question reflecting upon private character, did not think it desirable to give the representative of India in that House a somewhat longer Notice; especially as Mr. FitzPatrick had been employed to watch a case adverse to the right hon. and gallant Member's private interests.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, he knew nothing about the details of the matter. He had merely been asked to put the Question, and he did not think the hon. Gentleman had answered it. The hon. Gentleman had not said whether this was one and the same person who was mentioned under these two heads.
MR. GRANT DUFFstated that he knew nothing whatever about the matter; but he believed that if the right hon. 553 and gallant Member, who was represented by the hon. Member, had made the statement contained in the Question in some place where he was not protected by the privilege of Parliament, he might possibly have found himself a defendant in a civil or a criminal proceeding.
§ MR. BOUVERIEobserved that it seemed to him a great stretch of the privileges of the House that any hon. Member should be entitled to put Upon the Notice Paper a Question which conveyed a libellous imputation. Of course, their privileges of freedom of speech in that House entitled them at any time to make any statement they pleased in debate as to the conduct or character of any person, whoever it might be; but that privilege was subject to the Rules of the House, and also to the duty of any Member of the House to substantiate the statements he made by proper evidence before the House. He did not think, if it was strictly consistent with the Rules of the House to make that sort of imputation in a printed Question, that those Rules could be correct. He was of opinion that there ought to be some mode of revising the Questions put upon the Paper, and that it should not be in the power of any Member of the House to convey libellous imputations upon the character of a person who was a stranger to the House, and who had no means of meeting statements so placed upon the Paper.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERwished to explain that his share in the matter had been conforming to a request of one of the oldest and most respected Members of that House, and he thought the House would be of opinion that he acted rightly in complying with such a request. He had no personal knowledge of this subject; he had never heard of these parties before; and he could offer no further explanation; but it appeared to him that his right hon. and gallant Friend had merely inquired as to a matter of fact.
MR. GRANT DUFFremarked that he was much mistaken if, a quarter of an hour ago, he had not seen the right hon. and gallant Member who had placed this Question on the Paper in the lobby of the House.
§ MR. NEWDEGATEwished to express his concurrence with the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Bouverie). He had repeatedly called the attention 554 of the House to the system of putting Questions on the Paper; it was calculated to lead to very great misapprehension, particularly as the House had no control whatever over the Questions that were placed upon the Paper.
§ MR. FAWCETTrose to a point of Order, and wished to ask a Question respecting his Motion on the Indian Budget.
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, the House would probably be of opinion that one Question as to a point of Order should be disposed of before another was raised. The Question put by the hon. Member (Mr. J. Lowther) impugned the character and the conduct of an individual in the public service, and he (Mr. Speaker) was bound to say that any Question of the kind should, according to his judgment, be in the form of a distinct Motion. If his attention had been called to the nature of the Question, he should have advised the hon. Member who gave Notice of it to put it in the form of a substantive Motion to the House.
§ MR. FAWCETTapologized for having unconsciously deviated from the forms of the House. Hon. Members were probably aware that for many weeks he had had a Motion down on the Paper to the effect that he should move a Resolution relating to Indian Finance, on the Motion that the Speaker leave the Chair, in order that the House might consider the Indian Budget in Committee. He knew he was in Order in giving Notice of such a Resolution, because two years ago he adopted a similar course after consultation with the late Speaker. He must complain of the Notice given by the Government last night that the Government would propose that the Speaker should leave the Chair in order that the Government might move certain Resolutions in relation to Indian Finance. Such a proceeding was never adopted before, and it ought not to have been done without Notice. But that course having been adopted he wished to ask whether his Resolution had been got rid of, and whether it would be impossible for him to move the Resolution of which he gave Notice as an Amendment to the Motion that the Speaker do leave the Chair?
§ MR. SPEAKEROn the Order of the Day for the consideration of the East Indian Revenue Accounts a Motion may be made that I now leave the Chair, and upon that Motion it will be open to the 555 hon. Member for Brighton to move the Amendment of which he has given Notice.