HC Deb 02 March 1875 vol 222 cc1053-4
MR. CHARLES LEWIS

I wish, Sir, to make a few remarks on a Question of Privilege with reference to what happened in this House on Friday night last in the course of a Motion brought forward by the hon. Member for Meath, (Mr. John Martin). It will be in the recollection of many hon. Members that in the course of the few observations I made I dropped the words "unconditional allegiance." I was about to found an argument upon the proposition previously made with reference to this question, but before I had time to finish the sentence the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Sullivan) rose and asserted that the mere utterance of the words was a Breach of Privilege, proceeding to say that instances could be found in the constitutional history of the country to show that hon. Members had been sent to prison for using the words out of the House. You, Sir, rose and said that the words were un-Parliamentary, and I submitted as I was bound to do. No one can have a more profound respect for your decisions than I have, or be more ready to submit to them. I was satisfied, however, that the exact expression I used did not reach your ears; and in consequence of what has since appeared in the public prints I wish to draw your attention, Sir, and that of the House, to the fact that as the case now stands, it appears to have been laid down by you that the simple use of the words "unconditional allegiance" is in itself a Breach of Privilege. I believe, with all deference, that that was not your meaning. I believe the words were misunderstood, and that it was not intended to lay down any such proposition confining the rights of speech in this House.

MR. SPEAKER

After the explanation of the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry I have no hesitation in saying that I misapprehended the purport of his remarks on Friday last. I understood him to be imputing to certain Members of the House that they only acknowledged a conditional allegiance in such a sense as to charge them with disloyalty. Under that impression I interposed, as such an expression would have been clearly un-Parliamentary. But it appears now from the statement of the hon. and learned Member that he was about to found an argument upon unconditional allegiance. Such being the case, I have no hesitation in saying that he was perfectly entitled to enter upon that subject, and had I clearly apprehended the purport of his remarks, I certainly should not have interposed.