HC Deb 11 June 1877 vol 234 cc1576-80
CAPTAIN PIM

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he can hold out any hope of the release of the Fenian Prisoners still undergoing penal servitude, provided they give their word never again to participate, directly or indirectly, in any treasonable practices, or that they will at once leave the country not to return?

MR. ASSHETON CROSS

I must once more express my objection to these persons being considered, treated, or called Fenian or political prisoners. The contention of the late and of the present Government always has been that they are not political prisoners in the true sense of the word. I can only say, what I am sorry to say I have said once or twice before so far as regards two of them—there are only six of them altogether. With regard to those two they were, in the opinion of the Government—and I believe in the opinion of the country also—found guilty of murder. So far as they are concerned, I can only repeat that which I have said before, that the law in their case must take its course. Their case has been brought under the consideration of the Government, just as those of other persons convicted at the same time. The only other case of a civil prisoner is that of Davitt, of whom I have nothing to say. The Prime Minister last year went at considerable length into his case. He and another man named Wilson were both convicted at the same time, and Wilson was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude, and this man to 15 years. The learned Judge who tried the case—the Lord Chief Justice—expressly stated that owing to special circumstances, to which I need not now refer, a marked distinction must be made between the two cases. The matter was brought under the notice of the Government at the time Wilson had worked out his sentence—that, I think, was the end of 1875—and it was again stated that there must be a marked distinction between the case of Wilson and that of Davitt. How long it may be necessary for Davitt to remain in prison is another matter. The Prime Minister stated that was a question which would receive the anxious and careful consideration of the Government; but it is not necessary he should remain in for the full term of 15 years. With regard to the other three, they are all soldiers; and in the case of soldiers questions of military discipline must necessarily enter into the consideration of any person who has to consider this matter; and in this case I must refer the hon. and gallant Member to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

said, he should conclude his observations with a Motion. The right hon. Gentleman, in answering the Question, had entered upon a subject not contained within the compass of the Question, which the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite had so carefully framed that the word "political" was nowhere to be found in it. The term "Fenian prisoners" as applied to these men, was scrupulously accurate, and the right hon. Gentleman went out of his way and violated the custom of the House in introducing it. He had also repeated the statement that those persons were not to be regarded as political prisoners. He (Mr. O'Connor Power) entered his protest against such an assertion; they were political prisoners, and it was shelving the question and avoiding the point at issue for any right hon. Gentleman to assert that they were not. There was no parallel to be found in the history of civilized nations for the manner in which these Fenian prisoners had been treated by the present Administration. Her Majesty's Government had been obliged, in order to save themselves from the odium that must attach to their exceptional conduct, to protest from time to time that these men were not political prisoners. He (Mr. O'Connor Power) asserted, in the name of his constituents, and he believed also on the part of the majority of the Irish Representatives, that they were political prisoners; and he could assure the right hon. Gentleman that upon no occasion would a Representative of the Irish people allow him to attempt to stain the character of these men by comparing them to wife murderers, burglars, or common offenders. He moved the Adjournment of the House.

MR. BIGGAR

seconded the Motion.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. O'Connor Power.)

MR. PARNELL

said, a debt of gratitude was due to his hon. Friend the Member for Mayo—["Oh, oh!"]—whatever hon. Members on the other side might think, for drawing the attention of the House to the deliberate way in which the Home Secretary had tried to shelve this question. The right hon. Gentleman bad endeavoured to avert from the English people the stigma which must always attach to them for their treatment of their political prisoners during the past 10 years by putting the latter in the same class as ordinary felons and convicts. He protested against such a course; these men were in every sense of the word both political and Fenian prisoners. Davitt was convicted of treason-felony, and was that a political offence or not? He could not trust himself to speak further, and he would only remind the House how time after time cases of cruelty and ill-treatment had been proved to demonstration in the House, and time after time the Government officials could not deny them, and yet they were in the same position as six years ago, and there was no alleviation in the treatment of the prisoners, which was worse than that of the worst of criminals.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

regarded it as a remarkable circumstance in the Answer of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary that he had dealt with the case of three prisoners only, while he had referred to the Secretary for War as an authority in the case of three of the other prisoners. It was not a very happy circumstance, and one that ought not to be passed over. It would appear that these men were detained in prison because of the fear of the effect of their release upon the Army. If they were to look to the military authorities, it would confirm as more or less correct the rumours current in Ireland and elsewhere that the highest authority at the head of the Army stood between these prisoners and an amnesty. If the declaration they had heard were correct, he must look at the matter in a totally different way, and believe that the men were now kept in prison for military reasons, and not because they were political offenders.

MR. SULLIVAN

regretted that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had answered the Question in the manner he had. He had not the slightest doubt of the personal feelings of the right hon. Gentleman, and believed that he would be rejoiced if he could make a more pleasing statement; but he under-gauged the depth of feeling in Ireland on the subject when he supposed he could induce hon. Members around him to run away with the idea that these men were murderers or common criminals. Whatever might be thought in England, the sympathy of the Irish people was not aroused by such crimes. He would recall the fact of Davitt's conviction to the Home Secretary. That man never would have been convicted, unless he had been a political offender. He was charged with the sale and purchase of arms in England, where such a thing would not be a crime unless with political associations. Nor could the legal Advisers of the State have secured a conviction unless on political grounds. How could the Irish Members be patient under the inconsistency which he now charged upon the Ministers of the Crown—that in order to obtain a conviction of the man they pledged their word that the offence was political, and then, to keep him in prison, they pledged their word that the crime was not political. If it had not been proved to be a political offence he committed, Davitt never would have been convicted, and he (Mr. Sullivan) invited the Attorney General to contradict that if it was not so. Yet, to-day, the House was told that these men were to be retained in prison on the ground that their offences were not political. Such an assertion was inconsistent with political truth and fact, and no authority of the Crown or of the Horse Guards would induce the people to believe otherwise.

MR. ANDERSON

desired to point out, in reply to the hon. Member for Louth that the state of Irish opinion had nothing to do with the question. It was simply the sentence of a lawful Court which was being undergone, and that sentence could not be altered by the political feeling of the Irish people, for that ought to have nothing to do with it. He felt disposed to agree with the Home Secretary, that these were not mere political prisoners, but that they were that and something more, that was, they were guilty of political offences aggravated in some other criminal way. He would remind hon. Members from Ireland, that although the right hon. Gentleman had said that the law should take its course as to those convicted of murder, he had held out a hope that those not guilty of murder would have some mercy shown them, and that the time for considering it, in the case of one of them, Davitt, he almost said had now come. He hoped that was so, and that before long some measure of mercy would be extended to others of the least criminal.

MR. BIGGAR

called attention to those men convicted of the attack upon the prison van, and refused to believe that they would have been convicted of any crime but manslaughter, unless they had been regarded as political offenders. Upon the evidence of thieves and prostitutes of what took place, amid a scene of the greatest confusion, three men were hanged, two suffered penal servitude, and on the same evidence received a free pardon.

MAJOR O'GORMAN

said, that the great mistake made by the three men was that they did not succeed; if they had they would have been considered political prisoners. There was now on the Continent of Europe a man upon whose head the price of thousands of pounds had been set by the Austrian Government. He had taken up arms against the Emperor of Austria, and, no doubt, had been the cause of death to thousands of Austrian soldiers. He was a violent politician, and yet now what was he?—Prime Minister of Austria.

Question put, and negatived.