§ (6.) £18,761, Law Charges.
§ MR. SHAWsaid, he should like an explanation with reference to the item marked "J"—Fees paid to Counsel for revising the Irish Ante-Union Statutes—he failed to understand its meaning.
§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, that in the absence of his right hon. and loarned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland he was unable to give an explanation.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that he had been asked to call attention to one of the items in order that an answer might be obtained to the question, why the same protection to property was not afforded in Ireland as in England? Under the head B appeared the cost of the prosecution of the West of England Bank Directors. This was instituted in order to protect the property of those who might be attracted by a flashy prospectus and lose their investments. But why was there no such law in Ireland? He would give them an instance where a similar thing had occurred, but no steps had been 342 taken by the authorities. A firm recently failed in the South-West of Ireland, and almost immediately before failing a prospectus was issued calling attention to the character of the business, and the prosperous condition of it. It was similar to the City of Glasgow Bank case. A large number of people with small means had been reduced to beggary, and the Company had paid only a most miserable dividend. The creditors were unable to bring the directors to trial on account of their poverty, and they were now at largo, no steps having been taken by the Government in the matter. He would not press the matter; but he felt it his duty to call attention to it, and to urge that equal justice should be administered to the three countries.
§ SIR ANDREW LUSKsaid, that he did not think that sufficient explanations had been given with regard to the enormous increase in the Vote for Law Charges. Under sub-head C the sum of £9,000 was charged, and the only explanation was as follows:—
The fees paid to counsel have been heavy, the increase of work from the various legal departments taken over by the Solicitor to the Treasury has been distinctly felt.Then, again, under letter D, the sum charged was £400, and it was stated that "the number of coin prosecutions conducted during the year has been greater than usual." And in letter E, for bankruptcy prosecutions, £2,200 were now asked for, because "some of the bills of costs paid have been large in amount." He certainly agreed that some of the bills of costs in these prosecutions must have been very heavy indeed; but that was a very slight explanation of such a large extra charge as £2,200. He thought a great deal too much money was paid in fees to counsel. He hoped that some notice would be taken of the wanton expense which was continually going on in legal matters, and that a check would be put upon it. It seemed to him that trials that formerly lasted a day now occupied a week, and that trials which formerly were finished in a week now continued for a whole month.
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, that the hon. Baronet complained of the large sum spent in public prosecutions in England. In Ireland they enjoyed the advantages, and the occasional disadvantages, of a Public Prosecutor. They had an Attorney General who was charged 343 with the duty of acting as Public Prosecutor, and barristers were appointed in each county to discharge subsidiary duties under him. He ventured to think that if the same power of preventing bankruptcy prosecutions existed in England as in Ireland much of the expense which at present existed would be saved. In Ireland the Bankruptcy Court frequently exercised the power of preventing prosecutions.
§ SIR PATRICK O'BRIENthought that 99 out of every 100 prosecutions in Ireland were under the immediate cognizance of the Attorney General. The heaviest part of the duty of an Attorney General in Ireland was that he could not really depend upon his subordinates, but was obliged in every case of a prosecution to read the depositions himself. No doubt, there occasionally happened such cases as those alluded to by the hon. Member for Dungarvan. He believed that when persons were not in a pecuniary position to carry on prosecutions, if it came to the notice of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General, it would be his duty as a matter of public policy to take up the prosecution on the part of the Crown. He had never heard that in Ireland any case had occurred in which, where a private prosecutor had made representations to the Attorney General that he could not carry on the prosecution, the Crown had refused to take it up. He believed that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General and his Predecessors had always stepped in to relieve private prosecutors whenever the circumstances rendered it necessary. The hon. Baronet the Member for Finsbury (Sir Andrew Lusk) had taken objection to these Estimates on the ground that the law charges were excessive. He objected principally to the very large Vote for public prosecutions; but he would ask the hon. Baronet whether, if the Government had not taken up the prosecutions in question, they would not have been told they ought to do so? And if that were the case, they certainly were now entitled to come to Parliament for money to pay the costs incurred. If they had a Public Prosecutor in England; he believed it would be a very great advantage, and would conduce materially to the satisfaction of justice.
§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, that with reference to what had 344 fallen from the hon. Baronet the Member for Finsbury with respect to counsels' fees for criminal prosecutions, a foot-note in the Estimates stated certain criminal trials that had led to the original Estimate being exceeded. During 1879 there had been several important trials—namely, "Reg. v. Catherine Webster," "Reg. v. Hannah Dobbs," "Reg. v. Levy," "Reg. v. Froggatt," "Reg. v. Addison," "Reg. v. Hammond and others;" and the expenses of the proceedings now being taken against the West of England Bank would be very serious in amount. With regard to the charge, under sub-head C, of £9,000 for legal proceedings not criminal, he would point out that the increase was principally owing to the accession of business taken over by the Treasury Solicitor from other Departments. It had been thought wise to centre in the hands of the Legal Advisers of the Treasury the legal work of all the various Departments. The Treasury had come to the conclusion that the cost of the legal work would be very much diminished if centred in the hands of the Treasury Solicitor. In 1875–6, the legal business of the Board of Works was transferred to the Treasury; and in 1876–7 that of the War Office was also transferred. In the same year the legal business of the Admiralty was also placed in the hands of the Treasury Solicitor. The result of transferring the business of the different Departments to the Treasury had been a very considerable saving; but, owing to the development of the business in the hands of the Treasury Solicitor since the transfer, the cost for business which had come had rendered necessary this additional Estimate. The hon. Baronet the Member for Finsbury might feel assured that the costs of the Department of the Solicitor to the Treasury, even with this additional Estimate, would fall far short of what would have been charged for the legal work when transacted by the different Departments.
§ SIR ANDREW LUSKsaid, he was pleased to hear the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury state that an economy had been effected. Certainly, the sum of £2,200 for extra costs for bankruptcy prosecution was very large, and required some explanation. He was, however, very pleased to accept the statement of the hon. Baronet.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, that, in his opinion, the Attorney General for Ireland should not be paid by fees upon the prosecutions, for the system made it his interest to encourage prosecutions.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON)said, there was no possibility of regulating the number of cases that might come before the magistrates; and it became the duty of the Attorney General to take such cases into consideration, and, if necessary, direct prosecutions. It was necessary that the Attorney General should read the informations in every case, as he was the only responsible person. It was not in the power of the Attorney General in the slightest degree to control the increase or diminution of a number of cases.
§ MR. DODSONsaid, that a Supplementary Vote of £1,070 was asked for in respect of Parliamentary Agency, and the explanation given was that Messrs. Wyatts' costs amounted to £2,329 4s. He should like to know whether those costs were not provided for in the original Estimate?
§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, that the only explanation he could give was that it was impossible, when the Estimates were compiled, to state the number of Bills which would require to be brought into Parliament. Last year they estimated the probable amount which would be required for Parliamentary Agency at £1,500; but, in consequence of numerous other Bills being brought in, it became necessary to incur further costs. The result would doubtless be that the costs of Parliamentary Agency had nearly doubled the original Estimate.
§ MR. SHAWsaid, that, doubtless, it would be a better plan if the payment of the Attorney General was by means of salary instead of fees. He should like some explanation from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General with regard to the item J, for Statute Law Revision. It was stated that fees had been paid to counsel for revising the Irish Ante-Union Statute, and that those fees were not provided for in the Estimates. It appeared that the original Estimate for that purpose was £1,130, and that a a sum of £271 extra was now required.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON)said, that when 346 he first took Office he found that the question of revising the Irish Ante-Union Statutes was in a very backward state. In England Statute Law had been revised from the earliest times to the present day; but a singular exception had occurred in the case of the Irish Ante-Union Statutes. He applied himself to remedy that most unfortunate omission; and he was happy to state that all the Irish Ante-Union Statutes had now been revised. One portion of the Statutes had been revised in 1878, and the remainder last year. The work of revising those Statutes was of an extremely complicated character. Two members of the Bar were employed upon it—one was an Irish barrister, and the other was an English barrister, but an Irishman by birth, and, he had no doubt, was well known to both sides of the House as a talented and able man. He might say that the rate of remuneration paid for the work was far less than that given to members of the English Bar for revising the English Statutes.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ (7.) £965, Public Prosecutor's Office.
§ (8.) £5,000, Criminal Prosecutions, Sheriffs' Expenses, &c.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he thought the present was the proper time to ask the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury to what extent this Supplementary Vote was rendered necessary by the Winter Assizes. He understood that the Judges were frequently sent to places where there was no business for them to get through, and that a great waste of time had in consequence resulted.
§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, that the question raised by the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) was one that had led to a very considerable difference of opinion as to whether the Winter Assizes had been successful or not. At the same time, he wished to call the attention of the Committee to the object with which the Winter Assize had been established. There had existed, both in the House and in the country, a strong opinion that it was not fair to allow prisoners to remain for a long time untried. The attention of the Government had been directed to a remarkable instance of a person under a charge of a very grave offence, of which he was entirely innocent, who had been 347 kept in prison for many months. It was considered, at that time, that it would be more satisfactory to insure a clearance of the gaols at regular periods, and it was then that the Winter Assize was instituted. He did not mean to imply that the hon. Member for Cavan was not right in pointing out the great inconvenience as to the waste of time of Judges going Circuits where few prisoners had to be tried. At the same time, it might be well to consider whether an arrangement could not be made by which the work of the Judges would be simplified rather than by abolishing the Winter Assize, which had been of benefit to the country.
§ LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICEsaid, he was glad that attention had been called to the subject. He was anxious to say a word or two upon that topic, because it had happened that some very severe comments had not long ago been made upon the conduct of the Grand Jury of the county with which he was connected in respect of this particular question. There had been a Special Assize held at Devizes; and Mr. Justice Denman being upon that Assize, had thought it fit to make what appeared to him to be a very improper agitation against the Act of Parliament. He did not think it was the business of the Judges who were on Circuit to make addresses to Grand Juries, commenting severely upon the Acts of Parliament which they had to administer. The result of the language used by the learned Judge at Devizes was that the Grand Jury had been led into making a presentment against the Act, and he believed that the same thing had happened at other places where Special Assizes had been held. As a consequence of this presentment the Grand Jury, as he had said before, had been severely commented upon for having followed a course, which seemed to the writers of the public Press to be an absurd one. He would not discuss whether the conduct of the Grand Jury, composed of gentlemen for whom he had the highest respect, was wise or not; but he wished to call attention to the unfairness of the situation in which a Grand Jury was placed that had an address made to it by the Judge, and which was practically invited to make a presentment against the Act of Parliament. Hon. Members would see that were the Grand 348 Jury to refuse to make such presentment they would practically place themselves in collision with the Judge. He did not know whether other Grand Juries who had been addressed in a similar manner had made a presentment; but in this case they had done so, and, having made it, they were severely commented upon and exposed to ridicule by one of the leading journals. He asked whether it was right that the Judge should make observations of the kind he had referred to? In his opinion, it was not; and had the Judge wished to promote the interests of justice, he thought it would have been far better to call the attention of the Home Secretary to his own individual opinion that the right way to clear the gaols was not to hold Winter Assizes, but to increase the jurisdiction of the Chairman of Quarter Sessions.
§ MR. GREGORYsaid, that while in many cases there had been few prisoners for trial at the Winter Assizes, and little or no civil business for the Courts, there had been a great derangement of business in the Courts of Westminster. With regard to some of the Assizes lately held, it might be truly said that there was no business for the Judges. Under those circumstances, it was satisfactory to have heard that this matter was under re-consideration by Government, and that some arrangement was contemplated which would improve the present condition of affairs. He would have liked to see the Assizes consolidated; and that prisoners, where there were very few of them, should be tried at some central place, or that there might be no Sessions held at small towns where there was no necessity for them, and by which the business of the country was so very much impeded. He trusted that the Government would re-consider the question and apply some practical remedy, either by consolidation of the Assizes, or by bringing the business together and confining the Assizes to large towns.
§ SIR ANDREW LUSKsaid, this was a fair opportunity to call the attention of the Secretary to the Treasury to the subject which had been referred to by the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar). It was well known that under the present system the Judges had to go down specially to small towns where there was little or nothing for them to do, but where, nevertheless, great preparations 349 had to be made by the Sheriffs for their reception. Could not the hon. Baronet do something to enlarge the jurisdiction of the Quarter Sessions? What, he asked, was the use of these eminent Judges going down from Westminster to sentence a man for stealing a few ducks? Yet, such was the nature of the business which they were called upon to perform, and which, as hon. Members were aware, would be settled by a London magistrate in a very short space of time. While the Judges were engaged in trying little cases of this kind, there were causes of very much more importance at Westminster, which could not be gone through. Could not the hon. Baronet simplify these matters, and do away with these small trials, which required so much form to be gone through and kept jurymen for so long a time away from their occupations? Jurymen were called upon, most unnecessarily, to give up a large portion of their time at these Assizes, while other trials of far greater importance were decided in London very often without any juries at all.
MR. GORSTsaid, he wished to call the attention of hon. Members to the fact that there was before the House the Criminal Code Bill, which dealt with the jurisdiction of the Quarter Sessions, which would, therefore, in a short time, receive proper consideration. That Bill would so enlarge the jurisdiction of the Quarter Sessions as to relieve the Judges of a great deal of the work which they had then unnecessarily to perform.
§ MR. D. DAVIESsaid, that the objection which had been raised to the Winter Assize would apply more to Wales than to England. In his district, jurymen complained bitterly of the manner in which their time was unnecessarily occupied. Taking the counties of Montgomeryshire and Merionethshire, for instance, there was really nothing for the Judges to do at the Winter Assizes; but, of course, in the case of the towns of Swansea and Cardiff, where there were a great many foreigners, the case was different. It was, no doubt, a very great waste of time to send Judges down to places where there was not one single case to be tried.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he was glad to hear the testimony which had been borne by the hon. Member for Cardigan to the moral character of the Welsh. Indeed, as they were near relations of 350 the Irish, he was highly satisfied at hearing of their good behaviour. He rose, however, to express his fear that the increased number of Assizes had rather pre-disposed a number of committing magistrates to think more lightly than before of leaving a prisoner in gaol without accepting bail. It was very hard to account for some of the refusals to receive bail to which they had lately been treated in Ireland on the part of the local justices. He had in view particularly a case where seven or eight poor men in the county of Galway had been accused, on the unsupported testimony of a process-server, of having entered into a conspiracy to intimidate him. Although these men had wives and families, and were persons of good standing, bail had been refused when it was perfectly certain that to keep them in gaol would be their ruin. The magistrates seemed to have no regard for humanity or justice, and appeared to think that as the Assizes were then so frequent there was no hardship in a man lying in gaol for a couple of months. It, however, meant ruin to the person so committed, as it most certainly did in the case which had pressed this state of things on his attention. It had been pointed out by several hon. Members that a remedy could be found for the existing condition of affairs by enlarging the jurisdiction of the Quarter Sessions. He thought, however, on the other hand, that it would be better if some cheaper means were provided by law to meet the cases of poor men refused to be admitted to bail by justices of so superior a station as those he had alluded to, and who had no means of putting in operation the rather expensive machinery then in use for the purpose of over-riding the dogmatic decisions of Justices of the Peace.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ (9.) £9,800, Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer Divisions of the High Court of Justice.
§ (10.) £25,206, County Courts.
§ (11.) £1,300, Police—Counties and Boroughs (Great Britain).
§ (12.) £216,245, Prisons, England.
§ MR. WHITBREADsaid, that the sum required for compensation to prison authorities, amounting to £195,170, had 351 come upon the Committee without any previous warning; at all events, no provision had been made for this purpose in the original Estimates, and this appeared to him to be rather an extraordinary proceeding. He hoped that when they came to the accounts for the Prisons, that they would be presented in such a shape as would enable the Committee fairly to judge of the result of the Prisons' Act.
§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, he assured the hon. Member who had just sat down that it was the wish of the Treasury, and those who had the administration of these particular prisons, to present full and accurate accounts of their working; but the hon. Member would see that up to the present moment, while the arrangements remained in their present state, it was exceedingly difficult to arrive at anything like an accurate account of prison management. The salaries of the different officers which had been transferred to the State had required to be classified; and there had been, besides, a large amount of other work to be gone through. But the whole arrangement had now become an accomplished fact, and would find its detailed statement in the accounts of the year. He was aware that the accounts had been up to that time of a very meagre character; but this was accounted for by their having been in a state of transition, and by the staff of officers who prepared them having also been under re-organization. They had been unable to give, in consequence, the results of the working of the whole system; and he was not surprised that the hon. Member for Bedford had called the attention of the Committee to the amount for compensation to prison authorities which had been included in that Vote. But had the hon. Member been present in the House rather earlier in the evening, when the discussion was raised upon the Supplementary Estimates of the year, he would have heard some explanation of the point referred to in the statement which he had addressed to the House. The hon. Member was aware that the Act of Parliament under which the transfer of the prisons was effected allowed a certain amount of compensation to be arranged, such as for prison accommodation, services, and loss of contract between the local autho- 352 rities and the Government. Now, all these questions had to be gone through after the prisons had been transferred to the State. In one case, the amount of compensation for cell accommodation over and above the necessities of particular localities where the prisons had been transferred to the State required to be considered. In another case, the sum payable by localities for not having fulfilled their obligations had also to be taken into account. There were five prisons with which, up to the present time, no settlement had been made. The amount claimed against the Government was £235,000; but the payments by localities for deficient cell accommodation, and from other sources, reduced the amount to about £40,000. The reason for the Vote appearing in the Supplementary Estimates was that when the original Estimates for last year were prepared there was no possibility of arriving at a knowledge of what the amounts would be that were recoverable from the different localities. The hon. Member would see that the preparation of these accounts required a great deal of time to be expended upon it. They were, at the present moment, still under discussion; and this, he believed, would show why so large a Supplementary Vote had been necessary, while it would also make it clear that the amount was really increased by the extra receipts.
§ MR. WHITBREADsaid, that at the beginning of the year there was no sort of idea that the present large sum would be asked for at all. His hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury must have known perfectly well that the Government must have contemplated a charge of some kind; and he (Mr. Whitbread) did not think it was right that the Government, knowing a charge of this kind was coming on, should omit all reference to it in their original Estimates for the year because they were unable to estimate correctly what the charge would be. It was only right that Parliament should be warned of every charge that was likely to be made.
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYremarked, that it had been known, after the passing of the Prisons' Act in the altered form in which it left the House, that there would be considerable cost incurred in transferring the prisons from the local authorities to the Go- 353 vernment. At the same time, there was a note in the Estimates to the effect that it was impossible to foresee what the actual charge would be, or to form any accurate idea of the sums that were likely to fall due this year. He thought his right hon. Friend would have been to blame if he had put down a sum which afterwards turned out to be altogether wrong; and it was impossible to form a proper estimate of the details, as they had to negotiate with the local authorities, and an Estimate might have prejudiced the negotiations.
§ MR. BELLsaid, he recollected that a very elaborate statement was made by the Home Secretary to show the economical character of the proposed arrangement. He (Mr. Bell) was afraid that the cost of the prisons to the country would be a great deal more than it was before.
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYremarked, that so far that had not been the case.
§ MR. DILLWYNsaid, it was not unusual to give an estimate which, as an actual fact, was exceeded. In the case of new buildings and alterations, the estimate of £25,000 had been exceeded by £13,000; but in that instance there did not seem to have been any difficulty in giving a rough estimate. It certainly must have been a very rough estimate, or it would not have been so much exceeded. He did not see why there should not have been a rough estimate given of the larger sum.
§ MR. WHITBREADsaid, he gathered from the last observation of the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department that there was a desire to do nothing that might interfere with the negotiations between the Government and the local authorities. The fact, however, that no Estimate had been given at the proper time could not be passed over in silence. He admitted the difficulty of making an accurate estimate; but, at the same time, the House of Commons should be very strict in not allowing any charge which the Government knew would come upon Parliament in the course of the year to be entirely omitted, even although the actual charge might largely exceed the estimate.
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYsaid, that though it had been expected to cost a good deal more, £25,000 would cover the net cost to 354 the country of taking over the prisons. It was impossible to give such an item in the Estimates. No doubt a sum might have been put down; but it would have given no information whatever to the House. It would certainly be of no use for the Government to give an Estimate which they were not prepared to defend.
§ MR. DODSONsaid, the best argument offered by the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department for not having submitted an Estimate of this expenditure to the House in the original Estimates of the year was that it might have prejudiced the negotiations the Government were required to enter into with the local authorities. He understood, moreover, that in the discussion upon the Prisons Bill the Home Secretary did mention a sum. Was he wrong in that supposition?
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYsaid, his right hon. Friend made the House perfectly aware that there would be a charge for the expense of taking over the prisons; but he (Sir Matthew White Ridley) could not say that any exact sum was stated.
§ MR. DODSONwas disposed to agree with his hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) that it would have been better to have submitted to the House an Estimate of what the Expenditure was expected to be. He hardly thought that the negotiations with the localities would have been very much affected by such an Estimate. The House of Commons must not forget this—that it was most advisable that, as far as possible, the Government should submit at the commencement of the year an Estimate of what the entire Expenditure of the year was likely to be. If they once got into the habit of allowing Supplementary Estimates to be introduced, once or twice, or three or four times in the year, it would become impossible for the House to exercise any control over the Expenditure.
§ SIR ANDREW LUSKwas dissatisfied with the amount of the Vote. It was all very well for the hon. Baronet the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department to say that the Government could not give an Estimate. The hon. Gentleman forgot altogether what was stated when the Prisons Bill was brought in, and when this very matter was dealt with. The Home Secretary 355 told them that the change of control would effect a large annual saving. He had it all down with exactness, and was prepared to put all the magistrates of the country to shame by what his saving would be. He came now and told the Committee that last year he did give an Estimate; but he required now £216,000 more than the Estimate. It was quite evident that the Government had not been very accurate in their calculations; and if they had been so very much out in this particular item, how could the House expect that they had been more accurate in other respects? The Estimate now before the Committee showed one of two things—either that the Government were very inaccurate, or very careless, in reference to the Estimates they made. There ought to be no difficulty in arriving at an approximate Estimate. Builders and contractors who entered into very large undertakings were able to estimate very closely what their expenses were likely to be; but here it appeared the Government were no less than£216,000 out of their reckoning.
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYsaid, the arrangements of the Government with the local authorities were of a very complicated character. Every single cell in all the prisons in England had to be considered with its dimensions, capacity, and so on; and all the calculations were carefully gone into. When the transference was made every prison book in England had to be searched, and the circumstances of each prison had to be thoroughly gone into in regard to separate accommodation, alterations, new buildings, and many other details. It was also necessary to find out if there were any contracts to be paid for; and after all these matters were ascertained negotiations had to be opened with the local authorities. Their views had then to be explained to the Home Office, numerous interviews had to take place between them and the Home Office, and a great deal of time was taken up. It was, therefore, absolutely impossible—indeed, as great a financier as the hon. Baronet who had just sat down would have found it absolutely impossible—to form an Estimate that should accurately state the claims of the local authorities. Then, again, on the other side of the question, a calculation had to be made of the amount which the Government were to receive from the local authorities. Al- 356 though the Estimate was for £216,000, the net charge to the country, which represented the cost of transferring the prisons to the Government, was only £25,000. Under all the circumstances, he thought it was hardly fair to charge the Government with inaccuracy in framing the Estimate.
§ MR. DODSONsaid, it appeared to him that the information which the hon. Gentleman had given landed the Committee in this dilemma. When they introduced the Prisons Bill, either they had a pretty good estimate in their minds of what the cost of taking over the prisons would be, or they had, as the hon. Gentleman now appeared to say, none whatever. If they knew very well what the cost of taking over the prisons would be, there could have been no difficulty in giving an Estimate that would have been pretty nearly accurate; but if they had no idea whatever, then they really did not know, within£50,000 or more, what the scheme was likely to cost the country.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had totally forgotten one circumstance. When the Prisons Bill was introduced the matter was not gone into at all; but it was forced upon the Government. In the course of the discussion in Committee—not, perhaps, by the right hon. Gentleman himself, but certainly by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite—it was insisted that the Government should pay the counties which had a certain amount of cell accommodation, and, on the other hand, should receive payment from those which had not. That was not his scheme, which was to take the rough with the smooth. It was forced upon the Government; and, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman had no right to say that when they introduced the Bill they ought to have made these calculations.
§ MR. DODSONadmitted the soundness of the right hon. Gentleman's correction. The right hon. Gentleman had re-called the circumstance to his memory; but he also remembered that, as far as he could, he endeavoured to strengthen the hands of the right hon. Gentleman in resisting the proposition then made. He very much regretted that the right hon. Gentleman's Colleague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, yielded to it.
§ MR. RYLANDSdid not think it necessary to continue the discussion which had been raised. What the House were 357 more intimately concerned in was the course which the Government ultimately pursued. He thought the proposal was a fair, and probably a just proposal, and that it did not entail upon the country any serious expenditure. He did not take exactly the same ground of objection to this Vote. He admitted that the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, who was perfectly competent to explain any point to the House connected with his own Department, had explained this matter with perfect satisfaction. That, however, was not the point; but he wished to point out that the Home Secretary had induced the House to accept the Prisons Bill in the expectation that it would be a very economical measure. These Supplementary Estimates certainly gave him the impression that the right hon. Gentleman would be disappointed in his expectations. He was quite aware that the Home Secretary thought, and fully anticipated, that he would be enabled to control the expenditure in such a way as to prevent excessive expenditure. But when the Bill was under discussion he (Mr. Rylands) raised an objection to it, that the moment the gaols came into the hands of the Government there would be a large increase in the cost of building; that they would have constant additions to the existing gaols; that some of them would be re-constructed; and that there would be expenditure in a variety of ways arising out of the pressure brought to bear upon the Department by surveyors, architects, and others. He found that they had already incurred an expenditure of something like £13,000 in new buildings and alterations, and £8,000 for the purchase of land. That was a class of expenditure which, he thought, was very likely to increase. He knew the Home Secretary would say that they must have efficient gaols. Of course they must. But the question was whether, under Government superintendence and control, the expenditure for the purpose would be in excess of what it would have been if the matter had been left in the hands of the local authorities? That was the point. Personally, he believed that under the local authorities there would have been a certain amount of control, and an anxiety to keep down the expenditure, that would check unnecessary proposals for alterations in existing gaols, or the construction of new build- 358 ings. He was afraid that the Estimate now before the Committee was only the commencement of an expenditure which was of a character that was likely to increase.
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he had explained at the time the previous Bill was introduced that the measure would not increase the prison expenditure. He was in a position now to assert that the expenditure under the previous Bill had actually decreased.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ (13.) £267, County Prisons, &c, Great Britain.
§ (14.) £485, Reformatory and Industrial Schools, Great Britain.
§ (15.) £342, Queen's Bench, &c, Division, Ireland.
§ (16.) £125, Probate, &c, Registries, Ireland.
§ (17.) £156, Registry of Deeds, Ireland.
§ (18.) £7,300, County Court Officers, &c, Ireland.
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYasked for an explanation of an item which appeared in the Vote as follows:—
A. Clerks of Crown and Peace for Cavan, County Cork East Riding, and City Cork West Riding and County appointed. Clerkship of Peace for City of Londonderry added to the office of Clerk of Crown and Peace for the County, entailing an increase of £2,600.Was that merely for maintaining the Clerkship of the Peace for the City of Londonderry, or was it an increase paid by all the places mentioned? He should also like an explanation about another and more important matter, which he found in the same Estimate, under the letter D. "Salaries of additional resident magistrates, £200." He supposed that the £200 was a proportionate part of the new magistrates' salary for a certain time. He would like to have more information on the matter. He had always considered that in Ireland they had quite enough of resident magistrates for ordinary purposes, and there had been nothing in the late circumstances of the country to justify an increase of the number. He wished to know what the number of these new magistrates was, when they were appointed, and if it was intended that they should be permanent? In making these 359 remarks he believed he was speaking not only his own views, but the feeling generally of the people on the other side of the water, who agreed with him that the present staff of resident magistrates was sufficient.
§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, that with regard to the first question, whether the whole of the increase mentioned was received by the Clerk of the Crown of the City of Londonderry, he might explain that the amount was proposed for the Clerks of the Crown and Peace of Cavan, County Cork, East Biding, and City Cork, West Biding, and City of Londonderry in this proportion—Cork £1,000, Cavan £750, and City of Londonderry £850. That would answer the first question. He was not able sufficiently to answer in detail the hon. Member's question as to the increase under letter D, with the exception that the increase was for three additional magistrates.
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYthought that the answer was scarcely satisfactory. The Committee ought to know at least whether the three magistrates were to be permanent or temporary magistrates. Temporary magistrates in Ireland were called provisional appointments. He wished to know if these were permanent or temporary appointments? He was glad to see that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland was now in his place, because it was desirable that some Member of the Irish Executive should tell them something about the matter. He hoped he might be excused for pressing the question now; but it was the first time, as far as he was aware, that such an item had been placed in the Estimate, and the Vote might be formed into a precedent for the future. It was highly desirable, if these new resident magistrates were to become a permanent charge, that they should know what they were doing.
§ MR. BIGGARwished to call attention to another item in the same Vote, which appeared under the letter B—"Clerks of the Crown and Peace Allowances for 1878–9 and 1879–80, £3,550." He should have thought that these additional Clerks of the Crown were not necessary, and that, instead of an increase of expenditure under this head, there would have been a decrease. It seemed to him that the same person held the two offices, and where that was the case he ought 360 to receive a less sum than two officers would get if the appointment were held separately. What was the meaning of the term "allowance?" At present these officers got extravagant salaries, amounting, in his opinion, to about four times as much as they ought to get. Some of them got £1,000 or £1,200 a-year for about ten days' work in the year, and they were very much overpaid. He did not see that these gentlemen were entitled to any special favour. Of course, they were entitled to the salaries which Parliament awarded to them; but, as he had already said, those salaries were exceedingly extravagant.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON)said, he might explain that the reason why these Clerks of the Crown appeared in the Estimate was that there had been an amalgamation of offices previously paid for out of county sources. The salaries consequent upon the amalgamation of offices, under the provisions of the Act of Parliament, came for the first time in the Estimates. In regard to the question put by the hon. Member for Cavan, in relation to the allowance for 1878–9 and 1879–80 paid to these officers, the hon. Member would find that there was a provision in the Act of Parliament providing that they should be given offices and other allowances. The amount of those allowances was not sanctioned officially by the Treasury until recently; and, in fact, it was a very urgent grievance on the part of the officers that they had been kept so long out of their pay. It was quite a mistake on the part of the hon. Member to suggest that these officers had only to work for nine or ten days a-year, because he (the Attorney General for Ireland) knew, as a matter of fact, that in the larger counties of Ireland they worked for 120 or 150 days a-year, and their salaries were not at all out of proportion to the services rendered. They were all measured by the Act of 1877. The highest was£l,100, and there were some of that class as low as £450. He ventured to think that if there was any error it was on the side of moderation. With reference to the question raised by the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy), he might say that, up to within the last two or three years, the appointments had not been filled up; but when it became necessary to meet the exigencies of the country the appointments had been re- 361 filled. The gentlemen appointed, however, were only appointed temporarily, and not permanently.
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, that he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether these offices were to be an addition to the present Government establishment in Ireland? What had rendered these additional appointments necessary, and what districts had been made for them? He should also like to know the names of the gentlemen, and what professional qualifications they had for their appointments?
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, that the additions to the resident magistracy were two, and the reasons for those additions were very simple. A few years ago the state of the country permitted the Government to amalgamate certain districts, and to diminish the establishment of magistrates by two. But in consequence not only of disturbances in various districts, but on account of the want of gentlemen who could take upon themselves the duty of magistrates, the Government had to consider the best course to adopt. It was decided, under those circumstances, to apply to the Treasury to allow the staff of resident magistrates to be increased to the number from which it had been reduced. The Treasury sanctioned the appointments, and two additional magistrates had accordingly been appointed. One of the gentlemen who had been nominated had for many years been in the Royal Irish Constabulary, and he was appointed to Balladaghereen, upon the borders of Mayo, Sligo, and Roscommon; the other gentleman appointed had been allocated to a district whore a vacancy existed, and both were well fitted for their posts.
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, that the Government had informed them years ago that the ordinary establishment of residential magistrates in Ireland had been reduced by two; but now they alleged that, owing to the exceptional circumstances of the country, it had become necessary to fill up the two vacancies. He thought that hon. Members from Ireland were justified in supposing that the two men appointed were to be resident magistrates on the same footing as the others. He certainly thought that there were no grounds for the appointment when it was possible to obtain ordinary unpaid 362 magistrates to perform the duty. It seemed to him that those appointments, like many others made in Ireland, were simply for the purpose of placing additional patronage in the hands of the Government.
§ MR. P. MARTINsaid, that the gentlemen had, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had observed, very arduous duties to perform, and which required for their due discharge great care and some skilled knowledge, and involved serious responsibility. It was impossible to obtain the services of competent men except they were paid adequate remuneration. So far from officials in Ireland being overpaid, he believed there was a very strong feeling in Ireland that they were very much underpaid, and that they received very much less for their services than was paid in proportion to the English officials. He did not wish to occupy the time of the Committee, but only rose for the purpose of preventing an impression that it was the opinion of Irish Members that officials in Ireland were overpaid. He was only speaking for himself; but he believed the general opinion in Ireland to be that officials did not receive sufficient remuneration. If the scale of remuneration paid to officials in England were compared with that which existed in Ireland, it would be seen that the Irish officials had very good ground for complaint.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, that he was under the impression that all lawyers were overpaid. It seemed to him that a barrister who could make £200 a-year by his practice at the Bar would be very glad to accept a County Court Judgeship at £200 or £300 a-year. With regard to these offices, it was well known that they were always bestowed for political services rendered. The fact was that the number of attorneys in Ireland who could earn £100 a-year by their profession was very small. Those gentlemen were able to make a great deal more by occupying an official position than by the ordinary practice of their profession. Some of the Clerks of the Peace and Clerks of the Crown had private practices in addition to their official functions, and the duties of their official position were in many cases carried out by substitutes, who got, perhaps, not one-fourth of the salary which was paid by Votes of that House. The truth was that lawyers 363 were interested in allowing salaries to he paid to lawyers; but the public should make some exertion to put down the extortionate payments to lawyers both in England and Ireland.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON)said, that no barrister could obtain one of these appointments at the present time. The effect of the Act of 1877 was practically to take away the patronage from the present Government, and to provide that, whenever a vacancy occurred in those offices, it should be filled up by a certain amalgamation of offices, and should be paid by salary. It was stipulated that the holders of those offices should retire from the practice of their profession. It would be obvious that every care had been taken to prevent the Government having patronage with regard to these offices.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he could bear testimony to the efficiency of the County Court Judges in Ireland, who administered the law for the majority of the people of that country. It was true that a large amount of patronage had been taken out of the hands of the Government by the Act of 1877. He thought that the Judges who had to administer the law to the bulk of the people of Ireland should be well paid, or, at least, as well paid as their brethren in England. He trusted that their scale of remuneration would be assimilated to that which prevailed in this country.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, that he did not wish to make any charge against the Government; but when he raised his voice against the exorbitant salaries paid to lawyers he intended to mean both barristers and attorneys, for he thought the two Professions seemed to play wonderfully well into each other's hands. Anyone who was acquainted with the doings of those people would, he thought, agree with him that the general public would do well to use their utmost exertions to lessen the amount of money paid to lawyers.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that he had listened to the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary on the subject of these additional magistrates, and he confessed that the observations of the right hon. Gentleman had inspired him with a thirst for further information. To make the matter clear, he believed that for some time past letters had appeared in the Pall Mall 364 Gazette very zealously denouncing the land agitation in Ireland. Those communications had, he believed, proceeded from a very promising young sub-inspector, named. Blake, the son-in-law of a former Member of that House (Mr. Bernal Osborne). He wished to know whether it was not the case that one of those additional magistrates whom the Government had found it necessary to appoint was, singularly enough, of the same name as the gentleman who had defended the Government in the columns of the Pall Mall Gazette? If his information were accurate, it only went to show that, from time to time, on rare occasions, Her Majesty's Government could show a generous appreciation of literary merit. But he had great curiosity to know whether one of these additional magistrates was the Mr. Blake in question?
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, that one of the magistrates appointed was a Captain Trawl, and the other was a gentleman whose name he had mistaken just now, when asked, but which certainly did not very closely resemble that just alluded to. The name was Mr. Monsell.
§ Vote agreed to.
§
(19.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £7,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1880, for the Constabulary Force in Ireland.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that notwithstanding that he had before his eyes the fear of the new Standing Orders of the House, yet he could not help characterizing this Vote as one of the most audacious that had ever been proposed to that House. The original Estimate for the Constabulary of Ireland was £1,097,192, and an additional sum of £7,000 was now asked for. That sum was divided between extra pay and allowances and travelling expenses. They were told that the extra pay and allowances were on account of the extra services occasioned by disturbances. He had heard of no disturbances except those occasioned by the officers of the law. It was true he had heard of disturbances being caused by armed troops charging helpless crowds of women and children; but he was not aware that those were services that required the especial recognition of that House. He 365 should, therefore, feel it his duty to move that the item should be reduced by the sum of £3,250. In one case with which he was acquainted a man was brought down from Dublin to serve a process; and not being acquainted with the locality, a member of the Constabulary Force accompanied him, to point out the house at which it was to be served. He wished to know whether the appointment of a public officer to show the minister of a private vengeance the house of the victim was a service which demanded extra pay and allowance? He should like to know what there was in the extra services of the Royal Irish Constabulary for which the Imperial Parliament should be asked to recompense them out of public funds. Again, the services performed by the Constabulary had been employed in serving notices upon the tenants at Derry Park. Colonel Clements, who had succeeded to a portion of the Leitrim estates, seemed disposed to repeat some of the deplorable performances that had distinguished his predecessor for many years. At Derry Park the Constabulary were under the command of a sub-inspector, and accompanied a process server to serve notices of ejectment. They were not accompanied by any magistrate until they had arrived at the scene of operations, when a magistrate joined them with a re-inforcement of 100 men. But before the magistrate arrived, the sub-inspector had made several charges in brilliant military style against the wretched women and children who were about. Before armed troops were called upon to act against the helpless population in England some such formality as that of reading the Riot Act was gone through. Troops in England would not be allowed to charge the civil population before the Riot Act had been read in the responsible presence of magisterial authority. He wanted to know how the services of the Constabulary at Derry Park gave them a title to public compensation, or how they entitled them to any compensation whatever from the public funds? Perhaps one of the services for which the Constabulary were to receive extra pay was that of providing a process server with a suit of their uniform; but he doubted very much whether disguising such a person in the uniform of the members of the Royal Irish Constabulary was a matter that could be properly recognized 366 as affording a title to extra remuneration. If quarrels took place between the Constabulary and the people of Ireland, whose fault was it? Everyone must admit that the conduct of the Constabulary in allowing a process server—the minister of the most petty and private vengeance—the minister of the spite of some landlord who had seen his tenants vote against him at an election—to be clothed in the uniform of the Constabulary, was to be condemned. The most noble the Marquess of Clanricarde—the most worthy representative of a worthy ancestry—had recently declared his undying hostility to his tenantry on account of the way in which they behaved at a recent election. His hon. and gallant Friend the Member for County Galway (Major Nolan) polled a majority of the electors, but was unseated by Judge Keogh on petition; and because his tenants voted against his wishes the Marquess of Clanricarde had declared his undying hostility to them, and was not satisfied with having lately raised their rent by a considerable amount. It seemed to him that clothing a process server in the uniform of the Constabulary was a most effectual method to adopt for stirring up the feelings of the people against the Constabulary, and that it would result in broils; but if that did happen it was the Government, and the Ministers of the Government, who would be responsible. In the observations he had made with regard to the Constabulary, he did not mean to convey any slight upon the members of that Force individually. He believed that no one could entertain a more strenuous objection to the use that had been made of them, in the way he had indicated, than the members of the Royal Irish Constabulary themselves. The feeling amongst the members of that Force was one of detestation of the policy which made them the ministers of landlord vengeance and landlord greed in that sore crisis of national distress. It was not, therefore, against the Royal Irish Constabulary that his observations were directed. They did their duty, however repellant to their manhood—they were simply faithful to their sword. It was against the Government that allowed them to be sent upon these miserable errands that their complaints were directed. The services of the Constabulary, for which this Vote was asked, had 367 tended to deepen the discontent in Ireland. The best troops, when thrown into conflict, must occasionally lose their heads; and it was not to be expected that the Royal Irish Constabulary could remain entirely free from blame in the struggles in which they were engaged. If he had any disposition to take up the time of the Committee, he believed that he could show, at some length, how operations had been carried on against the starving peasantry in the West of Ireland. While the Government's hand had been kept back, and not a single promise of relief had been made, the Constabulary had been sent, not only to point out to the process servers—the ministers of private vengeance—the house of the objectionable tenant; but again and again the Constabulary had been brought into conflict with the peasantry, even without being under magisterial supervision. They had used their bayonets against women and children, and struck them with the butt end of their rifles. He was not representing the accounts of mere National journals—he was not stating the representations of a mere disaffected Press. The Government itself had, on many occasions, recognized the moderation and the services of the Lord Mayor of Dublin; and in his responsible newspaper, The Freeman's Journal—a paper which was distinguished for the moderation of its tone, and which did not always go so far as they on that side of the House thought it ought to go, and exercised a great influence in Ireland—would be found accounts of what he had stated. Again and again acts of the greatest brutality had been reported against the Constabulary, and altogether the proceedings had been of the most demoralizing character. He could also quote columns from the correspondence of the Ministerial Standard, describing the dreadful scenes that had accompanied the action of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Both the Irish people and the Government ought to be proud of the Royal Irish Constabulary, for they were certainly a fine body of men; but they ought not to be employed in proceedings of this kind. No doubt, it suited the exigencies of the Conservative Party to permit their satellites in Ireland to do as they liked. It was in accordance with the traditions of English Toryism that starving families, who had no refuge but 368 the workhouse or the road side, should be permitted to be turned out by the ministers of private vengeance, supported by the bayonets of the military. But the employment of the Royal Irish Constabulary, during the recent distress in Ireland, as the ministers of private vengeance, had caused immense disaffection, and was the direct cause of many of the disturbances that had occurred. He would ask the Committee, and more particularly the Irish Members, to join with him in protesting against special allowances being made to the Irish Constabulary for work of this kind. The very services for which the Constabulary was to be paid were the direct cause of the disturbances complained of. They were, in fact, to be remunerated for their heroic conduct in fighting starving women and children. He could only conclude as he had begun, by saying that this was, perhaps, the most audacious proposal that even Her Majesty's Government had ever made in connection with its dealings with Ireland. He begged to move to reduce the Vote by the sum of £3,250, being the extra pay and allowance to the different ranks of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Item of £3,250, for Extra Pay and Allowances, be omitted from the proposod Vote."—(Mr. O'Donnell.)
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, he should support the Motion for the reduction of the Vote. He went altogether with his hon. Friend the Member for Dungarvan in his objection to employing the police as assistant bailiffs for the serving of processes. No doubt, it would be said by those who defended such proceedings that the excited state of the peasantry required the protection of the police in order to carry out the process of the law; and that, primâ facie, might be some defence for their being so employed. But, in order to test that defence for the constant employment of force, one would be obliged to go into the circumstances which had excited the peasantry; one would have to go over the whole history of the injustice of the landlords which, undoubtedly, had excited the peasantry. But he knew that if he pursued that subject he would be called to Order; and, therefore, he would dismiss it by saying that as long as the landlords remained as they were, so long 369 would the Government find, not a justification, but an excuse, for asking for that amount of force to carry out the law. Was it right that the law should be in such a state as to make it absolutely necessary to employ the police on such errands? Was it not better to consider proposals for a change in the land? However, passing to the second purpose for which the police were employed, he said deliberately that the absence of the police from the public meetings which had been alluded to would have done no harm, but all the good in the world. Everyone knew that there was no danger at those meetings, which were conducted in a perfectly peaceable manner. Whatever their objects were, whether they were prudent or not, the whole effect the presence of the police had was to excite the people and to render a breach of the peace imminent. Therefore, he protested in the name of peace against the employment of the police for such purposes, and against the taxpayers being called upon to pay for such duties. Further, he protested against it because it made the police unpopular by bringing them into unnecessary conflict with the people. The police were mixed up with the people in the cities, towns, and villages; and, under ordinary circumstances, they got on very well. They were admirable for the suppression of small crimes, and there was a fair amount of cordiality between them and the people. The only danger was their employment on political occasions, not for the purpose of preventing disturbances, but really for the purpose of preventing the people from expressing their opinions in a perfectly Constitutional way. He knew the good humour and good temper usually displayed by the police, and believed that, under ordinary circumstances, it would be impossible to produce any hostility towards them. If hostility could be created, it would be by the uses to which the police were put by the Government.
§ MR. D. DAVIESremarked, that if the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) used such violent language in Ireland as he did in that House with regard to the police, he was very much surprised that somebody had not been killed there before now. In his time he had had a great many Irishmen in his employment, and he found they were a very good class of men, provided that 370 care was taken not to excite them. They generally kept together, and sometimes some among them might say very strong things, and then there was a row. But with regard to this Vote, he thought that as Ireland would have to pay by far the least proportion of the amount the hon. Member for Dungarvan should be the last to complain. He did not agree that it was not necessary to have the police employed for the purposes in question. The hon. Member at first spoke in very complimentary terms of the police; and then, before he sat down, he said they used the bayonet and the butt-end of the gun for women and children. There seemed to be some little inconsistency in that, and he did not think that the police would be guilty of such violence towards women and children. But if there was much excitement, and especially if they heard the hon. Member's speech, the poor people might rush against the bayonet and. so get hurt. He hoped the Committee would now allow the Vote to be passed. Ireland would only be paying something like £600 or £700, and England and Scotland would be paying all the rest. He was very willing, as a rule, to support the hon. Member; but he (Mr. Davies) thought he was unreasonable on the present occasion, and, therefore, he hoped he would withdraw his Motion.
§ MR. BIGGARthought the money was not required. The police in Ireland were thoroughly idle nine-tenths of their time. They simply had to loaf about, and when they had a chance of some extra work on a pleasure occasion he thought they were able to do it without any extra pay. As to this alleged disturbance at public meetings, that did not exist at all. He had attended several meetings, and there was not the slightest excuse for bringing the police to them. The people were all unanimous, and there was nothing to fight for. In County Meath there was an enormously large meeting held in honour of the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell, the proceedings of which began in the morning and lasted until evening. The people came and peaceably listened to the speeches, and went away quietly; and he repeated that, so far as public meetings were concerned, there was not the slightest excuse for employing the police. He admitted that in County Armagh a few days ago there 371 was a meeting of North of Ireland Whigs, which was attacked and broken up by Orangemen of the district; but at the bonâ fide land meetings there was no such disturbance. The fact was that the Government took the part of dishonest landlords to extort most exorbitant and unreasonable and tyrannical rents from the tenants. He thought that when the landlords sought to eject their tenants they ought to bear the expense themselves. If they wanted extra police they should pay for them. If the promoter of a race meeting applied for police he had to pay for their attendance, and why should those extortionate landlords in Ireland not have to do the same? He really did not see what grounds there were for extra payment to these men, who were kept in ordinary times for ornamental purposes, just to overawe the people and make them believe that they ought to submit to that system of English government. Neither did he see why the taxpayers of this Kingdom should pay for police for the benefit of tyrannical and unreasonable and dishonest landlords.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, it was, fortunately, not necessary for him to defend the character of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Everybody knew there was not a finer body of men in the world. The only wonder was how, under such great provocation, they displayed so much moderation. He believed it was universally conceded that the Constabulary had, on recent occasions, under very trying circumstances, behaved with singular moderation. They had simply to afford protection to all Her Majesty's subjects in the discharge of their legal rights. It was not for him to go into the question whether the laws of the land were good or bad. They had been passed by Parliament, and were subject to the revision of Parliament. At the proper time he should not be slow to give his opinion on them; but, at the present moment, all the Committee were called upon to do was to vote a sum of money which was rendered necessary by the obligation of the Government to keep order in the country. The Government had simply discharged their duty, and the extra pay and allowances now asked for were only what had been usual under similar circumstances.
§ MR. SHAWthought it was important to ascertain whether there was any 372 foundation for the charges against the police which had been made that evening, and which he had seen in the papers. Some of those charges—namely, that the police acted towards women and children in a brutal manner, originated in English papers. From his own observation as a magistrate, he had never known the police as a body act in an unfair way; but he thought the Government were bound to investigate those charges. He would vote for the Amendment as a protest against the way in which the Government had employed the police. There was nothing more absurd, or more calculated to create a breach of the peace, than gathering a crowd of policemen in any district where there was likely to be a disturbance at a large meeting. Did any man in his senses think that the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) and the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) would risk their precious lives at any of those meetings? Was it likely that when 20,000 or 30,000 men were assembled those hon. Gentlemen would desire anything like a breach of the peace, or want to do anything illegal? Nothing of the kind. They met there to discuss a great public question. He might say that he had read almost all the speeches which were made at those meetings, and he did not think he ever remembered so many speeches in which there was such a fair average of nonsense. Now, he did not think that, as a general rule, looking at the history of insurrections, nonsense was ever the cause of an insurrection. The people of Ireland were not fools; and they knew very well that those hon. Gentlemen did not mean to do anything illegal; but to collect hundreds of police in martial array was almost a temptation to the people to commit a breach of the peace. The people of this country would not allow it for a moment. He thought such a use of the police was most unreasonable; and in that time of excitement half the evil was caused by ignorant people in Dublin Castle rushing to conclusions, and imagining that because a public meeting was going to be held there was going to be something illegal done. If the people had been let alone they would have listened to the sense and rejected the nonsense; but, by the action of the Government, the people had been almost led to prefer the latter. It was 373 very objectionable, also, that the police should be employed in serving processes of ejectment, and more especially during last year. He had no doubt many landlords of Ireland were placed in a disagreeable position. They had their families to support and their engagements to meet; and the hon. Member for Cavan went rather against their getting any rent. Consequently, they were in a difficult position; but it was really putting them in no better position to send out those armed policemen, and to create such an excitement in the country that the rent which they would have got if the people had been left to themselves they would not now get at all. That was really the effect of the action of the Government. They had prevented the landlords from getting any rent at all. He hoped the Government would seriously consider that question of the employment of the police, because their present police in Ireland did as much harm as good. In some parts of the country the police were not wanted at all, and they were idling about; whilst in other parts, where they might be usefully employed, they were so used as to create a great deal of prejudice and evil.
THE O'DONOGHUEsaid, although there could be no doubt that some members of the Force did commit grave indiscretions, he had always had faith in the patriotism of the great body of the Constabulary. He firmly believed they regarded with abhorrence the duty they were called upon to discharge in the West of Ireland. He had read the speeches to which the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) referred as containing so much nonsense, and he must say he was totally unable to discover any nonsense at all; and although that statement of his hon. Friend might create laughter in the House, he ventured to say it would be regarded with deep displeasure by the people of Ireland. It was impossible for those who held certain opinions on the Land Question to vote for the remuneration of the police for such services; they were simply employed to drive people from their homes for the non-payment of rent which they were totally unable to pay. He hoped his hon. Friend the Member for Dungarvan would go to a division.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he should certainly go to a division. He had been deluged with letters of complaint from mem- 374 bers of the Constabulary as to the scandalous uses to which their Force had been put. They were brothers and sons of small tenant farmers, but they had to do what they were ordered, and they felt it bitterly when they were employed to escort process servers, and to turn out starving families into the roadside; and still more bitterly when they had to act as informers, and direct the process servers to the houses of their victims.
§ MR. P. MARTINquite agreed with his hon. Friend the Member for County Cork (Mr. Shaw) that, as many of these charges had been stated on the authority of newspaper correspondents, an inquiry would be advisable. He must say, from what he had heard and read in some of the Irish papers, his own impression was that these charges could not be substantiated. But it appeared they had been made; and he thought it was for the interest of the members of the Irish Constabulary, and of the public in Ireland, these statements should be subjected to a searching inquiry and public investigation. He believed, as he had stated at these public meetings, that when employed in aiding the service of ejectment processes the members of the Constabulary had individually acted with great moderation and forbearance. He felt bound to say that he considered it opposed to the best interests of peace, law, and order, that the Constabulary had been employed on duties of this character. He thought the Government stood condemned by their own showing. They had drafted from other parts of Ireland to the West large bodies of these police; and these police had been marching and counter-marching, parading backward and forward in military array, merely to aid in trying to affix some processes. He considered that the use to which the Constabulary had been put was both unbecoming and lamentable. An impression was produced that the Government unduly favoured the landlord class. In case of difficulty in effecting service, the law provided that it could be substituted—at some additional expense, it was true. But, from the accounts, it appeared that in the case of small tenants, wretched men who were paying £2, £3, and £4 a-year, all this parade and military display had been made use of to facilitate service. The only advantage that was obtained by this mode of procedure was, that a decree could be procured six 375 months earlier. He need not remind the Committee that on application being made to a Judge of a County Court service could have been substituted, and the same result could be obtained by more regular and proper means. It should be remembered, also, that serious injustice was done by the Government to those parts of Ireland from which these police had been drafted. They had not only been deprived of their regular police, but had had to pay very heavy taxes to defray the charges consequent upon the appointment by the authorities at Dublin Castle of an extra Force.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 30; Noes 172: Majority 142.—(Div. List, No. 34.)
§ Original Question again proposed.
§ MR. BIGGARbegged to move that the next item, E, Travelling Expenses, be omitted. He would not go over the same ground as the hon. Gentleman had already done on the last item; but it appeared clear to him that if the landlords wished for special bailiffs, in order to execute the decrees of the Court, they ought to pay their travelling expenses. If the police had been called on, on be-half of landlords, to perform extra duty, the cost of such extravagance on their part should be defrayed by them.
THE O'DONOGHUEsaid, he thought his hon. Friend was quite right in asking that that item be rejected. He begged to second his Motion.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Item of £3,750, for Travelling Expenses, be omitted from the proposed Vote."—(Mr. Biggar.)
§ MR. O'DONNELLquite agreed with the remark of the hon. Member for Tralee (the O'Donoghue). The sum under consideration formed part of a very objectionable amount, and he should like to see it rejected. There were some very ludicrous incidents in the recent agitation with which that expenditure was concerned. As soon as it was known that a meeting was to be held about the tenant right, a force of about 100 constables was sent in search of the meeting. At first, they soon came upon the meeting; but, after a while, a fictitious meeting was arranged to be held at the same time as the real one, and the Constabulary almost invariably went to the wrong 376 place. That was the way in which the money had been spent which they were now asked to vote. These marchings and counter-marchings were, therefore, of little service; and a good deal of them was a practical joke played on Her Majesty's Government by the Irish people. For these reasons he felt bound to oppose the item being allowed to stand in the Estimates. He thought it was to be regretted that Irish blunders of this kind could not be made to come directly out of the pockets of Her Majesty's Ministers. Nothing would lead to good government in Ireland quicker than personal responsibility attaching to Ministers for their blunders. Another reason why the Amendment should be pressed to a division was that it would afford the Liberal Party another opportunity of evincing a laudable interest in the discontent which was rife not many hundreds of miles from where they were then assembled. But he was aware that the whole of their affections were centred in Bulgaria, and not at home; and, therefore, they must, he believed, put up with seeing them again enter the Ministerial Lobby.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 7; Noes 183: Majority 176.—(Div. List, No. 35.)
§ Original Question put, and agreed to.
§ (20.) £62, National Portrait Gallery.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he observed that credit was given in this Vote for a very remarkable saving—namely, the sum retained during the interval between the death of the Messenger and the appointment of his successor. He thought that the economical disposition of the Government would be better shown in some more important department than in the striking out of that pitiful sum. The office must have been performed by somebody during the interval between the death of the Messenger and the appointment of his successor, or else it must have been entirely superfluous.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ (21.) £203, London University.