§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he thought it would be admitted that he had shown no disposition to delay the passing of this Bill, because he had abandoned his intention of bringing forward several important questions in order not to delay its progress. It had been his intention, for example, to move that this House should refuse any further sums for the House of Lords—not in the hope of carrying his Motion, but for the purpose of showing the House of Commons a path along which it could tread in future in case it desired to make the House of Lords alive to the fact that they were not the supreme power in the State. He wished, however, to call the attention of the House to the conduct of Mr. Clifford Lloyd, resident magistrate at Kilmallock, in adjudicating on the cases that came before him. It appeared from a report in the newspapers that on a recent occasion 10 respectable farmers in the county of Limerick were brought before Mr. Lloyd, charged with riot and assault. Five were discharged, there being no evidence against them, and the remaining five were remanded, bail being refused, although the alleged offence was bailable, and the men were well-known and had an estate in the county. What, then, took place? One of the unfortunate men, who was advanced in years, fell in a fainting con- 895 dition on the floor of the Court-house, and a clergyman had to administer the last sacraments of the Church to him. A doctor was sent for, who declared that the lives of two of the prisoners would be endangered if they were not admitted to bail, and upon that statement bail was accepted. If this man had not been, he might say, providentially seized with a fit, he would have been sent to prison, and perhaps might have been murdered in prison. What had been the action of the Government? They had never disposed of the charges brought against Mr. Clifford Lloyd. They had invariably refused to grant an investigation into the matter, and Mr. Clifford Lloyd was allowed to go on acting in an atrociously cruel and despotic manner. Irish Members, he knew, had gained an unenviable notoriety by the persistent manner in which they had drawn attention to the conduct of Irish magistrates. He contended that their action had been dictated by a grave sense of duty, and complained that their persistency should have availed so little. What, he asked, would be the position of Ireland during the Recess, when the slight control now exercised by Irish Members over the Irish Executive could be exercised no longer? Why, Ireland would be subjected to an uncontrolled despotism; and when Parliament met again the House would be fresh and eager for work, and would resent, and naturally, an attempt to call its attention back to proceedings which would have become by that time antiquated and obsolete. Meantime, Mr. Clifford Lloyd, freed from the control of Parliament, exercised by means of a question of this description, would be able to ride rough-shod over the county over which he was resident magistrate. The Government asked for a fair trial for themselves and their measures; but the action of their Executive was such as almost necessarily to make their remedial legislation futile and abortive. How could moderate counsels be expected to prevail with a population exasperated with the conduct of magistrates like Mr. Clifford Lloyd? No measure of amelioration could have a chance of proving efficacious if its application was accompanied by proceedings which outraged the feelings of the people. He sincerely hoped the Solicitor General for Ireland, after consultation with his Colleagues on the Treasury 896 Bench, might find himself in a position to announce before the close of the Session that a full and impartial inquiry would be made into the magisterial conduct of Mr. Clifford Lloyd.
§ MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, he wished to call attention to another matter now disturbing the peace of an important part of Ireland. He referred to the conduct of Mr. Lloyd Apjohn, of New Pallas, in the county of Limerick. In answer to a Question which he (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) put as to that gentleman's proceedings, he had been promised that some inquiries would be made; but although Mr. Apjohn's place of residence was easily accessible, and a line by telegram could easily have been answered, he had not been vouchsafed any information. He wished, however, to impress upon the Solicitor General for Ireland and his Colleagues again the urgent necessity of making some further inquiries into the facts of this extraordinary case. He had been informed on good authority that Mr. Lloyd Apjohn had adopted a new method of dealing with such of his tenants as failed to pay their rent. He had evicted several of his tenants from their farms; and in one of their houses he had installed himself with a number of his relatives and friends. He had, in fact, established a kind of amateur camp, whence, like one of the moss troopers described by Scott, he carried on what might be likened to border raids. It was his practice to decree that a certain tenant owed him a certain amount of rent, and having issued a kind of ukase to that effect, he visited the tenant's farm in the night time, and with the help of his armed followers drove off the tenant's cattle and sold it the next day. Ho, in fact, constituted himself his own bailiff and sheriff, and enforced his own decrees without taking the trouble to resort to any Court of Justice. He (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) had been informed on good authority that Mr. Apjohn and his band had made themselves a public nuisance in their little kraal. They were in the habit of shouting insults at the people as they went by, and were especially offensive to Catholic priests and to the Catholic religion. He was told that the resident magistrate had said that policemen ought to be stationed at the place for the mere protection of these men themselves, lest in their nocturnal excitement they 897 might shoot one another if they had no one else to shoot. How long could the peace of the country be preserved if such outrageous conduct were allowed to be carried on? He therefore asked the Government, for the sake of public order, to inquire strictly into the doings of this man and his band, and to take measures to suppress their lawless proceedings.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, if there was any ground at all for the statement which the hon. Member had just made to the House, he had hardly known anything which ought to be more quickly put down by the strong hand of the law. Personally, he (the Solicitor General for Ireland) had no duty in connection with these matters, and the Attorney General for Ireland, who was not then in his place, had not made any communication to him on the subject before he left town. He believed, however, that inquiries had been made. He asked yesterday at the Irish Office if any information had reached them on the subject, and he was informed there had not. It appeared to him that if these proceedings had taken place, it looked very much as if the gentleman in question had distrained for rent at illegal hours and under illegal circumstances; and if that was so, and he were himself in the position of any of the persons whose cattle was said by the hon. Member to have been driven off by Mr. Apjohn, he should certainly institute proceedings with a view to seeing what a jury would say as to the amount of damages which he ought to receive for having been subjected to an illegal distraint. With reference to the case brought forward by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), he might observe in passing that recently the House had had Mr. Clifford Lloyd before it on nearly every occasion on which it had met. Assuming the report that had been published in the newspapers to be correct, and he saw no reason to doubt its accuracy, it appeared that 10 or 11 farmers of respectable position were charged with riot and assault. He had before stated it to be his opinion, and he would do so again, that the more respectable the position of people concerned in transactions of that kind the more severely ought they to be punished; their very respectability was 898 an aggravation of their offence. However, five of the defendants were discharged, because there was no sufficient evidence against them. With regard to the remainder, the magistrate refused to exercise the discretion which he (the Solicitor General for Ireland) supposed was given him as to granting bail, and it was reasonable to conclude that he might have had good grounds for so refusing, though no such grounds were mentioned in the published accounts of the ease. The fainting of the aged man when he heard that he was committed for trial was a contingency that might have occurred on any other occasion, and under any other circumstances, and did not affect the magistrate's action in the matter. If the hon. Members carried out their promise to keep their eyes in matters of this kind on the conduct of the Irish Executive with the view of bringing it before the House next Session, he hoped they would take care to bring the matter forward in the presence of the Attorney General for Ireland, on whom the responsibility in such matters in a great measure devolved.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he felt bound to complain of the neglect of the Irish Office to comply with Orders of the House to furnish Returns relating to the Irish magistracy and the Report of the Dublin Riot Inquiry Commission.
§ MR. SPEAKERThese subjects cannot be discussed with regularity on the Appropriation Bill, particularly as the hon. Member has a Notice of Motion on the Order Book with reference to one of them.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, that the Motion on the Orders was quite a different one from what he was discussing. This was with reference to an Order of the House made on the 1st of September, renewed on the 27th of January, and yet not furnished to the House.
§ MR. SPEAKERThat is precisely the substance of the hon. Member's Notice of Motion.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, that what he rose to call attention to was the neglect of the Chief Secretary's Office to obey an Order of the House.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member complains that a certain Order of this House has not been complied with. That is the substance of the Notice of Motion standing on the Orders of the House, and he is not entitled to bring it forward 899 on the third reading of the Appropriation Bill.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he was not aware where he had any Motion on the Orders of the House, and he could not see how he was out of Order. He was raising the point that the Chief Secretary's Office up to the 20th of May neglected to comply with an Order of that House. Since the 20th of May they had considered it their duty to comply with it, and stated that they had to return for three counties. But what he was bringing under the notice of the House was the neglect up to the 20th of May.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member is clearly out of Order, because the subject he is now bringing under the notice of the House is precisely the same as that embraced in his own Notice of Motion.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, when he replied to the hon. Member's Question earlier in the afternoon, he promised at once to inquire into the matter, and to communicate privately with him. Most of the information desired he believed was in the Library of the House.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, that was not so. Two Orders of the House for Returns with reference to the Irish magistracy had been utterly disregarded for 12 months.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member is lodging a complaint against the Irish Office for not producing a Return within a reasonable time. I cannot see the relevance of that to the Appropriation Bill now before the House. I must call upon the hon. Member to abstain from discussing the subject any further.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he must strongly condemn the conduct of magistrates in refusing bail when persons of substance were ready to come forward and bind themselves in the manner required by law. That was exercising their power in an unjust and tyrannical manner, because they were imposing punishment upon persons whom they ought to discharge after being tendered substantial bail. Enough had been said with regard to Mr. Clifford Lloyd to show that if the Government were open to reason they would be convinced that that gentleman was exceedingly unpopular, and that great dissatisfaction always arose wherever he was sent. The only course 900 which he (Mr. Biggar) thought the Government ought to pursue would be to grant an independent inquiry. That was all that had been asked for by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor). In the present case it was quite clear that Mr. Clifford Lloyd had exceeded the bounds of what he was entitled to do with regard to those five men. It was the duty of the Government to remove Mr. Clifford Lloyd to some other part instead of keeping him in a district where he had become very unpopular. It was quite clear to him (Mr. Biggar) that the Chief Secretary for Ireland was determined that the administration of the law should be made as unpalatable as possible. The conduct of the Chief Secretary for Ireland might be very satisfactory to himself, and it would, of course, be screened by his Colleagues so long as he was a Member of the Government; but he (Mr. Biggar) would put it to the Government whether it was advisable to retain in Office a person who was using every effort to make the Administration of which he was a Member unpopular in Ireland? The Government would do well to reconsider the question as to whether there should not be a fresh shuffle of the cards, and whether the right hon. Gentleman should not be relegated to some other position where he would have less opportunity of doing such mischief as he had done in his present Office.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that the people of Ireland during the past six months had been ruled in such a manner that no one stood between them and the magistrates. It was true that the criticisms upon the conduct of the magistrates which had been heard in that House exercised some influence over them; but that criticism could not be made during the Recess. He thought if the man who had been sent to prison by Mr. Clifford Lloyd had died, the jury could have brought in no other verdict than that of wilful murder against the magistrate who had kept the unfortunate man in prison. Why should a magistrate refuse substantial bail? It was a principle of British law that until a man was tried he was supposed to be innocent. But the converse of that proposition was the rule in Ireland. The Government had it in their power to keep anyone in gaol for 18 months if they suspected him; and why was not that 901 power exercised instead of keeping men in prison until they were tried at the Assizes? He would ask the Attorney General whether it was not the fact that there would be no gaol delivery until December next in Ireland? Those men would, therefore, be in Cork Gaol, in a filthy dungeon, until that time, and they would not even be treated with the ordinary decencies which the Coercion prisoners were allowed. It, therefore, amounted to this—that those who got the benefit of the ordinary law were better off than those who did not. Englishmen expected that Irishmen should kiss the beneficent feet of the present Government; but he would remind them that the Government thought so little of the good-will or the well-being of Ireland that they preferred to maintain their satraps over there than remove those injustices from which the people suffered. He (Mr. Healy) very much regretted the action of the Government, knowing, as he did, that the Clifford Lloyds, the Blakes, and the Monsons—the village tyrants and dissolute ruffians who formed the stipendiary magistracy of Ireland—would be aware that Parliament would not be appealed to while they carried on tyranny for the next six months.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Bill read the third time, and passed.