PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 79.]

HC Deb 15 February 1881 vol 258 cc893-991

(Mr. William Edwarel Forster, Mr. Gladstone, Secretary Sir William Harcourt.)

COMMITTEE. [Progress 14th February.]

[FOURTH NIGHT.]

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clause 1 (Power of Lord Lieutenant to arrest and detain).

MR. M'COAN

moved, as an Amendment, in page 1, line 13, after the word "Ireland, "to insert "proclaimed under the provisions of this Act." It would be necessary to examine the Bill in order to render the Amendment intelligible. The clause already agreed to provided that any person reasonably suspected of treasonable offences, tending to interfere with and disturb the maintenance of law and order, might be arrested in any part of Ireland, and the effect of this Amendment would be to require that the offence for which the warrant was issued must have been committed in some part of a district or county specially proclaimed, and thus brought under the operation of the Act. It was, he felt, a very hopeless task to attempt to move an Amendment of this kind; and, as he had little or no expectation that it would be accepted by the Government, it was, he feared, a waste of effort almost to try and secure its acceptance by the Committee. Yet he thought he should be able to show reasons which justified the proposition. The object of the Government in asking for this Bill was not to arm themselves with vindictive or tyrannical powers, but to obtain such extra powers beyond those conferred by the ordinary law as would enable them to preserve peace in Ireland. Assuming, for a moment, that they had made out a case, and that it was necessary to give exceptional powers in order to secure the maintenance of law and order, they themselves declared that it would not be necessary to exercise these powers except in certain special districts where the law had been set at naught, and was not sufficient to preserve the peace. If the Amendment wore adopted, the construction and action of the Bill would, atleast be rendered more symmetrical. They would have the proclaimed district, complete in itself, as the original area within which the crime must be committed, and it would then continue to be the limited area within which it might be punished. It might be objected that they would be creating a sort of Alsatia, in which an offender might take refuge. At the first blush there might seem to be something in that objection; but it rather supplied an argument in favour of extending the proclamation over the whole of the country. If the non-proclamation of a district admitted of an abuse by allowing an offender to take refuge within it, then the logical course would be to proclaim the whole country; and then those who resided, or addressed meetings, or who happened to be in any of the non-proclaimed districts, would know at once that if they opened their mouths they would subject themselves to all the terrors of the law. If there was any marked indisposition on the part of the Committee to accept the Amendment he would not press it to a division.

Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 13, after the word "Ireland" to insert the words "proclaimed under the provisions of this Act."—[Mr. M'Coan.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I really think that the hon. Member's Amendment almost answers itself. What would happen if it were inserted in the Bill would be this—Her Majesty's Government do not wish to proclaim any district which it is not necessary to proclaim. Of necessity the fact of proclaiming a district would show that there was reasonable suspicion that somebody within the district was doing something to tyrannize over others, or to commit offences in the district. But if this Amendment were adopted such a person, by just running over the border into a non-proclaimed district, would make himself perfectly safe. Of course, the Committee will not for a moment expect that the Government can give their sanction to such an Amendment. The only effect of adopting it would be that we should be obliged to proclaim many more districts all over Ireland than would otherwise be necessary.

MR. BIGGAR

thought the argument of the right hon. Gentleman was somewhat weak. The Bill should either apply to the whole of Ireland or it should not. It was alleged that certain parts of the country were disturbed, and that certain other parts were not disturbed; and there ought to be some limit as to the districts in which the arrests might take place. It would be just as fair to say that because there were some disturbances in parts of Ireland—which, however, he disputed—the whole of the United Kingdom should be brought under the provisions of the Bill. The same argument would apply to the facilities of removal from Ireland to England as from a proclaimed district to some other district which was not proclaimed. It was unreasonable, he thought, to oppose the Amendment. It was alleged by the Government that the great object of the Bill was not to punish crime, but to prevent crime from being committed; and if a person suspected of fomenting crime in a particular district left that district and went into a more peaceable locality, he saw no reason why he should be punished just as if he had remained to pursue his criminal proceedings. He would advise his hon. Friend to divide upon the Amendment.

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA

hoped that his hon. Friend would not persevere with the Amendment, because the penalty of adopting it would inevitably be the proclamation of the whole of Ireland, and, so far, Her Majesty's Government had announced no such intention. He fully appreciated the motives which had actuated the hon. Member for Wicklow (Mr. M'Coan), and also those which induced the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) to support the Amendment; but, under all the circumstances, he hoped that the Amendment would be withdrawn.

MR. M'COAN

said he would not press the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. O'DONNELL

moved, as an Amendment, in page 1, line 13, after "and" to insert— After an investigation in the presence of the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, at which the suspected person shall have full facilities for any explanation he may have to offer. He ventured to think that this Amendment was one which ought to commend itself to the support of the Committee. It simply proposed to insert in the body of the Bill certain provisions which the Government had led them to believe would only summarize their intended practice under the Bill. The Irish Party had repeatedly urged on the House, since the commencement of these debates, the formidable and objectionable character of a Coercion Bill giving a premium upon arrest and imprisonment on suspicion. In the existing circumstances of Ireland, the absence of special provisions would place the liberty of every man at the disposal of the village tyrant, the tyrannical, the spiteful, or the frightened magistrate, the spiteful policeman, and the policeman greedy of promotion or reward. These were the class of men who would be authorized to lay informations and grant warrants on such informations, and to arrest and imprison without an appeal against such warrants. There could be no doubt that some provision was required to guard the people at large against spite and malevolence on the part of those who considered that they and their interests were specially in danger from the popular agitation now proceeding in Ireland. It must be in the recollection of every Member of the Committee, from the expression of opinion on the part of the Irish magistrates, which had found a vent by a hundred channels in the English newspapers, that among the Irish magistrates there was a feeling of exasperation amounting to blind passion directed against all those whom the magistrates considered to be the leaders of a movement which they denounced as confiscatory, unjust, and dishonest. Nothing could be more different than the points of view from which a non-landlord magistrate and a landlord magistrate would be likely to regard the Land League agitation. In practice, it was impossible in Ireland to draw a distinction between the non-landlord magistrate and the landlord magistrate; but the landlord magistrate, as a matter of fact, numbered about eight out of ten. All the police looked to them for the recommendations which regulated promotion and reward. Even in ordinary times a constable looked to the number of arrests he made in the discharge of his duty as a sort of proof to his superior that he was duly performing his duty, and that he was an efficient constable. Accordingly, at a time when the whole body of the Irish Constabulary would be, so to speak, specially enjoined to be doubly vigilant in spying out and suspecting crime, the House might be certain that the ordinary ferreting qualities of the constable would be excited to the highest pitch, and a positive mania for suspicion would not be absent from the lowest ranks, when they knew very well that a mania for opening letters had seized the very highest of Her Majesty's subjects. It would not be denied, for the Chief Secretary for Ireland had himself ad- mitted that the existence of this disposition on the part of the magisterial class, and the possibility of their exercise of unrivalled power would constitute, if unsupervised, a danger of the greatest magnitude to the liberties of the Irish people, even the most innocent, and a danger to the peace and tranquillity of Ireland. The right hon. Gentlemay had assured them that the responsibilitn for suspecting, arresting, and imprisoning would not really be in the hands of the constabulary and the magistracy, but that the Chief Secretary or the Lord Lieutenant, or the two together, would supervise every case. If that was to be the policy of the Government, it could not be considered anything novel and unjust to ask them to put their policy in the Bill. If it was the intention of the Chief Secretary and the Lord Lieutenant to examine carefully, judiciously, and conscientiously into the case of every suspected man whom some constable or magistrate might recommend to the notice of Dublin Castle as deserving of 18 months' imprisonment, let them place in unmistake able words the record of their intention in the Bill. It was for this purpose that he proposed to insert this clause, providing that the detention of suspected persons in custody should only take place after an investigation in the presence of the Lord Lieutenant, or Chief Secretary of the Lord Lieutenant, at which investigation a suspected person should have full facilities for making explanations. The Chief Secretary and the Law Officers might suggest that there would be an investigation in each case, although not in the presence of these high authorities; that the investigation would consist in the careful examination of the written depositions and the sworn informations of constable X and sub-constable Y, and, a careful examination of the grounds on which the local magistrates might have recommended the arrest. But he maintained that the mere examination of a number of documents sent up from Sligo or from Donegal, and laid before the Chief Secretary in his office in Dublin Castle, in the absence of the accused person and of every means of testing the good faith and accuracy of the information, would be a most utter and complete sham. It would be a fraud imposed upon the public and upon Parliament; and although the Chief Secretary had the most implicit and touching confidence in the representations made to him by the subordinate officials of Ireland; and although, on the ground of that implicit and touching confidence, the House was prepared to absolve the right hon. Gentleman himself from any participation in the fraudulent character of the proceedings, their conviction as to the innocence and honesty of the Chief Secretary would not absolve them from the duty of protecting the liberties of their countrymen by such reasonable safeguards as it was not only the right but the duty of Parliament to introduce into the present Bill. The opportunity of the Chief Secretary for entering into a detailed examination of any informations sent up to Dublin Castle must depend upon the number of those informations; and, in fact, the magistrates throughout Ireland need do no more in order to defeat totally the honest intentions of the Chief Secretary and the benevolent intentions of the Government in general than to nominate as many unfortunate Irishmen for arrest and imprisonment, and to forward such a mass of suspicions to Dublin Castle, to overwhelm the Chief Secretary with such a multitude of applications for wholesale incarcerations that the Chief Secretary, if there were 48 hours in the day, would he unable to go into the whole of them. And in such circumstances, if no sufficient provision was introduced into the Bill as a warning against the over zeal of the magistrates, the Lord Lieutenant would be obliged to sign warrant after warrant without the slightest real examination into the merits of the case. Therefore, making every allowance for the good intentions which were mingled with loss praiseworthy elements in the Bill of the Government, he suspected, and he did not conceal his suspicion, that the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be incapacitated by the multiplicity of the informations from examining into the accusations, as he had promised the House to do. He wished to protect the Chief Secretary from the consequences of his own rash engagements, and to bring him, while the Bill was still under discussion, face to face with the difficulty which was before him. If the right hon. Gentleman was convinced that he could deal with all the cases that would be brought before him upon the information of the land- lord magistrates of Ireland, then there could be no objection to introduce these protective provisions into the Bill. If, on the other hand, he had any reasonable suspicion that he would be unable to deal with the accusations, then the Amendment was of a character to enforce upon his mind the real difficulty of the task upon which he was rushing. The Amendment might even be further amended in the direction of allowing the Chief Secretary assistance in examining into the cases which would be crowded upon him by the vindictive magistracy of Ireland. But, on the other hand, the House were entitled to take the Chief Secretary at his word. He had again and again assured the House that it was not the magistrates of Ireland who would be the ultimate judges, but that he would examine into and decide every case. Then lot the right hon. Gentleman and the Government bind themselves, by explicit words introduced into the Bill, to provide that no Irishman should be sentenced to arbitrary imprisonment without appeal, except after direct investigation by the Chief Secretary or the Lord Lieutenant. The suspected persons should have full facilities for giving any explanation they might have to offer. That was all important. If the Chief Secretary had nothing but a number of informations sent up to him from the North or South of Ireland, and he proceeded to examine them without the presence of the suspected persons, it would be absolutely impossible for him to arrive at a conclusion which would have the slightest weight upon the conscience of the country. He would be adjudicating in the dark; and even although his remarkable acumen might direct him in some cases to a true verdict, the public at large would be unable to give the right hon. Gentleman credit for that acumen in the absence of the ordinary and rational plan of confronting the suspected person with the information on which he was suspected. The right hon. Gentleman refused to place the suspected man in the presence of his accuser. He insisted on guarding the accuser behind a veil of secrecy. He could have no valid reason for keeping the information from the view of the suspected man. It had been stated by an English Member that already Her Majesty's Government had made preparations for the summary arrest of 1,200 persons in Ireland. If the Bill was worth anything, there must be at least 1,200 persons arrested, because the Government declared that it was intended to put down the village tyrants and the dissolute ruffians who were to be found in the different parishes of Ireland. Considering that on the plea of Her Majesty's Government themselves there were enough of these dissolute ruffians in each parish to overawe the law-abiding people, they had only to multiply the number of parishes by the minimum number of dissolute ruffians in order to arrive at a sum total of several thousands. If, therefore, the Bill was worth anything, not only 1,200 Irishmen, but many thousands, were threatened with the loss of their freedom; and some precautions were necessary in order to provide that there should be something like a fair and honest investigation of the circumstances of every case. They had only to consider the number of cases that came before a single Judge, in order to arrive at something like an idea of the amount of labour which the right hon. Gentleman was prepared to undergo with so light a heart. The Amendment was absolutely necessary if the Chief Secretary intended to carry out the pledge he had given to the House; and it was quite as necessary if the Chief Secretary found himself ultimately unable to carry out that pledge, because, in that case, the benefit of the incapacity of the right hon. Gentleman should be given to the suspected persons, and Parliament should not take upon itself the responsibility or the guilt of sentencing a single Irishman to arbitrary imprisonment without, at least, some guarantee for a fair investigation into the facts of the case.

Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 13, after the word "and," to insert the words "after an investigation in the presence of the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, at which the suspected person shall have full facilities for any explanation he may have to offer."— [Mr. O'Donnell.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I need hardly say that I cannot accept the Amendment, or accept the statement of the hon. Gentleman as to the mode in which the Bill will be carried out if it becomes law, or in regard to the number of persons who will be arrested under it, or any other particular. It is quite true that I stated, and made it clearly understood, that the putting into force of this Act would not depend upon the police or upon the magistrates in different parts of Ireland. I do not wish by that to convey any reproach upon the police or the magistrates. I only say that that is not the intention of the Bill, and if we were to allow it to be done we should divest the Executive Government in Dublin of their responsibility. What is conveyed by the Bill, and what I understand will really be the case, is that the responsibility will rest upon the Lord Lieutenant, assisted by his responsible Advisers, and the Chief Secretary, as one of those Advisers,? will share the responsibility. But I must say that while my noble Friend the Lord Lieutenant, and while I, myself, feel that responsibility very strongly, and feel that we have a most painful task imposed upon us, we must be allowed to use our own discretion as to the mode in which we fulfil it. We really could not undertake that responsibility if the House of Commons were to endeavour —although I do not suppose they will— to prescribe the particular mode in which we should exercise our functions.

DR. COMMINS

was sorry to hear the expressions which had been used by the right hon. Gentleman. One of the principal reasons urged by the right hon. Gentleman as a salve to induce the House to accept the introduction of the Bill was that there would be no danger to individual liberty, and no risk of injustice being done in individual instances, because he himself would examine each particular case and see that there was sufficient ground for committal. But what did the right hon. Gentleman say now? He began to see the magnitude of the task he had undertaken, and to find that he had heaped upon his shoulders a responsibility which no Hercules or Atlas could bear. The right hon. Gentleman now shifted his ground altogether, and departed from the promise by which he obtained a good many votes on the other side of the House. Certainly, he obtained none from the Irish Members, because none of them could place any dependence on the promises of the Government. Nevertheless, there were many hon. Members who had too much respect for the old principles of the Constitution to surrender them without a struggle, even when it was only Irishmen who were to be the victims of that surrender, and he contended that they had been deceived by the promise of the Government. Having obtained votes from hon. Members on all sides of the House on the promise that he would look after each individual case, the right hon. Gentleman said now that the putting in force of the Act must depend upon the magistrates, and that all he and the Lord Lieutenant would do would be to give their fiat that the Act was required in any particular district. There was, consequently, no guarantee whatever for the due investigation of every case that came under the Act. On the contrary, there was a complete abandonment of all guarantees to the people of Ireland that respect would be paid to individual liberty, and that safeguards would be adopted for the protection of those who might be under suspicion, owing to the malevolence, private spite, or even baser motives of getting them out of the way while evictions were effected, or some private object carried out. The question went a great deal further than seemed to be supposed. It actually put the good faith of the Government at issue. If they did not mean to furnish some sort of safeguard to prevent the Act from being abused, why did they make a promise at all? They had also promised remedial measures; but what reliance could the Irish people have in that promise, when the good faith of the Government was found wanting almost on the first occasion on which it was tested? What reliance could the people of Ireland have in the splendid Land Reforms of the Government which were to follow this despotic measure of coercion? He imputed no deliberate intention to the Government to deceive the Irish people; but he asked them to look at the position in which they had placed themselves, and see if their conduct was not fairly open to that construction. The Irish people would naturally say—"You have deceived us in this matter. You have broken faith with us at the very outset, and we cannot rely on your good faith or honesty in regard to any other mea-sure you may introduce." He urged the Government to make a concession now by accepting this Amendment. He hoped they would take into consideration the possibility of abusing the provisions of the Act for private purposes. If the Chief Secretary was unable to investigate every case, some other authority might be substituted. It was a matter of common observation that Her Majesty's Judges in Ireland were by no means overworked, and that the English Judges of Assize, and the Chancery Judges, did more work in three months than the Irish Judges did in 12. In point of fact, it was alleged that they employed the chief part of their time in yachting or in other agreeable amusements. ["Question !"] He was coming to the Question directly. It had often been remarked that the Irish Judges had a considerable amount of time at their disposal.

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that he is now travelling beyond the Amendment before the Committee.

DR. COMMENTS

said, he only wished to suggest that if Her Majesty's Government could not adopt the Amendment in its present form, the Irish Judges had plenty of leisure to enable them to undertake the proposed investigation.

THE CHAIRMAN

That has nothing to do with the Amendment before the Committee. The hon. Member must confine himself to that Amendment.

DR. COMMINS

said, he had merely thrown out a suggestion. He had no doubt, however, that it would meet the fate of every other suggestion; and he would leave the matter where it stood. He would only ask the Government to carry out the promises they had made on the introduction of the Bill; or, if they were not willing to carry out those promises, and confessed that they could not carry them out, that they would provide some guarantee for the performance of the duty of investigating charges that might be unjustly preferred. He had no sympathy with or compassion for the perpetrators of outrage in Ireland; he pleaded only for those who might be unjustly suspected or accused. They were told that the constabulary had been overawed; that the ordinary processes of law were set aside. It would take at least 12,000 people to overawe 12,000 armed men furnished with bayonets, firearms, and buckshot. The number who would be suspected or charged 'would, at least, be equal to the number whom they overawed and rendered powerless. The hangers-on of the Irish magistrates, the process-servers, and all other officers of the law, were also rendered powerless, so that, in point of fact, it would require the arrest almost of an army.

THE CHAIRMAN

I have already told the hon. Member that he is travelling beyond the Question before the Committee.

DR. COMMINS

said, he did not desire to travel in the slightest degree beyond the Question. He was merely pointing out the magnitude of the task which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had undertaken. He would content himself now with asking the Government to accept the Amendment, or something equivalent to it, and thereby showing the people of Ireland that they were actuated by bond fide good intentions, and not by mere stage inspirations.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

thought the Amendment was extremely reasonable—so reasonable, indeed, that it was a matter of wonder that the Government themselves had not introduced some such provision into the Bill. The Amendment merely provided that no person should be imprisoned without having the accusation against him clearly explained, and being afforded full facilities for explanation. It provided that a man should not be arrested on the word of an irresponsible official, and consigned to prison for 18 months, without even a chance of explaining that he had intended no offence against the law. The House had been told over and over again that the utmost care would be taken by Her Majesty's Government to secure the liberties of the people. The Lord Lieutenant was himself to see that no man was consigned to prison without reasonable grounds of suspicion. But now they were told, although the Chief Secretary had promised an investigation of his own, that there would be nothing in the shape of a responsible investigation at all. It, therefore, amounted to this, that if it was intended to make a vast swoop in the shape of arrests there would be no time for investigating each particular ease; and it was only fair and reasonable, if the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary were unable to make an investigation, that the work should not be left to some irresponsible official, without any practical security for the liberty of the people. In no civilized country in the present day could such a step be justified; and he, therefore, trusted that the House would not consent to pass the clause without the Amendment suggested by his hon. Friend. It would be monstrous to enact that any greater or smaller number of men should, without investigation, or being afforded an opportunity of explanation, be consigned to prison for 18 months on the mere suspicion of some police-constable or common informer.

MR. O'SULLIVAN

hoped, if the Government were not prepared to accept this reasonable Amendment, they would propose something to carry out its object. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman must be aware of hundreds of people having been taken up, against whom no charges were made. It was quite impossible that he could himself investigate the numerous cases which would be brought before him from various parts of the country. But he had understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that the arrests would not depend upon the police or the magistrates. The right hon. Gentleman must be aware that as soon as this Bill was passed there would be few counties in Ireland in which he would not have arrests made immediately. He reminded the Committee that in 1867 many arrests were made without any authority from Dublin Castle, and urged that, in the present instance of coercion in Ireland, there should be some authority issued from the Castle in the shape of a warrant. He hoped, on consideration of the circumstances of the case, the right hon. Gentleman would see the necessity of some Amendment of the kind proposed by the hon. Member for Dun-garvan.

MR. DALY

wished to point out the consequence of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland refusing to accept the Amendment before the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman said that the arrests would not depend on the police or the magistrates. But, he asked, would they not depend upon the reports and informations sent to Dublin Castle from those persons? To his mind, the objection to the Amendment was that it would be unworkable, and that it would not be possible for the Lord Lieutenant to loot into the details of every case of arrest. The hon. Member for Dungarvan had, however, provided for that, and proposed that properly authorized persons should be introduced to look into a matter of such importance as the taking away of the liberties of Her Majesty's subjects. Surely it was not asking too much, that informations which came from localities in which it was known that the people and the police or the magistrates were antagonistic, that men arrested upon the reports of the latter class should have an opportunity of explaining before an impartial tribunal the circumstances in connection with the crime with which they wore charged. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had founded the introduction of this Bill upon the Blue Book which contained an account of the outrages committed; and he had subsequently confessed that he had made no personal examination of the Returns, which were simply prepared by the police authorities on the usual formula. In omitting to make that personal examination the right hon. Gentleman had, in his opinion, committed a grave crime, because he had put before Parliament and the people of the country what was nothing else than a libel against a peaceable and law-abiding people in the form of a statement of outrages which he had not investigated. What right, then, had he (Mr. Daly) to assume that after the passing of this Bill the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be more careful than he had been before it was introduced? He did not apprehend that the number of arrests would be as great as some hon. Members sitting on that side of the House supposed, for it would, no doubt, be the case that those persons who were conscious of having committed offences against the law would, to a great extent, disappear when they saw that the Bill had come into operation; and, therefore, the number of arrests would not be so great as to entail a very large examining body. Were those persons who had been born subjects of Her Majesty the Queen to be deprived of the opportunity of proving that they were 50 miles away from the place where the crime occurred with which they were charged? And were they not to be allowed to prove, if they could, that the crime had been committed by another man of the same name? In short, were Irishmen, because the Government would not take the trouble to appoint responsible persons to investigate the charges, to be deprived of the Constitutional liberty accorded not only to Her Majesty's subjects in England, but those in the Colonies? He was sorry to record the impression produced on his mind, that the sanction to the Bill had been, to a certain extent, obtained from the Liberal and Radical Members of the House of Commons by false pretences; and he protested against this as the worst innovation ever made on the liberties of Her Majesty's subjects in Ireland.

MR. M'COAN

said, that, unlike many of the hon. Members among whom he sat, he thoroughly believed in the good faith of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. This was a hazardous admission to make, seeing that the good faith of the right hon. Gentleman had been called in question by more than one hon. Friend on that side of the House. It was, however, because he believed in his good faith and in his honest intention to carry out the Bill as mercifully as he could, that he appealed to him to accept, in some shape or other, the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan. Had he himself framed the Amendment, he should have done so in the hope of getting a substantial concession from the Government which would reduce the tyrannical powers of the Bill to a minimum. He would have suggested a personal investigation by the Lord Lieutenant, or the Chief Secretary himself, of the special circumstances of each case. And had the right hon. Gentleman pledged himself, in the text of the Bill, to such a personal investigation, and taken upon himself responsibility for every committal, he (Mr. M'Coan) would have had little fear that the powers of the Act would be abused. Whatever might be the trust of the right hon. Gentleman in his subordinates at Dublin Castle, it was idle to tell the Committee that the main portion of the Bill would not be carried out by the magistrates and the police, for those to whom he delegated his powers would be obliged to act upon the reports of those persons. Unless the light hon. Gentleman assumed something of the function which would be imposed upon him by the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan, he would be little more than the clerical endorser of the reports of the magistrates and police. If, however, he would import into the Bill his personal responsibility for its application, he believed he would remove a great deal of the objection which existed amongst hon. Members on that side of the House. At any rate, it would do away with his (Mr. M'Coan's) chief objection to the Bill. Therefore it was he ventured to ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider his refusal to make the concession asked for, which was in itself a very small one, that he would himself be responsible for the administration of the powers of the Bill.

MR. GILL

had always understood it to be a principle of English law that it was better for 100 guilty men to escape than that one innocent man should suffer. But it appeared to him that the framers of the Bill wished to act on a principle exactly contrary to this. He could not understand how the Chief Secretary could pretend that the magistrates and police would have nothing whatever to do with the application of the powers of the Bill, and that it would be the Lord Lieutenant and himself, or their confidential Advisers, who would decide upon all cases of arrest—while, at the same time, he refused to accept the very moderate Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan. The conduct of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to this Bill, in telling hon. Members that all responsibility was to be left to him, and that he would not be tied down by any Amendments, reminded him of the practice of some sharpers, who entrapped people by the so-called "Confidence Trick." As far as he could see, he was acting in a similar manner by asking hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House to give him unlimited powers, and then throwing over all responsibility by not making the Bill clear upon that point. This Bill would, in his opinion, be the cause of many innocent persons being arrested in Ireland, and, unless the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Dungarvan were accepted by Her Majesty's Government, this would be done on the mere suspicion of hostile magistrates and policemen. It was certainly not asking too much of the right hon. Gentleman to appoint some proper persons to examine into every case of arrest, so that when questions were asked in Parliament—as they certainly would be—concerning the arrests which would take place, accurate answers might be given to them. It had happened that morning that an hon. Member asked a question relating to particulars of an arrest in one of the country districts in Ireland, and that the Chief Secretary for Ireland complained that it was rather too much to expect him to answer so many inquiries. The Bill contained a provision that the cases of arrest should be laid before Parliament during the first seven days of every month. But it must be remembered that during six months of the year Parliament would not be sitting, and that was another reason why some limitation of the powers of arresting on more suspicion should be introduced into the Bill; for it would be very hard that men perfectly innocent, perhaps, should be kept in prison, and their cases not brought before Parliament, on the reports and suspicions of persons who would have no scruple whatever as to the kind of information they sent to Dublin Castle. For these reasons, he should support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

hoped he might be allowed to make a personal statement. He was much obliged to the hon. Member for Wicklow for the kind expressions he had applied to him. Such expressions came very rarely from hon. Gentlemen opposite; but, in the present instance, they had been immediately counterbalanced by what had been said by the hon. Member who had just sat down, in charging him with attempting the "Confidence Trick." With regard to the actual matter before the Committee, he considered that the Lord Lieutenant and himself would be responsible for doing everything in their power to prevent the commission of injustice under the provisions of the Bill. He did not think the Committee would gain anything by endeavouring to dictate to them the way in which they were to discharge that responsibility. If they had desired to escape responsibility, they would probably have asked the House to define the mode in which they should act, which, when their conduct was called in question, would enable them to say they had fulfilled the conditions imposed upon them. But he put Ms responsibility even higher than hon. Members opposite. He held it to be his duty to do everything in his power to prevent injustice being done; and, moreover, that he was responsible for the acts of others in that respect. Therefore, he did not think he could give any stronger assurance that everything in his power would be done to prevent injustice. Fault had been found with him because he said that he could not be expected to know of everything done by the police in the streets of Limerick, and it was said he would be equally ignorant of the way in which this Bill would be carried out. But it was not part of his duty to inquire into cases arising under the ordinary law throughout Ireland so far as the action of the police and the magistrates was concerned; but it would be the specific duty of the Lord Lieutenant and himself to inquire into the administration of the Bill before the Committee. He did not wish to avoid his full share of the responsibility which in this case would rest upon the Lord Lieutenant and himself. In reply to the hon. Member for Limerick, he understood the Bill clearly to state that no man could be arrested without a warrant.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

would express neither confidence nor want of confidence in the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, because it would be altogether putting the matter on a false basis to make it one of confidence at all. As a good Liberal, he was bound to place the liberties of no man in the control of any Minister, whether he had confidence in him or not; and, in his view, the right hon. Gentleman was bound to take up the same position. Therefore, in making the observations which had just fallen from him, the right hon. Gentleman had placed the question on a false basis. If the Chief Secretary for Ireland had been in Opposition, and a similar Bill had been brought in by a Conservative Chief Secretary, was it likely he would listen to him when he said—"You must put confidence in me." Supposing the late Chief Secretary (Mr. James Lowther) had brought in such a Bill, and had asked for the confidence of the right hon. Gentleman who proposed to insert such and such words as a necessary guarantee for the liberties of the Irish people, he did not think he would have listened to him for a moment. The Government had taken up two positions on introducing this measure. The first was that the Bill would apply to a limited number of persons, and the second was that every arrest should be under the personal supervision, and the result of the personal examination and inquiry, of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. With regard to the first position, he took the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that the persons aimed at by the Bill were the village tyrants, the perpetrators of outrage; and that statement showed that the Bill was only to apply to a limited number of persons. With regard to the second main position of Her Majesty's Government, he asked—What was the use of the guarantee of the right hon. Gentleman if he was not going personally to investigate every case? Did the right hon. Gentleman mean that he would simply put his initials to the warrant made out by other hands? Investigation in those cases must be personal, or it was not worth consideration. Again, it had been stated that this Amendment would be unworkable, on the ground that the right hon. Gentleman would have so many cases to investigate that he could not attend to them himself; but if that were the case, the right hon. Gentleman had introduced the Bill on false pretences, for the position of the Government was that the number of arrests would be very small, inasmuch as they would be confined to a small section of society, called by the Chief Secretary, mauvais sujets. The Amendment, therefore, was workable, and the only real objection to it was that it sought to place in black and white those delicate and soothing observations made be the Chief Secretary for Ireland before the Bill passed a second reading. The right hon. Gentleman said he would be personally responsible for every one of these arrests. But what did that mean? The right hon. Gentleman would get his warrant prepared on the information of the magistrates and the local policeman. He said he would personally investigate the cases himself; but all the steps excepting that of putting the man in gaol would be taken by the magistracy or the police. Now, it was a well-known axiom in politics that every Minister was on the side of the magistracy—whatever they did or said was right. What satisfaction was it to Irish Members that the right hon. Gentleman was personally responsible? If he stood up in the House and said he was personally responsible for the arrest of any man, that would not mate the arrest a just one. He knew very well they could not bring his conduct before the House with anything like a fair prospect of getting redress. A patient hearing might be given in two or throe cases; but after that the patience of the House would be naturally and justifiably exhausted, and the responsibility of the right hon. Gentleman would amount to nothing in fact. He had been struck, in the course of the discussion of this measure, by the remark that it bore a resemblance to Continental proceedings of the kind; but, in his view, to find a parallel to the Bill before the Committee one must go back to the period of lettres de cachet and the Bastile, for even if a Bill like the present were passed in a Continental Assembly, it could not be without such limitations as were proposed by his hon. Friend the Member for Dungarvan. The Amendment of his hon. Friend simply asked for a safeguard that would be granted in the Assemblies even of the worst and most oppressive Continental States. In France, the Judge was bound to examine the prisoner and give him an opportunity of making a satisfactory explanation if he could do so. As had been suggested by the hon. Member for Cork City ("Mr. Daly), the crime for which a man was arrested on suspicion might have been committed by a person of the same name, and the person charged might have been 20 miles away when it was committed. Was he not to be allowed to explain these things? Why, the greatest criminal in France could demand this right from the Judge which they were asking, but which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland refused; and, therefore, these safeguards which were allowed under the French Criminal Law—an object of derision to Englishmen on account of its harshness—were to be denied to the most respectable man in Ireland who might, under the terms of the Bill, become the object of suspicion to the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues. The right hon. Gentleman asked them to trust entirely to his discretion, and spoke of the painful duty he had to perform; and from his attitude and words, one would think that the pain and penalty fell on the incarcerator, and not on the person incarcerated.

MR. R. POWER

said, he was afraid the Chief Secretary for Ireland had not fully appreciated the valuable offer made by the hon. Member for Wicklow, who had actually offered to withdraw a powerful opposition if the Government would consent to the proposed Amendment. Many personalities had been introduced into the discussion; but he should not express any opinion on the character of the Chief Secretary until a future stage of the Bill, because he believed the character of the right hon. Gentleman was not fully formed. He did not see how the Chief Secretary could possibly accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan, because that would destroy the whole character of the Bill—if the object of the Bill was to do away with all investigation, and all explanation, and all justification for arrest. He could not agree with the hon. Member for Meath, who said he did not think many arrests would be made under the Bill, and the Chief Secretary assented to that idea. He hoped that would be so, and that he was wrong in the belief that there would be numbers of arrests under the Bill, and that men would be thrown into prison, as they had been in former years, without a scintilla of proof of guilt or attempt at outrage. The reason why he said that was that the police having made reports to the Government from many districts, that mauvais sujets, as they had been called, and dissolute scoundrels swarmed in every village, would be obliged to justify those reports, and, to do that, to make a number of arrests. The right hon. Gentleman, when he went over to Ireland, would find himself in this extraordinary position—he would have a plum in one hand and a whip in the other, and he would tell the people that if they took the whipping patiently, he would afterwards give them a plum. The right hon. Gentleman said he would see that hardships would not be committed under the Bill, and he would take care that no unnecessary arrests were made; but he was certain that if the right hon. Gentleman had full control over the Bill, and could devote his whole time to it, it would be utterly impossible for him to inquire into every case. As an instance, he mentioned the case of Casey, who, in 1867, was taken from his home and thrown into prison and forgotten, although, as in the present occasion, the Chief Secretary at that time had promised to inquire into every case. Cases of that kind would occur again, and he was very sorry that the Government had so far not acceded to one of the Amendments proposed. He feared it was the intention of the Government to resist to the utmost every attempt to move Amendments; but, nevertheless, and although it was a disheartening and an uphill task to be fighting for Amendments, when they knew they had no chance of passing them, there was a certain duty imposed on every Irishman in the House, and that was, by every means in his power, to try to modify the provisions of the Bill, and make them fall less harshly on the people at homo. They had moved several Amendments, and they intended to move many more; but he was certain that if the Chief Secretary had met them in a conciliatory spirit, and had yielded to some of the Amendments, the debate would not have lasted so long as it had.

MR. LEAMY

observed, that a few moments ago the Chief Secretary had made two remarks in answer to the hon. Member for Meath. He said, first, that he and the Lord Lieutenant would have the administration of the Act; but just before that he had said that the powers under the Act would be exorcised by the Lord Lieutenant and his responsible Advisers, of which, he said, "I am one." Which statement were they to accept? Would the powers be exorcised by himself and the Lord Lieutenant, or by the Lord Lieutenant and his responsible Advisers, meaning some other person than the Chief Secretary? If there were some other persons, who were they? That was the point they wanted to come to. He said they would not be the magistrates, and not the police. "Who, then, were they? Surely not the Solicitor General, nor the Attorney General; because they would be engaged in Parliament, and would not be able to investigate cases. If the right hon. Gentleman could not consent to an investigation as proposed, why did he refuse to allow an arrested man the right of knowing what his offence was, or of offering any explanation he might have to make? No doubt it was stated that the grounds of the offence would he set forth in the warrant; but the policeman executing that warrant was not obliged to show the warrant to the man, and so the arrested person might be imprisoned for 18 months without knowing at all what he was charged with. The least they might allow the man was that he should be told what the charge was, and have an opportunity of disproving it if he could. When the hon. Member for Cork City said he did not believe there would be many arrests under the Bill, because when it became law many of the persons guilty of outrage would quit the country, the Chief Secretary said "Hear, hear!" and made a similar statement. But those who would quit the country were the men who wore conscious of their guilt, while those who would remain were the men who were conscious of their innocence, and ought not to be touched by the Act; but the men who were innocent might find themselves put into prison without the slightest intimation of the charge against them, or the slightest ehance of offering an explanation. They did not ask that the information upon which a man was arrested, or the name of the informer, should be given to him; but that some simple statement of the alleged offence should be given. If the Chief Secretary would not consent to the Amendment, so far as it would require that before a man was sent to gaol he should be examined before the Lord Lieutenant, he, at least, ought to have no hesitation in accepting the latter portion of the Amendment, which would give a man an opportunity of offering an explanation.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes, 56; Noes, 274: Majority, 218.—(Div. List, No. 44.)

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he had intended to move an Amendment to the effect that imprisonment should only take place after an investigation, at which the suspected person should have the benefit of counsel; but he saw that the ground was covered by a subsequent Amendment; therefore, he would not proceed with his proposal.

THE CHAIRMAN

I wish to call the attention of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) to the fact that when he moves his Amendment, unless he pur- poses to omit the words "during the continuance of this Act" the alteration he proposes will not be intelligible.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he would accept the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion, and move to omit the words specified. The object of the Amendment was to give the Chief Secretary an opportunity of substantiating the declaration that he had repeatedly made. The right hon. Gentleman had said that he was prepared to be responsible for every committal that might take place under the Act; not that he would undertake to investigate each particular case, but that he would be responsible for the actions of those on whose evidence he based his committal. This responsibility, it appeared to him (Mr. Biggar), would be of a very worthless kind if it were not subject to the decision of some high Court of Appeal; and the best Court of Appeal to which such matters as these could be referred was, undoubtedly, the House of Commons. It might be urged by the right hon. Gentleman that it was competent for any Member of the House, when he saw the name of a person who was committed to prison, or when he knew the charge brought against a person, to bring forward a Motion for the means of release, thus testing the right hon. Gentleman's responsibility. It would be apparent to everybody who had any practical experience of the working of Parliament, that unless some limit were put to the term of imprisonment to induce the House to come to a speedy decision on a case, it might be weeks, or even months, before a Motion, of which Notice had been given, could be brought on; and they knew that Ministers for the time being had, or were almost certain to have, a largo majority at their back, and that, therefore, they could rely upon getting, in all just cases, votes of the House to enable them to keep the guilty or suspected persons in prison. It was only fair that a certain and bona fide opportunity should be given to the relatives and friends of a person in prison to raise the question of his innocence, if he were innocent. If the Amendment were agreed to, the House would have to decide upon a case within a fortnight; and within that space of time the Chief Secretary would have an opportunity of making such explanation as he thought desirable, and the friends of the person in prison would have an opportunity of making such statements as they believed to be necessary in his behalf. It was quite possible that if the Amendment were adopted many prisoners would be able to prove their entire innocence, showing that they were by no means the persons to be reasonably suspected of a certain charge.

Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 13, after the word "detained," to leave out the words "during the continuance of this Act," and insert the words "for two weeks after notice has been given to Parliament, and their imprisonment shall end, unless otherwise ordered by a vote of the House of Commons."—(Mr. Biggar.)

Question proposed, "That the words 'during the continuance of this Act' stand part of the Clause."

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I can hardly think that the hon. Member for Cavan is serious—that he can really mean this. His opposition to the Bill is very intelligible; but it would be impossible to have a measure with such a provision as this in it, a provision that would limit the imprisonment to two weeks, or compel the House of Commons to consider every case.

MR. O'DONNELL

considered the right hon. Gentleman's objection to the Amendment inconsistent with some of the pledges the Government had given. It had been promised, in effect, that the House should try every case; or, if that was not so, the English language must be an instrument for misleading the human mind. The Government had declared that the names of arrested persons, and the particulars of arrests, were to be given in Parliament—that it was open to the Irish Members to test the correctness of arrests by getting a decision of the House upon them. ["No, no !"] Then what was the meaning of the assurances they had got from the Government? He could understand the Government coming forward, and saying —"We want a code to enable us to arrest anyone in Ireland." He could understand such an act of despotism, without contortion, turning or twisting, or circumlocution; but he could not understand their coming forward and endeavouring to slip this Bill through the House by manœuvres and contrivances of this kind. Looking at the small amount of credit these attempts to disguise facts must bring on their authors, Her Majesty's Government, they should now attempt a little straightforwardness. The want of straightforwardness of the Government must be trying, even for the Liberal Party, who, Heaven knew, had not had too much to boast of. The Conservative Party could not sympathize with it, for, in charge of such a measure as this, they would not be guilty of fencing with the question. And as for the Irish Members, the conduct of the Government was not fair to them. They were promised that the powers of the Bill should not be abused; subsequently, Ministers said to them, "You shall have an opportunity of testing our Acts —wo will give you full particulars of these arrests;" and now, when the question arose on the clauses, and the responsibility of the Government was under discussion, the Chief Secretary coolly said, "We have no notion whatever of allowing you to inquire into the cases—we are not going to have trials on the floor of this House, and at the same time we will not allow trials on the floor of any other house." He did not understand this species of political morality with which Her Majesty's Government had associated themselves in the name of Liberal administration; and he hoped their ingenious explainings-away would be reserved for periods of electoral excitement, and would not be depended on by Ministers in their dealings with the Gentlemen elected to represent the constituencies in Parliament. Hon. Members were being introduced to a sort of Pagan's Political School. The pocket of the country was being picked without the country having any knowledge of the question. Her Majesty's Government might deem themselves very clever and very fine to deal in this way with Irishmen; but he ventured to say that they were dealing unfairly with all hon. Members of the House. By giving one explanation one day, and offering another the day after—

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is now travelling altogether beyond the Amendment.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, the effect of the Amendment was that, unless otherwise ordered by a vote of the House, a man who had been arrested should be set at liberty at the end of a fortnight, if representation were made to Parliament. It seemed to him that, in moving this, the hon. Member for Cavan was only anxious to embody in the measure the Ministerial pledge, that after each arrest the question should be fully debated in the House of Commons, and in the event of the House voting against the detention of the person arrested, he should be set at liberty.

MR. GRAY

did not yield to the hon. Member for Cavan in hostility to the Bill, and, because of that general hostility, if the Amendment were pressed to a division he should feel himself bound to vote for it. Yet he trusted that the hon. Member would not press it, because he did not think a very strong case could be made out for it. The Bill having been read a second time, the House had assented to the principle of coercion, and he did not see how that was to be enforced if such a provision as this were adopted. They had still upon the Amendment Paper so many Amendments of real importance which they (the Irish Members) could push, and push to an extreme limit, if necessary—being morally justified in doing so in fair fight— that he was reluctant to waste strength on a question which was not worth fighting for. Placing information on the Table of the House, and enabling the House to vote upon that information, was a totally different tiling to bringing every case of arrest under the notice of the House. It would be open to the hon. Member for Cavan, or anyone else, to seize an opportunity for discussing the arrests when the details of those arrests were placed in sufficient fulness upon the Table of the House; but that was a very different thing to asking the House to commit itself to discussions, especially within a limited time. He was confident that if the Amendment were passed, Parliament would be doing nothing else but discussing these matters.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he was in the somewhat difficult position of having been left in charge of the Bill during the absence of the hon. Member for Cavan, with strict injunctions to carry it to a division; and the difficulty of the position was increased by the fact that he did not altogether agree with the proposal. He could see what the hon. Member had in his mind when he proposed the Amendment. According to the Bill, a list of persons arrested was to be laid before Parliament, and the hon. Member wished to have these lists decided upon. The Prime Minister, when speaking on the Bill at an earlier stage, had said that the suspicion upon which a man should be arrested should be "reasonable;" and when that was met by interruptions from the Irish Members—'[Cries of "Oh! oh !"]—which implied that that was no safeguard, the right hon. Gentleman said—"The reasonableness of the suspicion can be challenged on the floor of this House." Well, the hon. Member for Cavan wished to take the Prime Minister at his word, and put in the Bill a power to have the reasonableness of the suspicion challenged on the floor of the House. As he did not wish to detain the Committee, he would content himself with these observations and would not press the Amendment to a division.

Question put, and negatived.

MR. J. COWEN

moved, as an Amendment, in page 1, line 15, to leave out the word "without," and insert the word "with."

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he had a previous Amendment, in line 13, to leave out "during the continuance of the Act."

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member for Dungarvan's Amendment raises a point which the Committee has just decided. He would move to leave out words which it has been decided shall remain in. The Amendment, therefore, cannot be moved.

MR. J. COWEN

, resuming, said, that during the discussion of this Bill great complaint had been made of the largo amount of power that was to be given to the Chief Secretary. He (Mr. Cowen) quite admitted that. They were despotic powers. He proposed, however, to add to them. But the powers that the right hon. Gentleman had hitherto obtained were for the purpose of oppression; the power that he proposed to give was of a mitigating and moderating character. The object of the Bill, as stated by the Government, was to re-establish what they described as "order in Ireland." Their contention was that a state of lawlessness existed in that country, and that that lawlessness had been brought about by the action of persons whom they sometimes called "miscreants," and at others "village tyrants." These miscreants and tyrants, according to the statement of Ministers, had set on foot something like a reign of terror. Many of the people were afraid to run counter to their wishes or desires, and others sympathized with them. This was the Ministerial contention. He (Mr. Cowen) did not admit that it was a correct contention. The facts, in his judgment, were all against it; but, for the purpose of argument, he stated the case of the Government. The Bill was designed to give Ministers the power of arresting on suspicion persons whose actions were inimical to law and order. These persons would not be charged with an offence; but they would simply be put into prison and kept there for 18 months on suspicion. Now, it was impossible for the Irish Secretary sitting in London, or the Lord Lieutenant residing in Dublin —of themselves—to discover all these offenders, or supposed offenders. They must depend upon spies, informers, and detectives for their information. Those persons were not infallible. It was quite possible that they might make a mistake unintentionally. It was quite possible, too, that they might be influenced by vindictive and revengeful feelings, and that innocent persons might suffer in consequence. The case presented to the Lord Lieutenant or his Advisers might be such as to create a doubt in their minds. They might think there was some suspicion attaching to the individuals charged, though not sufficient to send them to prison. What he proposed was that the Lord Lieutenant should have the power of requiring the suspected persons to give bail for their conduct. This was a common practice in England. A man was afraid of being assaulted by his neighbour, and laid an information before a magistrate. The magistrate bound the offender, or threatened offender, over to keep the peace for a given time, and that was taken to be a sufficient security. Now, what he wanted the Government to have was power to act in Ireland in such cases as they acted in this country. It did not follow that they would take bail in every case. He know that in accusations of treason or treasonable practices bail could not be taken. But agrarian offences were bailable. A single instance would illustrate his argument better than any lengthened statement could do. He referred to the case of the hon. Gentleman the Member for County Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan). That Gentleman was arrested on suspicion, and kept in prison for some weeks, without being allowed to communicate with his family. Then he was sent to Dublin, where he was detained 14 months. No charge was ever preferred against him. It was a mere matter of suspicion. During all that time his business was seriously damaged. A former Irish Secretary had admitted that the arrest was made without sufficient grounds. Now, if the Lord Lieutenant had at that time been allowed to accept bail, the hon. Member would, no doubt, have got 50 persons to give any security as to his good conduct that the Government could have wished. That security being given, he might have remained at home, and conducted his business without any detriment to the State and with great benefit to himself and family. What he proposed was that such power should be taken by the Government. If they agreed to the principle of his Amendment, he would introduce words at a subsequent part of the Bill which would enable them not only to accept bail, but also to agree that a suspected person might leave the country rather than go to prison. Of course, if the Ministers refused to accede to his proposal, it was no use attempting to introduce the words that he had just intimated. He felt sure, if the Government would accept his Amendment, that it would do something—it might not be much—to soften the bad feeling that the present measure had created in Ireland.

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 15, to leave out the word "without," and insert the word "with."— (Mr. Joseph Cowen.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'without' stand part of the Clause."

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOE IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

said, he did not intend to discuss the Amendment at any length. In a case of that kind, where it would be held desirable, in place of putting a man in prison, to obtain security for his good behaviour, the Lord Lieutenant would not arrest him at all. He did not think the words proposed were at all necessary.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

could not think that the reply of the Attorney General for Ireland would be considered satisfactory. There were plenty of respect-able men in Ireland whom this Act might reach, and who, under its powers, might be treated as the hon. Member for Limerick had been; why, therefore, should not the Lord Lieutenant have this optional power? Did the right hon. Gentleman wish to persuade the House that it would be impossible for any man who was innocent to be imprisoned under the Bill? Had not innocent men been put in gaol under previous Coercion Acts—men whose inuocence was confessed the moment those Acts expired? If the Government wished to make this a preventive and not a vindictive Bill, so long as they could have a guarantee of the presence of a person who was suspected in the country, they had no right to put him in prison. Every single proposal that would have had the effect of rendering this measure less vindictive and more preventive had been rejected by the Government, and rejected with scant courtesy.

MR. CALLAN

asked whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had mentioned his only objection to the other Amendment? He (Mr. Callan) thought the object of the Amendment could be carried out by enabling a Judge, with the consent of the Lord Lieutenant, to accept bail for a person's good behaviour. This would remove any technical objection to the Lord Lieutenant accepting bail.

MR. GRAY

wished to know whether the Government merely objected to the Amendment on technical grounds, or whether they objected to the principle of liberating a man once he had been arrested? Any innocent man arrested under this Bill would hate the Government for the rest of his life. At present he was not a Revolutionist; but he was quite sure that if he was put in prison he should come out one, and would strike the Government by any means he could. There could be no question that under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in 1866, plenty of men were arrested and morally murdered in prison. There could be no question about that. When an innocent man was arrested and driven to insanity by the treatment he received in prison, it was a moral murder. If, then, they could leave a loophole of escape by which they could prevent men from turning upon them when they came out, it was most desirable. He was afraid that the Government had made up their mind, in order to avoid any discussion on the Report, not to change any of the provisions of the Bill; but they might give some assurance, similar to that -which had been given in reference to the retropective clause, that they would consider the propriety, on the third reading, of introducing some provision to enable the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary to liberate persons on bail after they had been arrested. He thought the technical difficulty could be easily got over by the Attorney General for Ireland if he so desired.

MR. LABOUCHERE

said, they all knew that if the Bill passed through Committee exactly in the state in which it went into Committee there could be no debate upon the Report. If that was the intention of the Government, they ought to say so at once. Nothing could more tend to turn the Forms of the House into ridicule than for the Government to come down to the House with a foregone conclusion not to listen to any argument which involved the alteration of the Bill, not because they objected to the alteration, but in order that they might carry through the measure without delay on the Report. He hoped the Government would state whether this was so, because, if it was, there was no use going on hour after hour discussing these Amendments.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, the reason why he supported the Amendment was one which, although they did not hear it from the Ministerial Bench, was not the less true and valid—namely, that it was a mistake to suppose that all the persons liable to be arrested under the Bill were men of a low and and disreputable character. He could understand the Government refusing all Amendments if all the persons to be arrested under it were of the class of dissolute ruffians, of whom they had heard so much on the other side of the House. But the fact was, that the most influential agitators against the existing system of landlordism in Ireland—the agitators most bitterly treated by the local magistrates— were men of the highest character and moral worth. He would give an instance. The Secretary of the Land League in Dungarvan was one of the most respectable persons in the town. He was a gentleman of pronounced politicial opinions, who formerly held the Commission of the Peace, but was deprived of it on account of the warmth of his political views. This gentleman gave evidence before a Royal Commission as to the management of certain property in the district, and in consequence some of the magistrates had taken a deep hatred against him. Only the other day, one of them meeting him in the street, said, using an oath—"How dare you look at me or salute me?" Beyond doubt, this man would be as certain to attract the venom of the Act as any man in Ireland. His high moral character would avail him nothing, for he was looked upon as fanatical in his political and agrarian opinions, and he was, no doubt, already marked out for summary imprisonment by the majority of the magistrates of the county of Waterford. Surely, if such a man were arrested under the Bill, it would be a case for liberating him on substantial bail. The Amendment would weaken none of the powers of the Government for preventing outrage and maintaining order; it would only allow them to use a reasonable discretion in regard to accepting bail. It was curious to see that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was afraid of nothing so much as trusting to his own judgment and discretion. The Amendment only went to the extent of allowing bail to be tendered; it did not oblige the Government to accept bail. There would seem to be a combination of hon. Members engaged in abusing the Forms of the House, and that combination of Members sat upon the Ministerial Benches. The reason why no Amendment was accepted was that the Government might deprive the House of the opportunity of considering the Bill upon another stage.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)

said, he should be sorry that the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), or any other hon. Member, should believe there was a disposition on the part of the Government to refuse any reasonable Amendment. But the Amendment of the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen) would add to the arbitrary powers of the Government instead of diminishing them. "What was it that the hon. Member proposed? If, under the Bill, the power of arrest was exercised by the Executive Government, of course there would be equally a power to allow the persons arrested to go at liberty. Did the hon. Gentleman suggest that instead of allow- ing a man to go at liberty, the Lord Lieutenant should direct him to be arrested and then admitted to bail? If he deserved to be arrested at all on reasonable suspicion of having been guilty of any of the offences contemplated by the Bill, he would deserve to be imprisoned. The proposal of the hon. Member was to place a temptation in the way of the Lord Lieutenant by giving him the power, where there was not believed to be sufficient evidence to justify imprisonment, of creating a secondary class of offenders, against whom there were no grounds morally to justify their detention, but who were to be admitted to bail. He did not think the Committee would sanction such a secondary kind of punishment as arresting a man and holding him to bail, especially when the Government had not asked for such a power. The Amendment sought to add to the powers of the Executive Government, by enabling them to require a man to give bail although there was not sufficient evidence to warrant his imprisonment. ["No !"1 That was really the fact. If the Lord Lieutenant was of opinion that a man ought not to be kept in custody, when the proper time arrived he would order him to be set free. He hoped the Committee would see there was no necessity for a long discussion upon this Amendment. It was impossible for the Government to accept it.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

said, the hon. and learned Gentleman had given the most extraordinary reasons for maintaining that this Amendment would add to the arbitrary powers of the Viceroy in restricting the liberties of the Irish people. Whenever he thought there was no further occasion for keeping a man in prison, of course the Lord Lieutenant would have the power of setting him free. But the Amendment asked that, in addition to the power of arrest, the Lord Lieutenant should also have power to admit men who might be arrested to bail. He failed to see in what way that would be adding to the arbitrary powers of the Viceroy. The hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to think that if the Lord Lieutenant had the power of admitting to bail, he would allow people to be arrested all over the country who would not be arrested as the Bill now stood. Now, he (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) asked why the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary for Ireland should not be entrusted with a limited power of admitting to bail? It would be a great improvement upon the Bill; and he was induced to repeat the question already put to the Government, whether they intended to accept no Amendment? If their minds were made up not to alter a single provision of the Bill, they might as well tell the House so at once, and inform the Committee that, in suggesting these Amendments, they were only wasting their time and breath; that they would not even argue the point, and that it would be a waste of time to expend words even in confuting the arguments that were raised.

MR. RYLANDS

observed, that so far from having shown any indisposition to entertain any reasonable Amendment, the Government had already accepted a most important one. ["No !"] They had undertaken, on the third reading, materially to diminish the stringency of the provisions of the Bill. It was quite true that they had not accepted the Amendments offered to them, and that, so far, they had refused to amend the Bill in Committee. He dare say that his hon. Friend below him (Mr. Labouchere) was quite correct in his supposition that the Government intended to refuse to accept Amendments proposed in Committee; but the reason was that they thought it would be inconvenient to have another stage of discussion. It must be remembered that the House was now placed in an extraordinary position, and he quite concurred with the Government that it would be inconvenient to have upon the Report a repetition of what had been going on in Committee. But what he wished to point out was, that if the Government undertook to accept Amendments on the third reading, that was only a justification why suitable Amendments should be pressed upon them. As regarded the present Amendment, he entertained a strong opinion that the Attorney General for England was altogether correct in the view he had expressed. It was not a matter of law, but rather a question of what was likely to be the case in practice. If the Amendment were adopted, there would be two classes of operations under the Bill—one would be the arrest of a man under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act and the sending of him to prison, and the other would be the issue of a warrant for the arrest of a man who was not to be kept in prison but only admitted to bail. He believed the effect of a clause allowing men to be liberated upon bail would be to extend the power of arrest and imprisonment as it stood at present. He thought the Government were wise in not encouraging the alteration of the measure. He hoped to see it brought very little into operation, and that very few persons would be affected by it; but be could not support an Amendment that extended the operation of the Bill, because he was afraid that to do so would be, not to mitigate, but to aggravate the operation of the Bill.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

understood the suggestion thrown out from the Treasury Bench was, that if they gave the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary discretion to admit a man to bail they would so abuse the discretion reposed in them that arrests would become common. It was a remarkable thing that the Attorney General for England was so sensitive as to the possible abuse of that discretion when he did not believe that the other discretion would be abused at all, which allowed the Executive Government to arrest and imprison men for 18 months. Upon that point they were quite ready to swear to the infallibility of their Pope in Dublin Castle. He could and would do no wrong. All the Amendment did was to allow the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary a chance of saying—"Here is a man arrested upon good grounds of suspicion; but if he can got substantial bail in his native village binding him to answer a year hence, or two years, or six months, any charge that may be made against him, it is only reasonable that, having given Constitutional security to the Crown, he should be liberated on bail. "The Amendment of the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. J. Cowen) stripped bare another inch of this miserable coercion policy of the Government. There were few phrases dearer to Englishmen in the charter of their Constitutional rights and liberties than the phrase "bail and main prize," and even this little shred of liberty the Government were now proposing to take away. And what offences would there be that a man could not be arrested for? Last night he had quoted an instance which came to hand of a child who was arrested, and dragged before a bench of magis- trates, for whistling disrespectfully in a street in which there was a magistrate. Here was the latest outrage which would afford ground for imprisonment on suspicion without bail and main prizo. Would the defendant in the case he was about to mention have any chance of bail or main prize? The case was one brought by the police against Joseph Lacy, at Trim. A witness saw the defendant throw and kick a ball, and when asked his name, he held up his head in a most irritating manner.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. and learned Member is quoting a case of outrage which would not come under this Bill.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

said, it was a case of outrage sufficiently grave for the police to report and prosecute; and it certainly was in its nature quite as grave as the breaking of a pane of glass in Widow Mulligan's windows, which had already been spoken of in these discussions. All that it amounted to was that a boy, when he was spoken to, hold up his head in an irritating manner. He certainly hoped, even with a Coercion Bill hanging over them, the people of Ireland would continue to hold up their heads, and his great objection to the Bill was that it sought to make thorn bow their heads. He believed, in his soul, that if any attempt were made to perpetrate this degradation upon the English community it would lead to a civil war. They were doing it here against the Constitutional rights of the Irish people, and against the wishes of the Irish Representatives. If they counted the heads of the Irish Members who would go with them into the Division Lobby, they would find that the feeling of Ireland was overwhelmingly against them. Lot there be no mistake about it; they were suffocating the voice of Ireland, and trampling upon the Irish people, by their steady and contemptuous refusal of these Amendments, many of which they knew in their hearts to be just, and wise, and true. They would not dare to come to the House of Commons, and refute bail and main prize for an English-born man; but in the case of an Irishman he was to have neither the one nor the other, and should not even be heard in refutation of the accusations made against him. He defied them to show him such another measure in all the records of European despotism. Even the victims of the Bourbons and the Bastile had some chance of bail and main prize, and of being able to point to the community, among whom they had passed their lives, for an answer to any charge that might be made against them. But here no bail and main prize was to be given. The Chief Secretary would not undertake that a personal hearing should be given to a suspected man; nor would he undertake to say—"If you give good bail we will liberate you." He was strongly tempted to say to the Government, who, in the question of bail and main prize, refused to give the benefit of a doubt to the prisoner, what was once said to a prosecutor in Cork—"I hope when you stand before the Great Judge on the last day he will give you the benefit of the doubt." The benefit of the doubt here was to be given against the prisoner. Bail and main prize, which were the last protection of a prisoner, were taken away by the Bill. The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), in his touching plea for public liberty, said they would have a better chance of securing that liberty by making the Bill as arbitrary and despotic as possible. The hon. Member was likely to have his views fully carried out; and he hoped the debate on these Amendments would go down in history as a monument for posterity, showing the love of Constitutional liberty and law which were manifested by Liberal Members and a Liberal Ministry.

MR. CHARLES LEWIS

thought that, after the extraordinary and high-flown speech of the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan), it would be difficult to come down to the regions of plain common sense. The Committee had been gravely informed that it was possible to make a boy, for whistling in the street, come under the provisions of the present Bill. It was impossible to reach a lower depth of absurdity. He opposed the Amendment, because be was of opinion that a case in which it would be right and proper to take bail would not be a proper case for arrest and detention under the Bill. It was subverting the ordinary course of affairs to suppose that such a case could occur. It would be liable to universal condemnation; and it was only aggravating injury, and adding insult to injury, to suppose that in the case of a man actually found innocent, the Government could make a smooth pillow for themselves, not by letting the man free, but admitting him to bail. The Amendment came to him from a source which entitled it to respect—for they understood the bona fides of the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen), although they might not agree in the hon. Member's extreme views—but he was unable to support it; and he felt that the continued discussion of it only amounted to an unnecessary prolongation of the debate.

MR. BIGGAR

understood that the Amendment would afford an opportunity for the re-hearing of a case, and he would therefore support it, because he failed to see in the Bill any provision by which an accused person would be able to appear before the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary for a fresh decision. If, however, the Amendment were adopted a prisoner would have an opportunity of having his case re-heard. The contention of the Government was altogether untenable; and the only reasonable way out of the difficulty, where there was a doubt, or the possibility of a mistake, was to say that there should be a fresh hearing. It was, unfortunately, the case that in Ireland the governing classes had no idea whatever of justice; and unless the Bill contained dear and specific instructions justice would be ignored. The Bill proposed that parties should be condemned on ex parte statements, and that the prisoner should not even hear the charges made against him, or upon what evidence he was arrested.

MR. LEAMY

said, it might, perhaps, be fairer if the Government objected to the Amendment in the case of treason, treason-felony, and treasonable practices; but, as the Bill stood, it would empower the Lord Lieutenant to arrest a man suspected of inciting to an act of violence or intimidation. It was proposed to give the Lord Lieutenant power to sentence a man to 18 months' imprisonment on suspicion of inciting to an act for which, supposing a man committed it and was charged before a Court and found guilty, he might only be liable, under the ordinary law, to three months' imprisonment. Surely, under those circumstances, it was not unreasonable to ask that a person merely suspected should be admitted to bail. A man would be arrested for the purpose of detaining him and preventing him from committing further outrage; but surely that object would be effected if he were allowed to go out upon substantial bail. If this Bill was actually aimed at men of the worst class named by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, it was utterly absurd to suppose that men of that kind would be able to get substantial bail; the mere fact, therefore, of a person being out upon bail would be a proof that respectable people believed him to be innocent of the offence with which he was charged as well a guarantee for his future good behaviour. His chief objection, however, to this part of the clause was that under it a man might be imprisoned for 18 months for an offence that, under the ordinary law, would only render him liable to three months' imprisonment.

MR. FINIGAN

failed to see why Her Majesty's Government should not accede to this Amendment, inasmuch as it would only apply, as his hon. Friend had just pointed out, in cases where a person had been wrongfully arrested—that was to say, upon suspicion, which might turn out to be unreasonable. He did not see what injury would be done in that case; and as the power given to the Lord Lieutenant to admit persons to bail would be dependent on evidence brought before him after the committal of the unfortunate individual, no injury either to the law or the provisions of this Bid from the Government point of view could take place. He trusted they would not allow it to go forth to the people of Ireland that the principles expressed by them were not consonant with the real principles of the Bill. He thought that if, through the zeal of some officials, a person not liable under the ordinary law were arrested, the Lord Lieutenant should have permissive power to admit him to bail.

MR. MACDONALD

thought the Amendment of the hon. Member for Newcastle deserved the earnest attention of Her Majesty's Government, and not only so, but of every lover of liberality and fair play in that House. For his own part, he was tired of hearing the Chief Secretary talk of personal kindness; and he therefore appealed to the Premier to leave one outlet and way of escape to the unfortunate persons who otherwise would be liable to imprisonment for 18 months, during which the Chief Secretary and the Lord Lieutenant could confine them.

MR. BYRNE

gave his entire support to the Amendment. It was a subject for satisfaction that he and his hon. Friends wore trying to discharge their duty to their constituents under great discouragement, not to say opposition. If Her Majesty's Government accepted the Amendment they would not in any way injure their position, for they would have the option of refusing to accept bail under proper circumstances. The Amendment would only prevent some persons who could give a satisfactory explanation to the Lord Lieutenant from being locked up for 18 months.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 141; Noes 44: Majority 97.—(Div. List, No. 45.)

MR. STANSFELD

, in rising to move, as an Amendment, in page 1, line 16, after "main prize," to insert— And every warrant whereby any person is declared to" be reasonably suspected of any crime or crimes, other than high treason, treason-felony, or treasonable practices, shall specify such crime or crimes, with particulars of time and place, said, he would promise—first, that his statement should be as concise and, he hoped, as clear as it ought to be; and, secondly, that if his arguments should succeed in convincing his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland, it would be perfectly immaterial to him whether he acceded to his view at that or another stage of the Bill. He asked the attention of the Committee to the wording of the 1st clause of the Bill. In the first part of the clause the Bill dealt with one class of offences—namely, treason, treason-felony, and treasonable practices. With regard to those offences, he (Mr. Stansfeld) could perfectly well understand that Her Majesty's Government might feel great objection and difficulty in acceding to the proposal to state the particulars of those offences, as well as the time and place on the face of the warrant, for the reason that they were crimes arising out of a succession of acts which might be stated in an indictment or information, but which could not be expected to find their place on the face of a warrant. But he desired especially to call attention to the distinction in the phraseology and in the construction of the 1st clause. In the first part of the clause the terms treason, treason-felony, and treasonable practices, were terms of definition, and were collective words. They either defined the nature and character of the offence, or they were the collective representation of a long series of acts which amounted to those offences. But when the latter words of the clause were reached there was so marked a distinction that it was impossible to conceive it could exist without a clear purpose in 'the mind of the draftsman of the Bill. He (Mr. Stansfeld) found, then, they came to consider not crimes, acts of violence, or intimidation, or the inciting thereto, but a crime, an act of violence, or intimidation, or the inciting to an act of violence or intimidation. The Committee were aware that the arbitrary power about to be vested in the Lord Lieutenant could not come for question or revision before a Court of Law. But he (Mr. Stansfeld) was prepared to express his opinion that, in this part of the clause, reference was made to the specific acts of individuals. The phraseology was extremely specific, and the only cases, he would repeat, which the clause had in contemplation were, first, an act of violence or intimidation, or the inciting to an act of violence or intimidation—that was to say, according to his reading of it, a specific act of violence or intimidation, or the inciting to such specific act. In those words they came to the class made familiar to the mind of the House by the words of the right hon. Gentleman when he spoke of the "village tyrant" and the "dissolute ruffians." They were not speaking there of high crimes and misdemeanours, but of indefensible acts or incitement to indefensible acts. There had been some discussion how far speeches at public meetings might bring those who had spoken within the terms of the clause. His (Mr. Stansfold's) interpretation of the clause—and he challenged the expression of a different opinion—was that the Lord Lieutenant would not be entitled to arrest and detain a speaker, the general tendency of a succession of whoso speeches was to incite possibly to crimes of violence or intimidation. He did not doubt that his right hon. Friend knew well what he was about when the clause was so conceived. It had been confined specifically, and pointedly directed, to individual acts of violence, or inciting to such individual acts. His argument was this—that the Amendment which he had placed on the Papier was entirely consistent with the necessities of the case placed before them by the Government, and it had been suggested to his mind by the drafting of the clause. Now, what was the mischief against which, so far as those offences were concerned, the Government was to have power to guard—acts of violence or intimidation? They had heard from the Government those acts were of an agrarian character, and that, although in some of such cases witnesses had appeared to give evidence, juries would not convict. That was the whole of the case; but that evil or defect in the law, so far as the present difficulty arose, was met by confiding the proposed power to the Lord Lieutenant. The Act would give him power to judge of a case without open Court and the intervention of a Judge or jury, and to act on reasonable suspicion in his own mind. It might be even difficult, or practically objectionable, to make the evidence public; but he failed to see, according to the Government's statement of the necessities of the case, why there should be any objection to stating on the face of the warrant the specific incitement, or act of violence or intimidation, which was the ground of arrest and detention. In ordinary cases a warrant contained such particulars; and in ordinary cases a warrant was merely a first step in the case, to be followed up by trial in open Court before a Judge and jury, He thought there should be no objection, when such arbitrary power was conferred, particularly in cases of that kind, to adopting the course he proposed. He was not proposing to limit the action or judgment, or to interfere with the responsibility of the Chief Secretary for Ireland or the Lord Lieutenant; but when the Lord Lieutenant had decided, he could not see why, in a simple case of violence or intimidation, the Government should refuse to make a specific statement on the warrant; and he feared they would place themselves in a wrong light and position before the country if they persisted in refusing to adopt that suggestion. They asked hon. Members to oppose limitations on the arbitrary power they said it was necessary to confer on the Lord Lieutenant; and he thought that the course he proposed was in the interests of liberty, and one which they had right to ask the Government to assent to. The Government proposed some limitations on the power they asked Parliament to concede, and provided that within the first seven days of every month a statement of the arrests made, and the names of the persons arrested, should he laid before Parliament. He thought that it was not unjustifiable to urge that if that power was to be conceded, hon. Members were entitled to ask the Government, in return, to show on the face of the warrant why a man was arrested. Parliament would not be judges of the facts of the case, or judges of the reasonableness of the suspicions of the Lord Lieutenant; but let them, at least, have the right of exercising some judgment upon the question, whether, upon the showing of the Lord Lieutenant, giving him the benefit of his own judgment alone, he had acted within the limitation which the Government themselves had proposed in the clause. Some of the Members on that side of the House had been, and were, supporting the Bill partly, and some very largely, on the ground of the character of the Government. He (Mr. Stansfeld) did not say that was a good ground, and he entirely acquitted the Government of asking for the powers they desired on that ground; but, as a matter of fact, that consideration had affected the minds of many hon. Members; and what he would say to the House was this—let them not forget that they were creating another of those unhappily numerous precedents of Coercion Bills in Ireland, and that it might be, at some future time, under different circumstances, that what they were doing to-day might be thrown in their faces, and they might be asked, when they wore less disposed to place confidence in a Government than now, to enact another Coercion Act. He therefore urged on the Committee, and on the Government, if that power must be conceded, as the vast majority of the Members believed, let them not ask, let them not willingly concede one jot or little more than was called for by the necessities of the case as stated by the Government itself. In conclusion, he would move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 16, after the words "main prize," to insert the words "and every warrant whereby any person is declared to he reasonably suspected of any crime or crimes other than high treason, treason-felony, or treasonable practices, shall specify such crime or crimes, with particulars of time and place."—(Mr. Stansfeld.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we have given the closest consideration to this subject, and also to the Amendment he proposes. His antecedents, and his position in this House, would have commanded the fullest possible consideration of his proposal; and I hope that neither he nor any other hon. Member of the Committee will suppose that we are determined to force this Bill through as it stands in order to avoid the stage of Report. I do not deny that we should be glad to avoid that stage; but that is no reason why any change which ought to be made in the Bill should not be made. But it might save the time of the Committee if any such change as may be desirable could be made at a more convenient time. In this Bill we follow the precedents of past Bills—or rather of the Westmeath Bill—for that was the first Bill that put on the Table of the House the grounds of arrest, and under which the grounds were stated in the warrant. That concession was then made for the first time, and we thought it right to continue it in this Bill. But I am willing to admit that the fact that this Bill is like previous Bills is no reason why we should not make any change if it should seem desirable. I wish to state exactly what it is proposed to do by this Bill. There are seven classes of offences in the Bill; treason, treason - felony, treasonable practices, acts of violence or of intimidation, inciting to acts of violence, and inciting to intimidation. My right hon. Friend's Amendment clearly applies to the last four of these. We understand by the Bill that the warrant—reading this part of the clause with the sub-section—will oblige us to state, on the face of the warrant, which of these seven offences the individual is arrested upon. Now, I do not quite gather whether that would satisfy my right hon. Friend. I suppose it would not. I suppose he thinks we ought to go further, and state the exact case, and the particular time and place where the offence was committed. We must remember that the real test of the warrant will be the puting it on the Table of the House. The effect of putting in all those particulars would almost necessarily and certainly be to turn this House into a Court of Appeal in each case. I do not see how that could be avoided. I believe it could not work in practice, and I do not believe that the House would be in a condition to act as a Court of Appeal. We must not forget the grounds on which we find it necessary to pass this Bill at all. It is because we believe there is existing in Ireland an amount of lawless intimidation which defies the ordinary mode of justice. If the House does not believe this, then the Bill ought not to be entertained. Suppose we state on a warrant that such a man is arrested on reasonable suspicion of having maimed cattle, or fired into a house, or fired at a person, or any one of those offences which we have reasonable suspicion he has committed, but have not got, and cannot get, in a Court of Justice evidence which would enable us to do without this mode of preserving law and order, we may be perfectly certain that this will happen—that hardly a man in the oneighbourhood— unless we have broken in on this system of intimidation—will dare to refuse to sign a statement that he believes the man to be innocent. That is the sort of case which would have to be tried in this House. I do not think we could possibly work the Act in that manner; and I do not think the House would be prepared to give up its time for that purpose, or that it conceives itself to be a tribunal for reviewing such cases in detail. And, most assuredly, if the particulars of a particular crime are to be given, it will be almost impossible to refuse to allow persons who sympathize with the individual, or who take his part, to have the case thoroughly debated before this House. This is open to objection; then what remedy is there? Suppose there is injustice, what remedy is there? There is none. There is no remedy. There is no doubt about it; and there is no doubt, as I admitted in my opening statement, that the Bill will give this arbitrary power to the Executive. It ought not to be given except on the strongest possible grounds; and I do not believe that, by any sort of machinery you can adopt, you can give this power and take it back at the same time. It is a very natural thing for my right hon. Friend, and for hon. Members opposite, to say—"We will check this power by making this House a Court of Appeal;" but I do not believe it can possibly be worked in that manner, and I must repeat that I do not think the House would be in a position to got the facts before them. We think the House ought to be informed, and the public ought to be informed, of the nature of the different kinds of offences for which those people may be arrested, and' of the number there are in each case; but I do not see how it is possible to go further to carry out our Bill. I admit that this power ought not to be given except on the ground of the greatest possible urgency, and so it must be given on this occasion.

MR. M'COAN

said, he had listened with positive astonishment to the speech of the Chief Secretary, though not with much disappointment at his refusal to accept the Amendment so reasonably and authoritatively recommended to the Committee by the right hon. Member for Halifax.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being found present,

MR. M'COAN

, resuming, repeated that he had listened with amazement to the speech of the Chief Secretary, though it was not with much surprise that he refused to accept the Amendment of the right hon. Member for Halifax, since it was now evidently the intention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to refuse every possible Amendment that could be proposed. He had had some hopes, when the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Stansfeld) rose to support the Amendment, that a suggestion made with such personal weight and so much force of argument would have had some chance of acceptance; but the Chief Secretary had not simply refused to adopt the Amendment, but he had said what had swept away the whole previous conception of nine-tenths of the hon. Members of the House, based upon the statement of the Prime Minister himself. He had admitted with cynical frankness that the House was to have no sort of power of review or control over the exercise of the law by the Lord Lieutenant. In one of his speeches, one of the strongest points made was that the ultimate power of review would virtually rest with the House; and under subsection 3 it was provided that a list of all persons detained, with a statement of the grounds upon which each person was detained, should be laid before Parliament within the first seven days of every month. The Prime Minister had stated that in that provision there was ample security against any possible abuse of the powers of the Bill, and that if any abuse was attempted the House would be in a position to pronounce upon the action of the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary. That had been the one gleam of hope, and the one element of reconciliation, with the Bill in his mind; but when the Chief Secretary now avowed that hon. Members had been under misapprehension, and that the power was to be purely and simply a tyrannical power, over which the House of Commons would have no control, he was positively amazed. When the Government was asked, but refused, to provide some small protection against abuse of the powers of the Bill by inserting on the face of the warrant the particular act for which a man was arrested— which would not have interfered with the fullest exercise of the powers of the Bill—the confidence he had previously expressed in the good faith and excellent intentions of the Chief Secretary was considerably shaken. The only possible feature which could have reconciled the House to the Bill was that if it should be grossly abused, in the last resort there would be the ultimate Court of Appeal against every abuse in the Empire—namely, the House of Commons, He did not think it was likely that the House would interfere unduly with the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant; but he had hoped that the Government would have given them some slight protection against the tyrannical exorcise of the Act, which the proposed Amendment would have afforded.

MR. BRADLAUGH

regretted exceedingly that the Government could not accept the proposed Amendment, and he proposed to direct special attention to two classes of offences to which the Amendment particularly applied. One was the act of intimidation; the other was inciting to intimidation. Last night he had tried to impress on the Law Advisers of the Irish Executive that in the words "act of intimidation" were included, as crimes known to the law, assemblies which the Prime Minister had been understood to say the measure was not intended to touch. He had, however, failed to elicit any reply, and he would repeat that argument. It had been laid down by Mr. Justice Bayley, in "The King v. Hunt," in 1820, by Justice Holroyd subsequently, and previously by Lord Chief Justice Holt, that any assembly in great numbers meeting together to complain of a common grievance, might be, and had been, ruled be an unlawful assembly, if there was an appearance of large numbers of people which created terror in the minds of people in the neighbourhood. In two of those cases there was not the slightest pretence for alleging any breach of the peace whatever; but the meetings were declared unlawful assemblies, and some of the people were convicted. That was a crime known to the law, and those cases came entirely within the scope of what the Attorney General for Ireland had to deal with in the present Bill. Those matters might be either grave or trivial. There had been definitions of acts of intimidation in the Returns presented to the House, some of which were so grave that no one would hesitate to give to the Executive power to do anything to stop them, such as firing in the neighbourhood of houses, or breaking into houses; but some were so trivial that it would be monstrous and ridiculous to give any power to arrest persons upon them. But unless the particular act of offence was stated in the warrant, there would be no means by which the House could know the character of the offence. But the objection of the Chief Secretary was that the Amendment would make the House a Court of Review. Surely the Prime Minister, in speaking on the Motion for leave to introduce the Bill, said that any case of arrest might be challenged on the floor of the House; and if that did not mean that the House was to be a Court of Review, then words had no meaning at all. By sub-section 3 there was to be laid on the Table of the House a statement of the grounds of every arrest; but if the ground alleged was only intimidation, the House would not know whether it was one of the gravest acts of intimidation, such as a threat to murder, or to mutilate, or to disfigure, or one of the most trivial acts. I He submitted, therefore, that sub-section 3 was utterly delusive, unless the Amendment now proposed was accepted—that the details of the grounds of the arrest should be stated on the face of the warrant. If the grounds stated were not to be the real grounds of the arrest, why should anything be laid on the Table of the House? The fact that a man had been arrested would be known from a hundred sources; but if the House was not to be a Court of Appeal that subsection had better be loft out of the Bill altogether. He wished to know whether the crimes known to the law were to be such cases as Lord Chief Justice Holt, Mr. Justico Bayley, Mr. Justice Holroyd, and Lord Ellenborough held to be as he had described them? The House was entitled to ask that the Law Officers of the Crown should, in some distinct fashion, state exactly what was intended.

MR. GIBSON

thought it would be in the best interests of Parliament that the proposed Amendment should not be entertained. What was the whole scope and structure of the Bill? It was a Bill which, for the highest and supremest purpose—the safety of the State—intrusted Her Majesty's Government for the time being with great powers; and the Amendment sought, practically, to revoke that trust. They must trust the Government under the Bill; and it would be impossible in one moment to express trust in the Government, and then, by a series of Amendments, to nibble at that trust and cut it down to nothing. The whole structure of the Bill at present was that it vested in the highest Representative of the Queen in Ireland the power by warrant to take away for a certain time the liberty of some of Her Majesty's subjects; and it prevented any of the Queen's Courts from investigating or considering the validity of the Lord Lieutenant's warrant. The structure of the Bill— and it was not challenged by a single Amendment — was that the Queen's Courts in Ireland, which were the Courts always intrusted with the power and obligation of decisions, were excluded from the consideration of the validity of the Lord Lieutenant's action; and yet the Committee were asked, practically, to add to the already numerous functions of the House the duty of con- sidering at length, and at all times, all questions which might be suggested in reference to each particular commitment. Surely Parliament had enough to do without being made a Final Court of Review for each particular commitment. And really the question lay in a nutshell. Suppose the Amendment was carried. He ventured to think that when the Bill passed into law it would operate in such a preventive way that there would be but a limited number of arrests, for the entire history of such legislation showed that there were few arrests. Under the Westmeath Act of 1871 there were only 19 arrests, and that was a very stringent Act, which would have theoretically enabled the Executive to have arrested a great number of persons, as it had been prophesied they would do. But he would ask the Committee to take it that when the present Bill became law the Executive would temperately, and with great moderation and forbearance, exercise the powers intrusted to them, and make a limited number of arrests. He ventured to think that when Parliament met next Session, every single person arrested would, if the Amendment were adopted, be made the theme of a debate which might last for several days. Was it desirable, in the interests of Parliament, that when they necessarily took from the Queen's Courts the power of reviewing the warrant of the Lord Lieutenant, they should assume to themselves, without judicial training or machinery, that duty? He hoped the Committee would decide that it was in the interests of Parliament, and that it was carrying out to its logical conclusion the second reading of the Bill, to refuse to accept the Amendment.

MR. PUGH

differed in toto from the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson). He did not think it right that they should hand over all their powers and responsibilities into the hands of Her Majesty's Government unless it were absolutely necessary to do so for the maintenance of peace and order. He had no wish to advocate any Amendment that would impair the efficiency of the Bill; but he did ask the Committee if they thought any protection could be given to these people without impairing the efficiency of the measure to give them that protection, and not for a moment listen to such arguments as they had hoard from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. No doubt, he placed a larger amount of trust in Her Majesty's Government than the right hon. and learned Gentleman did; but he did not think it was necessary for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to place in the mouth of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary the words of the poet— Trust mo not at all; or all in all. That was the real argument which was at the root of the opposition to the Amendment. Hon. Members on the Front Opposition Bench met all the Amendments suggested with the remark that perfect trust was to be placed in Her Majesty's Government. The question was not whether they were to make a Court of Appeal, and what that Court of Appeal should be, but whether, if they gave to Her Majesty's Government the power of arresting a man and imprisoning him without any evidence at all, it was just or fair that he should know the reason why he was arrested, and that his friends also should know. It would be taking up the time of the Committee unnecessarily and improperly if he were to enter at length into that point, because he was sure the Committee would feel that it was simply right and fair and reasonable that a man, when he was arrested, should be told the reason why he was arrested. It would be most unreasonable to commit a man to prison, and not to signify to him the nature of the crime charged against him. They heard from the Treasury Bench that if a man appeared to be innocent the Lord Lieutenant had power to discharge him. He admitted that the Lord Lieutenant would have that power; but it was also desirable that the man who was arrested should have every facility for laying before the Lord Lieutenant the grounds upon which he ought to be discharged. He did not want to make the House of Commons a Court of Appeal, nor to have every case dragged before the House in order to show that the suspicion upon which the Lord Lieutenant had acted was well founded; but he did want that the man, when arrested, should have every facility for satisfying the Lord Lieutenant that he was not guilty of the charge preferred against him. It was for that reason alone that he sup- ported the Amendment, and he trusted that the Committee would concur in the views of his right hon. Friend who had brought it forward. He trusted that the Government, before the Committee came to a decision, would re-consider the matter. On that (the Ministerial) side of the House, they certainly wished to see some attempt at conciliation in the matter. Many hon. Members, as well as himself, had been struck yesterday by the immediate effect produced upon the minds of the Committee by the conciliatory course taken by the Prime Minister. He was sure that the country was prepared to back up the Government in regard to the main principles of the Bill, and that they approved of the course taken by the House in reading it a second time. But he did not believe that the country would regard with favour the opposition in Committee of every attempt to mitigate the severity of the Bill wherever it might be safely mitigated. On the contrary, he believed it was the wish of the country generally to see every safeguard thrown round the persons who would be rendered liable to the operation of the measure.

MR. O'DONNELL

thought, quite apart from any intention of making the House of Commons a Court of Review or Final Appeal upon, the justice or injustice of arrests under the Act, that every facility should be given to the suspected and imprisoned man himself to supply the authorities with such proof as was in his power to show that he was unjustly suspected. If they were not arbitrarily to assume that the Government intended to be an unjust Government, and that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, whose name was synonymous with liberty and the protection of liberty in so many countries, meant to govern Ireland as an insulting and reckless tyrant, then, in justice to the Government themselves, they ought to place within the power of persons suspected under the Act a full and fair opportunity of proving to the Government whether or not they were justly suspected. When a man was arrested on information derived from a source with which he could not be acquainted, and sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment upon such information, without any statement being made to him as to the nature of the act on suspi- cion of which he was subjected to this heavy punishment, no matter how innocent he might be, and how inclined the Government might be, if he showed his innocence, to liberate him, it would be impossible, in the absence of some such Amendment as that moved by the right hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), to place the Government in possession of the facts of the case. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the late Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) was quite within his role, as a Party champion, in supporting the new reading which the Chief Secretary had given of the declaration of the Government on the subject. But the last declarations of the Chief Secretary were in direct contradiction to the pledges which the Government gave in the earlier stages of the Bill. The Government pledged themselves to lay upon the Table of the House the Returns of arrests, together with such explanations of the grounds of the arrests as would allow hon. Members to challenge the conduct of the Government. If there was to be nothing laid upon the Table of the House but the vague, ambiguous, and misleading statement that A. B, the imprisoned and suspected person, was guilty of some act coming under a general head of intimidation or inciting to an act of violence, there would be no data furnished to the House upon which they could proceed, or upon which any individual Member could proceed, in bringing the case under the notice of the House, or in pursuing any course which might tend to elucidate the right or the wrong of the matter. The Amendment only sought to provide that every warrant by which a person might be declared To be reasonably suspected of any crime or crimes other than high treason, treason-felony, or treasonable practices, should specify such crime or crimes with particulars of time and place. Did Her Majesty's Government intend to put a man in gaol without a reasonable suspicion that he had committed any specified act whatever, without acquainting him with the particulars of time and place under which he was suspected; and did they intend, under such circumstances, to sentence him to a long term of imprisonment? If they did not intend to do so, they were bound by every consideration—by Constitutional decency itself—to furnish the accused with these particulars, and to furnish Parliament with the particulars also. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had now cast them ask aside, and had declared that there was to be no appeal from the act of the Government under the provisions of this measure; that there was to be no opportunity given to the Irish Members or to the accused persons to test the accuracy of the charges on which the Irish people were to be deprived of their liberty. If that was the case, it was a bare, and naked, and insulting despotism which the Government sought to impose upon Ireland. The Government, strong in the possession of their. Liberal majority, might defy the public conscience itself; they might scorn the protests of the Irish Members, but, before long, the Liberal Government would not be the Liberal Government, but only a Liberal Opposition in that House; and on that day it would be remembered bitterly to them how they had insulted and how they had defied the Irish nation, and refused to the Irish people even the poor guarantee of having it stated under what circumstances of time and place Irish citizens were to be deprived of their freedom, their liberties, and their rights. He had said that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the late Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) was perfectly within his role as a Party champion in coining forward and supporting the apostacy of the Liberal Party, because it would be a trump card for the Tory Party to remind not only their own supporters, but all that intermediate class of politicians who were in the habit of wavering between Party and Party, and who formed their opinions independent of Party considerations, how a Liberal Government dealt with the protestations and appeals of the Irish nation. A Tory Government might feel justified in refusing all particulars and all concessions, because they based their right on more authority; but it was the policy and the pretence of Liberalism that it only interfered with private or public liberty on specific grounds and for weighty reasons. ["Question!"] That was exactly the question, and hon. Members should not try to throw an obstacle in the way of the exposure of Her Majesty's Government on this particular question and on this specific Amendment. If Her Ma- jesty's Government did not intend to establish an unmitigated and irresponsible tyranny in Ireland they were bound to accept this Amendment. ["Question!"]

MR. MACLIVER

asked if the hon. Member was speaking to the Question before the Committee?

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is certainly going somewhat wide of the Question; still, I can see the way in which he desires to make his argument bear.

MR. O'DONNELL

was not surprised at being interrupted by an hon. Member who sat in the immediate vicinity of Her Majesty's Government. Her Majesty's Government, had, doubtless, instructed their supporters not to see the relevancy of any argument that might be brought forward by the defenders of the rights of the Irish people. The Irish people and the Irish Members had been deceived from the beginning to the end by Her Majesty's Government. The Government now openly refused the acceptance of the most moderate precautions and the most just provisions suggested in the Amendment of the right hon. Member for Halifax. Their last hope was gone that an opportunity was to be given to the House—in which, most assuredly, Irish nationality did not stand at a premium—to revise, or consider, or examine, with the slightest acquaintance with the details, the policy of Her Majesty's Government in Ire-land. Her Majesty's Government had entered into a compact with themselves —and there was no authority they respected more highly—to carry this Bill through Committee without amendment.

THE CHAIRMAN

That argument has been so often repeated that it carries the hon. Gentleman quite out of sight of the Amendment before the Committee.

MR. O'DONNELL

was prepared to accept with the greatest satisfaction the ruling of the Chair, and was prepared to admit that it was now taken as a common-place truism on both sides of the House that such was the policy of Her Majesty's Government. At the same time, he respectfully submitted that if the Government reasonably suspected a man, they were bound to state the reasons on which they suspected him, and if they refused the reasons the Irish Members could only come to the conclu- sion that there had been a change in the constitution of the European State systems, and that Bomba, no longer King of Naples, was now Member for Mid Lothian.

MR. H. SAMUELSON

would respectfully appeal to Her Majesty's Government to consent to this Amendment. ["Oh!"] Hon. Members were impatient; but he did not see how the Bill could be properly discussed if hon. Members such as himself, who had hitherto taken no part in the discussion, were not to be allowed to offer an opinion. As he had said, he was anxious to make an appeal to the Government not to reject the Amendment. Hitherto they had not found their supporters on that side of the House backward in giving them every assistance in their power. They had all of them put a trust in the present Government, which they would not have put in any other Government they had known in past times. They had voted for the Bill, although they strongly disliked it, because they had full confidence in the present occupants of the Treasury Bench, and because they felt bound to take their word, given upon their reponsibility as Ministers of the Crown, that it was absolutely necessary for the restoration of law and order in Ireland. Many of them would not have voted for it if it had come from the opposite side of the House. He felt himself justified in making this appeal, because they had voted, having confidence in Her Majesty's Government, in the full belief that the true interests and the real liberty of the subject would not be allowed to be interfered with by the Bill. They had not the same confidence that such a measure would have been moderately carried out by those to whom they were politically opposed. But having supported the Bill for the reasons he had stated, they asked the Government to assist them now, and in return to have some confidence in their supporters, when their supporters felt impelled by a sense of duty to oppose them in some of the details of the Bill. The Amendment was offered in no obstructive spirit, the name of the right hon. Gentleman who had introduced it, himself a former Cabinet Minister, being a sufficient guarantee that it deserved consideration, and the want of readiness to meet the Amendment was more likely to delay the progress of the Bill than the accept- ance of so reasonable a proposition. He I had been for ten years a Member of that. House, and he had never seen a measure of such magnitude and importance j passed through the House without Amendment. He fully believed the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary when he stated that although the Government would like to have the Bill passed without Amendment, yet they would not attempt to adhere to that resolution if any Amendment was pro-posed which they believed they could reasonably accept. The hon. Member who last addressed the House had spoken of the Government in a manner which he (Mr. Samuelson) believed to be perfectly unwarranted. Such language made it difficult for independent, Members to vote with the Irish Party. There had never been a Government which had done more for Ireland, or intended to do more for it. The Amendment proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax would not, in his opinion, have the effect of altering the real purpose and tenour of the Bill. It would be no more likely to make that House act as a Court of Appeal than the Bill would as it stood at present, by the 3rd section. On the contrary, it seemed less likely that attacks would be made on Her Majesty's Government for the action of the Lord Lieutenant when evidence was given as to the reason why a man was committed to prison without trial, or arrested on suspicion upon a warrant, than if he were committed to prison on general grounds. In supporting the Amendment, he believed he was fully justified by his relations with his constituents. When he consulted them some time ago, he told them he would vote for the passage of the Bill through the House; but that he would consider every Amendment proposed in Committee, and vote for or against it as he thought right. He thought in this case the Amendment would not, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) had stated, in any way revoke the trust which Parliament agreed to place in the hands of Her Majesty's Government; because, although, at the present moment, by Section 3 the consideration of every case was committed to the House, yet they all knew that every single case was not intended to be considered in detail on its merits. The only object was to give an opportunity, in a case of imprisonment on insufficient grounds, to impeach the officers of the Government for their action. He gathered that the words which followed in this very clause— And every such warrant shaft be conclusive evidence of alt matters therein contained, and of the jurisdiction to issue and execute such warrant, and of the legality of the arrest and detention of the person mentioned in such warrant, would altogether prevent the House from passing in detailed review every individual case of arrest. He thought the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax, in proposing this Amendment, was actuated by the belief that there was a general wish on the part of the House to take away, if possible, from the Bill anything which might be unnecessarily oppressive. The Amendment was proposed in order that the country might be satisfied that some definite offence was aimed at by the person arrested, and that he was not arrested for a course of conduct which, in the opinion of the authorities at Dublin Castle, might, in some indefinite manner, be calculated to lead to a breach of the eace. He could assure the Government that if they accepted the Amendment, or something that would have the same effect, it would be satisfactory to Members on that side of the House. He felt disposed to support Her Majesty's Government in regard to the Bill as he had done hitherto; but he did think it would be a graceful act on their part if, instead of resisting every Amendment, they were willing to accept one which was proposed in no factious spirit, but because it was believed that, while not impairing the value of the Bill, it would give to the country at large and the people of Ireland, and the Members of that House, a satisfactory feeling that nothing was intended to be done that was not perfectly fair and above board in the matter of these arrests.

MR. DILLON

remarked, that this was one of the most important Amendments that had been placed on the Paper. The principle at stake was an exceedingly great one—namely, whether the interpretation of the purpose of the Bill which had been given by the Prime Minister was the true interpretation, or the interpretation which had been given by the Chief Secretary. In order to illustrate the principle underlying the Amend- ment, it was necessary to point out that the Prime Minister had announced a totally different intention for the Bill to that which had been stated by the Chief Secretary, and the difference between the two was covered by the Amendment. The Prime Minister stated distinctly that the Bill was not to be used to interfere with any particular agitation or any particular association, even where advice was given to break contracts, but only to advice given that was calculated to incite to acts of violence, or to persons who were suspected of doing such acts of violence. The Chief Secretary announced that the Bill had a totally different purpose—namely, to break down a great political association and destroy its power. Many hon. Members believed in the existence of the village ruffian; but that frightful creature had no existence in Ireland. The question at issue, in rejecting this Amendment, was whether the Government were to have the power over an immense body of men, who had been accused in that House, amidst almost universal cheers, of adopting a line of conduct which led to violence, outrage, and intimidation. These men had been accused by Her Majesty's Government, and by the author of this Bill, of adopting that course; and, if the Amendment were not accepted, there was no man belonging to the association of the Land League who would not fall under the operation of the Bill. When the Act was passed it would simply be a question of selection with the Government whom they would allow to go free and whom they would arrest. But if the Amendment were accepted, no doubt a considerable check would be imposed upon the action of the Government, because they would not then be in a position to make a general charge against a man, but would be required to state in the warrant the particular act to which he incited, or in which he took part, and in that case the arrests would be very few indeed. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had argued that, if he acceded to this Amendment, Parliament would be turned into a Court of Appeal. But, as the last hon. Member who supported the Amendment pointed out, that would be rendered impossible. It was much more likely that Parliament would be turned into a Court of Appeal if the Amendment were not adopted, because, when Irish Members saw laid upon the Table of the House the names of parties arrested upon unfounded charges, they would call upon the Government for explanation, and, if that was refused, they would be accused of arresting persons without grounds and without warrant. So far, then, from Parliament being converted into a Court of Appeal, the Amendment would have an opposite tendency, because, the cause of arrest being stated clearly on the face of the warrant, it could be pointed to at once as the justification of what had been done. Therefore, the great argument on which the Chief Secretary relied was in favour of the Amendment and against his own case. But it was clear that the question was not one of argument at all. The Government were determined to get the Bill passed without alterations.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, he had noticed in the speech that had just been delivered, and all through the debate, that great anxiety had been manifested by the Loaders of the Conservative Party in that House, not merely to get this Bill passed, but to get it passed in the most stringent terms possible, and to keep it fully up to the mark at which the Government had introduced it into the House. He could not but remember that some hon. Gentlemen had been claiming for their Party a balance in their favour of Coercion Bills for Ireland, and that the custom had been for the Liberal Party to bring in Coercion Acts, which were afterwards rescinded by the Tories.

THE CHAIRMAN

pointed out that this line of argument was irrelevant to the Amendment before the Committee.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, one of the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary amounted to this—that if the Amendment were accepted one of the conditions which would arise was that too much testimony might be offered to the Government in favour of the innocence of men whom they had arrested. No doubt, it would be very inconvenient to them, when they had imprisoned a man on a groundless charge, that the whole neighbourhood should come forward and testify to his innocence. Was there, he asked, anything unfair or unreasonable in giving an accused man an opportunity of saying a few words in explanation of the cir- cumstances connected with the charge made against him. But the Chief Secretary for Ireland feared that too much testimony of this sort would be adduced, and he asked the Committee to believe that it would be false testimony. He affected to believe that the terror of the Land League would make people sign an untrue statement and send it up to the Castle. He (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) objected to such wholesale defamation of the Irish people. The allegation of the right hon. Gentleman was a slander on the Irish people and a defamation of their character. The right hon. Gentleman had no right to level such an accusation against the Irish people; and he would tell him that, taking the Irish community in any parish, town, or village, he would find amongst them men who had as great a respect for their words, and for the truth of any statement to which they signed their names, as himself. The question of incitement to intimidation came within the scope of the Amendment also. Meetings had already been summoned in various parts of Ireland, which had been objected to by the local landlords on the ground that they were intended to intimidate. This Bill meant the prohibition of all meetings, no matter how innocent the intention with which they were summoned, because, no sooner would it be announced that a meeting was about to be held in connection with the question of Land Law Reform in parts of Ireland than the landlords would consider they were about to be intimidated, and men would be denounced to the Government. That was one of the penalties under the clause. It appeared to him that the Chief Secretary wanted to have the power in his hands to prevent anybody proving or testifying to the innocence of another, so far as the acts contemplated by this measure were concerned. The right hon. Gentleman wished his suspicions to be all-sufficient for the sacrifice of the liberties of the Irish people. The grounds of arrest would not be stated, but would remain secreted in the breasts of the informers and the Chief Secretary. Irishmen might be compelled to submit to the superior armed force of England; but the state of things he had described was an outrage against their feelings and sense of justice, as it ought to be against those of every honest man in this country also.

MR. HEALY

said, the Amendment only proposed to effect a very simple matter—namely, that the act of the offender should be stated on the warrant. If the Chief Secretary was sincere in declaring that it was desirable that his powers under this Act should be defined, he was quite unable to understand why he opposed the Amendment. If Her Majesty's Government would not agree to Amendments of this character, of course he and his hon. Friends would be obliged to propose further Amendments, in the discharge of their duty to their constituents. It had been more than once charged that some of the Amendments from that quarter of the House had not been made bona fide; but that could not be alleged against the present Amendment, which came from a Gentleman who occupied a considerable position in the last Liberal Administration. He submitted that when the Radical section opposite voted with so much facility for the second reading, it was in the hope that they would be able to effect some modification of the provisions of the Bill in Committee Their present experience would, he trusted, be a lesson to them with regard to Bills introduced by the Government. The right hon. Member for Halifax had made a remarkable admission in saying that he supported the Government so far because of his confidence in the Prime Minister and Chief Secretary for Ireland, and upon that ground he had voted for the second reading of the Bill; but he had now found out that when the Government had succeeded in their object they throw their supporters overboard.

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out to the hon. Member that he is travelling beyond the Question before the Committee.

MR. HEALY

regretted the Chairman had ruled him out of Order; and would only say, in conclusion, that as the Chief Secretary for Ireland had admitted there was no remedy for injustice under this Bill, he and his hon. Friends would take that admission as a charter for proceeding in their opposition to the measure.

MR. MORGAN LLOYD

understood the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) to state his wish that the crime charged against a man should be stated on the face of the warrant, but that he did not require time and place to be stated at all. He (Mr. M. Lloyd) asked the Attorney General for Ireland, Whether the Bill, as it stood, did not comply with what the hon. Member required? The words of the 1st clause were these— Any person who is declared by the Lord Lieutenant to be reasonably suspected of having, either before or after the passing of this Act, been guilty as principal or accessory of high treason, treason-felony, or treasonable practices, or of any crime punishable by law, being an act of violence or intimidation. The warrant must, therefore, declare, or, in other words, specify the offence, which was all the hon. Member for Wexford asked for. The Amendment now before the Committee proposed that in addition to that the time and place of the offence should be stated in the warrant. Now, such an addition would defeat the object of the Bill. This exceptional legislation was required because witnesses were prevented by terrorism from coming forward to give evidence, and required the protection of secrecy. But that object would be defeated if a clue were given to the informant which would be the necessary result of specifying the time and place of the offence in the warrant. He thought therefore, the Committee ought to be satisfied with the Bill as it stood.

MR. P. MARTIN

said, by the wording of the clause there was no offence known to the law which led to an act of violence or intimidation, or one which in any way disturbed the maintenance of law and order, which did not come under the provisions of the Bill. His hon. Friends opposite were, therefore, right in assuming that any speech made at a Land League meeting, which might be considered by the Chief Secretary as inciting to an act of violence and intimidation, or as interfering with the maintenance of law and order, would come directly within the purview of the Bill. Mr. Justice Fitzgerald had said it was not a crime for a tenant to refuse to pay rent; but that it was a crime for three or four persons to combine to induce another not to pay. If that were correct, the Land League meetings hold for the purpose of inducing tenants not to pay rents that were not just and reasonable were held for the purpose of doing that which Mr. Justice Fitzgerald said was an illegal act. Consequently, if at such a meeting a speech were delivered calculated to lead, in a prescribed district, to an act of violence and intimidation, it would seem that the subsequent part of the clause was entirely unnecessary, because the speech itself would be one tending to interfere with the maintenance of law and order. Unfortunately, he happened to be one of those Members who sat on that (the Ministerial) side of the House, and who had undergone some amount of condemnation from certain of their constituents for not having joined with those who sat on the opposite side; and, in his opinion, they had been unjustly condemned in that respect. Nevertheless, he would say that, in his opinion, it was only fair and right that when a crisis of the character dealt with by this measure occurred in regard to Ireland, care should be taken to provide that in a measure which embraced every variety of offence that could be committed with regard to person and property, the warrants on which persons might be arrested and detained in prison for a period of 18 months, without trial, should state where and when the offences charged were committed. For the Government to say that the warrant would, under the terms of the clause, set forth the grounds of the arrest, would be highly illusory, unless the Amendment were accepted, as, in that case, all the arrested person would have before him would be a simple statement of the statutory offence. He desired to press this matter on the attention of Her Majesty's Government all the more strongly, when it was remembered how it would be likely to operate in practice with regard to the leaders of the existing organization. They all know what had been the result of every movement similar to the present that had taken place in Ireland. The men who led those movements were able to keep at a safe distance, while those who suffered on account of what was clone under the direction of the leaders—the men who, in a moment of excitement, when, perchance, their passions had been aroused, had listened to the counsels of others, and had allowed themselves to be betrayed into speeches for which they might next da}' be sorry —it was men of this class and character, who had not entered into a deliberate conspiracy, but who had been betrayed into the momentary commission of some offence against the law, who had to undergo the punishment provided by those repressive measures. Seeing that such persons were to be arrested and detained on the mere statement of the Chief Secretary, surely the grounds of the arrest, with a statement of the time and place at which the alleged offence was committed, ought to be stated on the warrant, so that their friends and neighbours might have the opportunity of knowing what there was to meet, and of coming forward with any evidence in exculpation they might be able to adduce. Surely it could not be the desire of Her Majesty's Government that a single person should be arrested under the Lord Lieutenant's warrant beyond those who wilfully, deliberately, and persistently committed crime of the character dealt with by this Bill? Under these circumstances, he hoped Her Majesty's Government would not do what, would be, not an act of firmness, but— and he said it with all due respect for the Government—an act of obstinacy, and refuse to accede to the general manifestation of feeling that had come in the course of this discussion, not only from hon. Members sitting on the Benches opposite, but from independent Members occupying seats on the Government side of the House.

THR ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

said, it appeared to him that a good deal of misapprehension had been evidenced by the turn the discussion had taken on the Amendment before the Committee. He hoped there was no hon. Member who supposed that any warrant would be issued that did not set forth one of the crimes mentioned in the Bill, for which persons might be arrested and punished. As a matter of course the warrant would state the particular crime of which the person arrested was suspected to have been guilty. The hon. Member (Mr. Martin) who had just sat down had repeated a statement, made more than once during that discussion, that the Bill dealt with every kind of offence. He must take leave to say that it did not deal with every class of offence; but, on the contrary, left out of its scope every kind of offence not coming within the category of those which it distinctly specified. It did not, for example, deal with a class of crime to which attention had been called—he alluded to conspiracy to induce people not to pay their debts— which was not a crime of violence or intimidation, unless it could be shown that intimidation was used as the mode of inducement. A great deal had been said as to the necessity of specifying the crimes for which arrests were made; and although he had pointed out that the Bill had provided for such specification, he would state that if there was any real doubt as to whether the warrant would sufficiently state the nature of the crime, he could see no objection to words more expressly setting this forth being added to the Bill at a future stage. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) had asked that there should be inserted in the warrant not merely the nature of the crime, but also "particulars of time and place." Now, with regard to this portion of the Amendment, he would merely point to the manner in which such a provision would be almost certain to act. They knew that pressure would, in all probability, be brought to bear on every hon. Member representing an Irish constituency to interest himself with respect to cases occurring in his own county or district, and that the representations made to those hon. Members would be backed up by all sorts of certificates and testimonials, and, in fact, by a class of evidence which that House would have no means of sifting except by the appointment of a Select Committee to investigate each case upstairs; and he did not suppose that it was intended to ask the House to appoint Committees thus to examine evidence in whatever cases of arrest under this Act might be brought before them. One strong reason why this portion of the Amendment would be found impracticable in it3 actual working was this— many of the offences named in the Bill were offences committed not by one person only, but by a number of persons; and if it wore made necessary to state on each warrant the full particulars with regard to time and place, and all the grounds on which the persons arrested were suspected of having committed these crimes, the difficulty of obtaining information against their accomplices would be greatly increased. It should be remembered that the main principle of the Bill was based on the assumption that the Executive had not a perfect case such as they could, under ordinary circumstances, put before a jury and support by evidence detailing the circumstances of time and place under which the of- fences charged were committed. On those grounds he thought the Committee would not act wisely in accepting this part of the Amendment moved by the right hon. Gentleman; but with regard to the specification of the nature of the crime, he repeated that he should have no objection to the addition of such words as would remove any doubt that might be found to exist, and assist in carrying out more completely the objects of the Bill.

MR. STANSFELD

said, he was aware that, under the new Rules, he had no right of reply; but he might be allowed, by permission of the Committee, to say that he was afraid his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland had not correctly stated the argument he had put before the Committee. He was not quite so ignorant of law as the right hon. and learned Gentleman supposed, and in the Amendment he had moved he did not wish the crime to be defined on the hypothesis that it was necessary to put the case as one that was to go before a jury; all he had really desired was that the actual fact which brought the person arrested under one of the categories of crime named in the Bill should be specified.

MR. GRAY

said, he had not intended to have taken any part in that discussion; but he could not help pointing out, as he had felt it necessary to do once before, the extraordinary divergence of views which seemed to exist on this question between hon. and right hon. Gentlemen seated on the Treasury Bench. In a speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland they had been told that the perpetrators and abettors of outrages were perfectly known to the police, but that the difficulty was in getting juries to convict, and that he would have a great amount of labour in carrying out the Amendment, and he had, therefore, resisted it; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland now said that the powers of the Bill were required because the evidence was imperfect, and the Government would be obliged to arrest before a case was at all made out. When these two assertions were laid side by side, it appeared to him that it required some little explanation to show their consistency.

DR. COMMINS

said, he desired to say a few words on this question. He held that the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) had not been met at all. The right hon. Gentleman had contended that no such thing as arbitrary power, free from check or control, was necessary, or ought to be suffered to exist in this country; and he had, therefore, brought forward a proposal which he thought would act as a salutary check on the exercise of that power. In doing that, the right hon. Gentleman was only following the traditions of English liberty. Giving Her Majesty's Government the benefit, as he did, for the best and purest intentions with regard to this measure, he, at the same time, in order to furnish a check against any mistakes had moved an Amendment declaring that no warrant should be issued that did not specify not only the nature of the crime charged against the person arrested, but also particulars of time and place at which the offence was committed. How had the argument of the right hon. Gentleman been met by the Chief Secretary? The Chief Secretary had stated that there were seven varieties of crime provided for in the Bill, and that the Amendment dealt with the four later ones—namely, crimes of violence or intimidation, and incitement to crimes of violence or intimidation. The Chief Secretary had said it would be quite sufficient to give the heading of whichever of those four crimes happened to be the one on which an individual might be arrested. Now, he (Dr. Commins) would ask what information would this give either to that House or to the individual himself, provided he should receive a copy of the warrant specifying the particular crime he was charged with having committed? Let them take, for instance, a specific crime—say that of burglary. What information could be derived from the statement that a person was arrested on a charge of burglary? The Amendment proposed to be made by the Attorney General for Ireland showed that the Government had not fully made up their minds how they should proceed. As the matter now stood, supposing a man should be accused of burglary, there being 32 counties in Ireland, unless the time and place were specified on the warrant, and the circumstances stated, it would be impossible, on a mere review of the warrant, to tell in which of those 32 counties the burglary had taken place —whether it was in the castle of a lord or in a cottage of a peasant in a bog. Therefore, he asserted that even the concession offered by the Attorney General for Ireland amounted, in reality, to no concession at all. Supposing an act of violence were alleged; it might be an assault on the police, or an assault on a bailiff, or an assault on a landlord; it might be an attempt on the life of one of these persons, or it might be anything at all, from the smallest offence possible to the endeavour to commit a murder, and it might have happened in any one of the 1,030 parishes in Ireland. Therefore, by such a legal designation of the offence as the Attorney General for Ireland was willing to allow to appear on the warrant, there would be no check at all on the undue exercise of the arbitrary power conferred by the Bill, and there would be no guide whatever to hon. Gentlemen in that House as to whether any particular case had occurred in this or that locality, and whether the powers vested in the Irish Executive had, or had not, been exceeded. But the Chief Secretary had said, if the Amendment were admitted it would be giving the arbitrary power asked for with one hand and taking it away with the other. This, however, was not so. It would leave the arbitrary power where the carrying of the second reading of the Bill had placed it; and all it would do beyond this would be to set forth that Englishmen were not prepared to see left undone that which would place some kind of check on arbitrary power. He was surprised that the legal mind of the Chief Secretary had not seen it in this light. Another argument used in reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax was that it was objectionable to give the place at which an offence was committed, because, by doing so, they would be alarming all the other persons who were supposed to have been concerned in the commission of the particular act of violence or intimidation specified on the warrant. But one of the very things which the Bill proposed to do, and which it ought to do, was to alarm these people. If a particular act, committed at a particular place, were to be so specified, this very fact would tend to prevent a repetition of that act. In point of fact, not one of the arguments that had been used in reply to the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Stansfold) was at all conclusive; in fact, they went in an opposite direction to what was intended. He submitted, with confidence, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax had made out his case for the insertion of the Amendment, and that it ought to be adopted by Her Majesty's Government, unless they were prepared to yield up all claims to the confidence of the House, and to turn their backs on all the traditions of English liberty and English law.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)

desired to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) to what it was that he was asking the Committee to do. It was admitted that upon the face of every warrant it would be necessary to state the nature of the crime for which the arrest was made. This was the case with every warrant issued under the ordinary law of the country; and the right hon. Gentleman was probably aware that no warrant could be issued without that fact appearing upon it. But the right hon. Gentleman was not satisfied with what would, under ordinary circumstances, appear on the warrant. He asked that those facts should be stated which pointed out the nature of the crime. These facts would require the insertion of particulars of time and place, which need not appear in warrants issued according to the general law. If the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman were adopted, the House of Commons would have placed before it, not an ordinary warrant, but what would really constitute an indictment; and he apprehended that it was not intended that each case in which a warrant was issued should be placed before that House as if it were an indictment in a case for trial. If that were to be done, the House had better not have passed the second reading of the Bill.

MR. STANSFELD

desired, with the leave of the Committee, to offer a further explanation. He had not proposed that the Lord Lieutenant's warrant should contain the particulars ordinarily contained in an information or indictment. All he had proposed was that the offence should be specified, with particulars of time and place. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General had stated that no warrant now issued contained particulars of time and place. He (Mr. Stansfeld) probably had no right to say a word in opposition to such an authority; but he had always understood—and if he found he was wrong in what he was about to state he would apologize to the hon. and learned Gentleman at some future stage of the Bill—that, though a warrant did not contain the particulars of an information or indictment, it did state that upon such a day and in such a place a specific act took place.

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA

said, the hon. and learned Attorney General had put it to the Committee that if they had desired that every warrant should specify time and place, and the circumstances giving rise to the arrest, the House ought not to have passed the second reading of the Bill. In reply to that, he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) said all that was desired by this Amendment was that the warrant should show to anyone who was arrested the time and place at which the offence of which he was suspected was alleged to have been committed, not for the purpose of multiplying inquiries before that House, but rather of offering a guarantee that the law was properly carried out. What, he asked, could be simpler than to state that A. B. was arrested on suspicion of being one of the parties who had set fire to a house on a particular day in Wexford? If it were proveable afterwards that no such house had been burned, he thought the nature of the warrant would offer ground for appealing to the Lord Lieutenant to allow the release of the man. If a man's liberty was to be taken away on grounds so general as the burning of a house, everyone might be taken up on some such bogus crime and detained until the law expired. What the Attorney General had conceded was merely a concession in terms, and not in fact. To say that a man was suspected of some general crime was not a justification for his arrest, and what all notions of fair play and the least those who prized the liberty of the subject required was that there should be on the warrant a sufficient specification of the offence.

MR. BIGGAR

, referring to the argugument that if that Amendment were adopted it would make the House a Final Court of Appeal, and each individual case of imprisonment would be argued in the House, said, nothing was further from practice than that course. All that the passage of the Amendment would amount to would be that in any particular case in which a case could be made out for revision of the decision it might be submitted to the House to consider the justice of the arrest. He said the consideration of the case would not be so much in the form of a debate as of a chat with the Chief Secretary. In point of fact, as the matter stood then, the right hon. Gentleman said he would draw the words of the warrant in such a way that it would be perfectly impossible to identify a crime charged against a man; and he thought it would be well for the Committee to reserve to itself some power of re-considering decisions that were given by the Lord Lieutenant, and should give an arrested man an opportunity, if he was innocent, of showing that he was not guilty of the offence of which he was suspected. The proposition of the Government was very illogical, and it was not creditable from any point of view; and he urged the Committee to agree to the Amendment. Other Amendments had been refused which would have given some opportunity for re-considering decisions of the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary; and he thought this was as reasonable a one as any of them, and it would be unjust of the Government not to assent to it.

MR. LEAMY

said, he would occupy the Committee no further than to read a copy of a warrant of apprehension which he found in Burns' Justice of the Peace. It ran as follows: — To the Constable of (), and to all other peace officers in said county of ()—Whereas, A. B., of (), has this day been charged before one of Her Majesty's justices of the peace in and for said county, for that ho, on (here state offence shortly). After that he would say no more.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 96; Noes 220: Majority 124.—(Div. List, No. 46.)

THE CHAIRMAN

Before the hon. Member for Carlow County (Mr. Gray) moves his Amendment, I will call the attention of the hon. Gentleman to the fact that the first part of his Amendment is substantially the same as that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld); and it is, therefore, incompetent for him to move that part which goes so very near to the Amendment which has already been decided. But the Amendment then pro- ceeds to enable the High Court of Justice, within three days from the making of an application, to hear evidence on behalf of the person arrested. The hon. Member proposes to put that provision after the words "Lord Lieutenant" in line 17. The preceding words have, however, expressly declared that no Court shall try a prisoner without the direction of the Lord Lieutenant. The proposed Amendment is, therefore, entirely inconsistent with the words which would precede it, and, therefore, cannot be put.

MR. GRAY

asked if he was to understand that he could not put his Amendment?

THE CHAIRMAN

Except the first part, which, however, is very near the Amendment which has just been decided, although it is technically different.

MR. GRAY

said, he would put as much as he was permitted to propose, and leave the Chairman to strike out what he might not put.

THE CHAIRMAN

It is not the duty of the Chair to modify any Amendments.

MR. GRAY

said, some portion of his Amendment was totally different, and asked whether he would be allowed to propose that part?

THE CHAIRMAN

That part is inconsistent with the previous words of the clause.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

said, he had an Amendment to propose which came before that of the hon. Member for Carlow County, and was similar in words to that of the hon. Member, striking out that portion to which the Chairman objected. He should propose after the word "application" in his hon. Friend's Amendment to add words which would require that when the person was arrested a statement of the grounds upon which the arrest was made should be furnished, and that upon application by the person arrested to the governor or other officer of the prison, denying that he had committed the offence, he should be heard within three days of making the application.

THE CHAIRMAN

Such an Amendment would be perfectly inconsistent with the previous words in the line.

MR. O'DONNELL

asked whether it could not be moved at that point, that every person arrested should, at the time of arrest, be furnished with a copy of the wan-ant and a statement of the act or acts upon which the arrest was made?

THE CHAIRMAN

Yes.

MR. O'DONNELL

thought it would commend itself to the sense and the feelings of the Committee that the person arrested should, at the time of the arrest, receive a statement on the face of the warrant showing the actual act with which he was charged; and he thought the fact that a considerable number of hon. Members had supported a some-what similar Amendment recently was an additional argument why the Government should grant that simple concession to the prisoners.

Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 17, after the words "Lord Lieutenant," to insert the words, "Provided, That every person so arrested shall, at the time of his arrest, be furnished with a copy of the warrant, and with a statement of the act or acts for which the arrest has been made."—(Mr. O'Donnell.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

said, it appeared to him that the Amendment was substantially the same in form as that which had already been decided, and he could not accept it.

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA

contended that every alleged offence should be distinctly specified, so that if it were found afterwards that it had not occurred the accused person might be set at liberty. Suppose it was believed that a man had been killed, and some other man was arrested on suspicion of being either principal or accessory in the killing of that person, and it was afterwards found that the man was living, would not that be a miscarriage of the law to require redress? He did not wish to take away the power of the Lord Lieutenant to arrest a man who was suspected of an offence, oven of one which might not have been committed; but it was most important that the man who was suspected of a particular offence should have a right to claim to show that he ought not to have been arrested, for instance, for killing the man, seeing that the man was living. He thought it was scarcely asking the Government to make any considerable stretch to accept the Amendment, because they were receiving the power to arrest; and what he urged was that it was only reasonable that there should be some means by which the ar- rested man should be able to prove his innocence of an offence which had not been committed.

DR. COMMINS

supported the Amendment. He failed to see any force in the objection taken to it by the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

urged the Government to accept the Amendment. They must, at all events, conceive it to be possible that the Lord Lieutenant would have the pain of mind of discovering, in some case or other, that he had been misled; but to whoso interest would it be to show that he had made even one error in 100 cases? It certainly would not be to the interest of the police who led him into it; it would be the friends of the injured man. But how were these persons to find out the error if they did not know the charge? Some of the men who would be imprisoned under the Act would leave parents, children, brothers, behind them; and was it to be supposed that for 18 months these people would deplore the absence of members of their family without making some effort to get them out of prison? If they' believed in the innocence of their relatives in prison, would they—and he would put it to any Member of the Government who had children or had those who were near and dear to him—let those relatives lie down and languish for 18 months without making a manly effort to prove their innocence? Certainly not; but how were they to know their relatives were wrongfully arrested, and how were they to make an effort for their release unless they knew the charge? This was a matter upon which it would not do for the Chief Secretary to remain silent, for the case was put to him on the ground of common justice, and common humanity. The question pressed for a reply, and the Chief Secretary was bound to give one, bound by his duty to the country, by his duty to the Committee, and by his own public character and reputation, which, until the right hon. Gentleman put his hand to this Bill, had borne no stain of public cruelty or savage severity. Did the right hon. Gentleman wish to assume that he was right in every act he performed? However high their opinion might be of him they hardly accredited him with infallibility; and if he claimed that on the present issue it would be difficult for them to believe in his sincerity as they used to. No doubt, efforts had been made in other shapes to get a provision inserted in the Bill requiring an explicit statement of the charges on which persons were to be sent to prison; but it was the duty of the Irish Members to exhaust every conceivable means of obtaining that statement. It was their duty to imagine every form of words or phrase which could raise this issue of putting on record the charges against suspected persons, in order that the Lord Lieutenant might have the chance afforded him of finding out in six, nine, or twelve months time, that he had made a mistake in a particular instance. The Lord Lieutenant might be right in ten cases; but he might be wrong in the eleventh. Men as able, as keen, as wise, as honest, as painstaking, as the Lord Lieutenant had admittedly committed errors in the past; and he did not blame them. To err was human. No doubt, other high officials had executed their powers to the utmost in good faith, nevertheless it was too much to contemplate that even one man in 20 might be wrongfully incarcerated under the Bill. He would appeal to the Committee-—to English Gentlemen whose friends would not feel the wrong and injury which would be done under this measure. They were in the enjoyment of comfort and case, and luxury, and came here only to listen to that which seemed to them a tedious debate. ["Hear, hear!"] There! that cheer showed he saw what was in hon. Gentlemen's minds. They did not feel as the Irish Members felt. None of their constituents would be in danger; no wrong, no oppression would touch those who were near and dear to them. But the Irish Members wore fighting here for those who were dear to them, and many who might be dear to them too—for they had. had members of their families inside prison cells ere now. They knew this Bill was levelled at public agitation in Ireland, and was intended to suppress a movement distasteful to the Irish landlords, in order that no outcry might be made against the miserable, half-hearted land measure that the re-actionary portion of the Cabinet might have determined to bring in. Would any hon. Member get up in his place and say that the friend or relative of a man imprisoned under this Act ought not to have the chance of going about in the parish collecting evidence, taking that evidence, when collected, to Dublin, and putting proof of the prisoner's innocence in the Lands of the Chief Secretary, saying—"I admit your power to keep my friend —or brother or father—in prison, and to keep him there for 18 months; but will yon ask the police in my village to look into these facts, will you yourself examine into them, and, if you find wrong has been done, reverse that wrong?" There was not a Turkish Pacha who would not grant so much to the most oppressed in all the dominions of the Sultan. He (Mr. Sullivan) was curious to know whether those amiable and estimable Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench, who posed as the friends of humanity all over the world, would say that the poor peasant of Ireland should not have the chance of proving his innocence before the Lord Lieutenant?

SIR JOHN HOLKER

said, he Lad given considerable attention to the Bill; and though he deemed it arbitrary, despotic, and somewhat tyrannical, he was prepared to give it his hearty support, because he considered it necessarily arbitrary, despotic, and tyrannical, the discontented, disaffected, and disloyal in Ireland having necessitated its introduction; but, at the same time, he could not conceive why they should make it more arbitrary, despotic, and tyrannical than was needful. he conceived it was one of the first principles of justice that a man who was arrested should know the why and the wherefore of his arrest. To lot a man arrested under this Bill know that would not weaken the efficiency of the measure, and might possibly conduce to great good, because it was possible to conceive that egregious mistakes might be committed. With such a provision as this in the Bill, the man who was arrested, or his friends, might possibly be able to demonstrate that a mistake Lad been made. He supported the Amendment simply on the ground that it could not weaken the Bill, but was essential if they wished to proceed on the lines of justice.

MR. STAYELEY HILL

said, that, with reference to the last Amendment, he agreed that there might be some difficulty in specifying "crime or crimes with particulars of time or place;" but he could not for the life of him see why they should allow a man to be arrested without giving him a copy of the warrant, with a statement of the act or acts for which the arrest Lad been made. He should most certainly vote for the Amendment.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)

said, the Committee should clearly understand the grounds upon which they were about to vote. They had stated that the warrant would show the nature of the crime, and that the person arrested was, therefore, entitled to know what he had been arrested for. A man would be able to see the warrant, which would be lodged in a public office; any solicitor could see it at any moment, and it would be laid before Parliament. With regard to the forcible observations of the hon. and learned Member for Preston (Sir John Holker) the matter narrowed itself down to the meaning of certain words in the Amendment. What was meant by "act or acts?" If they meant a statement of the crime in the warrant, of course that would be given, and a person would know what he was charged with; but if the words were to be taken as a statement of "time and place" they had already voted against that.

MR. M'COAN

No; the particular charge, the particular offence.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)

said, the hon. Member who was interrupting him would presently have an opportunity of expressing himself rather more regularly than he was now doing. If the hon. and learned Member for Preston (Sir John Holker) meant by "act or acts" that he wished to Lave "time and place" inserted in the warrant, they had already voted against that. He did not know how his hon. and learned Friend had voted; probably with the majority; he had often done so; and, if he had, he had voted against "time and place." Did the hon. and learned Gentleman wish to have evidence of the crime in the warrant; if so, he would have to contradict a vote he had already given.

SIR JOHN HOLKER

said, he had voted in the last division with the majority, because he believed the Amendment proposed to be, on the whole, impolitic, and not, perhaps, very reasonable. All he desired was that a man who was arrested should have a copy of the warrant. What that warrant should contain they had decided in the last division.

MR. ONSLOW

said, he was sorry he should have to vote against the late Attorney General. He was one of those who, to use a common expression, supported the Bill through thick and thin; and he intended to support Her Majesty's Government in carrying it, in whatever form they chose to submit it. On an important Amendment like this, the late Attorney General should, in his opinion, have objected to the second reading of the Bill, and not now go into the Lobby with the minority. This was a Bill of the greatest importance to thousands of Her Majesty's subjects, and the Amendment was of great importance; and it was the duty of the Conservative Party to support the Government in passing it, and to see that the measure went through Committee without Amendments of any hind, considering that the Conservative Party had, after mature consideration, agreed to support the Government in the passing of the Bill. No one in the House was more opposed to Her Majesty's Government on many subjects than he was; but, at the same time, he could not help thinking that the late Attorney General had made a great mistake in the remarks he had offered, and that the Conservative Party would scarcely be acting honourably if they opposed the Government on this important Amendment. He (Mr. Onslow) should not go into the same Lobby with him, as he intended to support Her Majesty's Government in all the clauses of the Bill.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I do not think it will be a question of going into the Lobby at all, because, so far as I can make out, no one agrees with the hon. and learned Gentleman the late Attorney General. We have no objection whatever to the person arrested being furnished with a copy of the warrant. We have already provided that it shall be quite easy for him to see it, and that a copy shall be lodged where his friends can have access to it; and, beyond this, it may be desirable that he should have an actual copy given to him. I will undertake, at a later stage, that a provision shall be inserted to secure to the person arrested a copy of the warrant. ["Now, now!"] Hon. Members wish to have the Amendment inserted now. I have looked carefully over the Amendments, and I must confess there are not many to which I do not see the strongest objection; but there will be one or two alterations to make, and I do not mind acknowledging that I think it would be better to make them on the third reading. It is not in my own interest, or that of the Government, I say so; but in the interest of the House and of Public Business. We promise that the person arrested shall have a copy of the warrant, and I will undertake that the Bill shall not leave the House without words to that effect being introduced.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

did not know anyone who was better able than the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General to confuse the Committee as to the real facts of the case, when the Committee was on the point of deciding. He had declared that anyone who voted for the Amendment, which said that a statement of the actor acts for which a person had been arrested should be furnished to that person, was supporting that which was contradictory to the vote already given. The practical working of the Amendment would be this—People would be arrested in Ireland for being suspected of having been concerned in outrages; and these people would, from time to time, make application to the Crown for their release. Well, they wore not going to assume that the Government were absolutely infallible. He had not the robust faith of the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Onslow), although he was prepared to place considerable confidence in Her Majesty's Ministers, for mistakeshad been made by Governments before, and might be made again; and it was, therefore, of the greatest importance, nay, absolutely essential, to a prisoner, that he should be furnished with a copy of the "act or acts" he was suspected to have committed, in order that he might make application to the Crown for his release. [The ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Law) dissented.] The Attorney General for Ireland shook his head; but he knew these applications came in as thickly as possible even now, and that they would come in as thickly as possible after the passing of the Act—that, in fact, they would probably be as numerous as the arrests. It would be impossible for a person committed under the measure to make a proper statement of his case to the Crown, if he were not furnished with a statement of the act or acts for which the arrest was made. He was sorry to be obliged to differ from the hon. Member for Guildford, because he thought the Amendment a reasonable one, and unless the Chief Secretary was prepared to furnish the statement asked for to the prisoners he should support that Amendment.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 79; Noes 222: Majority143.—(Div. List, No. 47.)

MR. O'DONNELL

said, the Amendment he intended to propose now was a simple and humane one. He took it that the Committee had decided that there could be no appeal under the Act from the Lord Lieutenant to anybody else. He would therefore propose to insert in page 1, line 17, after the words "Lord Lieutenant," the words— Provided always, That where any person shall he incarcerated under this Act for a longer period than three months, at the end of every three months of his detention his case shall come under the review of the Lord Lieutenant, who shall endorse on the warrant a statement to that effect. That Amendment recognized that the only appeal from the Lord Lieutenant was to the Lord Lieutenant; but it also provided that there should be no danger under this Act, as had unfortunately happened under the operation of previous Acts, that the persons arrested in the first rush of arrests should not be totally forgotten and loft in their cells. He did not think that such a provision would interfere with the responsibility or the initiative of the Lord Lieutenant. It simply provided that from three months to three months the cases of the prisoners under the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act should be brought before the Lord Lieutenant, and that the Lord Lieutenant should review each case. The Amendment would act in a humane direction; and, in a great many of the cases that came up for review to the Lord Lieutenant, he would see that these poor men were no longer deserving of continued incarceration. During three months, facts might come to the knowledge of the Lord Lieutenant which would induce him to believe that detention in particular cases was no longer necessary. The Amendment simply-proposed that where any person was incarcerated under the Act for a longer period than six months, at the termination of every period of three months the case should come before the Lord Lieutenant for review, and the fact be stated on the back of the warrant. He hoped the Government would accept the Amendment.

Amendment proposed, In page 1, line 17, after the words "Lord Lieutenant," to insert the words 'Provided always, That where any person shall be incarcerated under this Act for a longer period than three months, at the end of every three months of his detention his case shall come under the review of the Lord Lieutenant, who shall endorse on the warrant a statement to that effect."— (Mr. O'Donnell.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I must say that I think the proposal of the hon. Member deserves consideration; but I think it would come in more properly at the end of the section. I should like a little more time for a consideration of the words, and I do not like to give up all idea of saving the time of the House if I can help it. The Committee is quite aware that there are two or three matters which will have to be dealt with on the third reading; and I do not wish to refuse to consider any Amendment that is not unreasonable. I understand the hon. Member to moan that every three months the Lord Lieutenant should show, by endorsement upon the warrant, that the case has been re-considered. I should be quite glad that that should be done; and perhaps the hon. Member will let me have the exact terms of his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, 'withdrawn.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

wished to move an Amendment after the word "warrant" in line 17. It was a very reasonable Amendment, and would facilitate that which had just been acceded to. He would not attempt, in the slightest degree, to waste time by moving the same tiling over again; but he honestly moved this Amendment in the belief that, although somewhat similar to the one which had been accepted by the Government, it was, in some respects, essentially different. He proposed, after the word "warrant," to insert the words— And every such warrant shall he endorsed with the date of the act or acts the said person is suspected to have committed, and the place where such act or acts were committed. The Committee had decided already that the acts themselves should not be speci- fied, and the warrant would simply state that such a person had been arrested for sedition, or any other particular crime. There was to be no classification of the crime; but if the date and place were mentioned they might afford materials to enable the person arrested, or his family, to lay before the Lord Lieutenant at the end of three months, for the purposes of review, the materials upon which a review could take place. The Amendment did not require the Lord Lieutenant to specify the Act. It would simply be sufficient to say—"Sedition committed on the 7th of February, 1881, in the barony of such a place, in Ireland. "That would give a reasonable chance to the friends of the accused of obtaining materials to enable the Lord Lieutenant to review the case at the end of three months. Who would be the interested parties in collecting materials for the review of the Lord Lieutenant? It would never be the police; but it would be the family of the accused; and all he asked was that they should have some clue as to the nature of the accusation on which they could go to work, in order that they might be enabled to send up to Dublin Castle the materials for a review of the case at the end of three months. Unless they had such a chance, the Lord Lieutenant would have nothing to review. He would merely have to review the statement of the parties who caused the man to be arrested in the first instance. He entreated the Government to give this faint chance to the friends of the immured victim of laying before the Lord Lieutenant, at the end of throe months, something on which his conscience might go to work, otherwise the concession already promised would be useless. As he was not the late Attorney General of a powerful Administration, he was afraid his suggestion would not command much support from Her Majesty's Government. When he had pleaded in this way before the Committee had not seen that there was much in it. But when the late Attorney General for England got up to support an Amendment he was listened to with attention. He (Mr. Sullivan) was unable to lend to the present Amendment the weight of the hon. and learned Gentleman's position, ability, or character. Nevertheless, he would press the proposal upon, the Government that at every three months a review of each case was promised they would do something to provide the Lord Lieutenant with materials for his review, by allowing the mother, father, or friends of the prisoner the chance of going to work to procure such materials. He was placing before the Committee no hypothetical case. He had in his mind an actual occurrence that took place some years ago, when the father of a prisoner, in his 79th year, walked to Dublin to the prison gate to make an effort for the liberation of his son, whom he had not seen for three years, and who had been incarcerated without accusation, and without proof. All he asked was that the Government would give some chance to another father to go to the Lord Lieutenant, with the facts in his hands, to enable the Lord Lieutenant to judge whether he might not have been misled in imprisoning the man in the first instance. He thought the charge ought to be localized, so that some chance might be afforded for disproving it. It would be sufficient to state that the charge was sedition, and to accompany it by a statement when the sedition was committed, and whore.

THE CHAIRMAN

I am unable to put this Amendment, because the Committee have already negatived a proposition that particulars of time and place should be given.

MR. BRYCE

said, he had intended to move, in line 18, after the words "and every warrant shall be conclusive evidence," the omission of the words "of all matters therein contained;" but he had had some communication with the right hon. Gentleman responsible for the Bill which would prevent him from troubling the Committee. He understood that Her Majesty's Government were willing to consider the matter.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

asked what the understanding was?

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out to the hon. and learned Member that there is no Question before the Committee.

MR. CALLAN

rose; but—

THE CHAIRMAN

called upon Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY.

MR. CALLAN

said, he was perfectly in Order, as he rose to move the Amendment which stood in the name of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce).

THE CHAIRMAN

There was no Amendment before the Committee when I called upon the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy).

MR. CALLAN

said, it had taken some time, both for the Chair and the Committee, to see that he was in Order; but they found now that he was perfectly within his right, seeing that the Amendment he intended to move came before that of which the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) had given Notice. He begged to move, in page 1, line 18, after the word "evidence," to leave out the words "of all matters therein contained, and." He did so for the purpose ox having a declaration from the Government that upon the third reading, or at whatever time was most convenient, these most objectionable words would be left out. The clause, as it stood, said— And every such warrant shall he conclusive evidence of all matters therein contained, and of the jurisdiction to issue and execute such warrant, and of the legality of the arrest and detention of the person mentioned in such warrant. That was all right and proper; but a subsequent section of the clause went on to say that the warrant should be laid before Parliament. No declaration that the words directing the warrant to be conclusive evidence of "all matters therein contained" had yet been made by the Government. That was an assumption never yet contained in an Act of Parliament; and it would puzzle the ingenuity of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law) to give any good or valid reason for the retention of the words. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce) was content with some private understanding with the Government; but the only safeguard the Committee had for the protection of Irish interests was that whatever promise was made should be made openly and aboveboard, across the floor of the House, and not be a matter of private negotiation and understanding. Ho, therefore, moved the omission of these words, in order to enable the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland, or the Chief (Secretary for Ireland, to make a clear and explicit declaration that, at some future period, the words would be omitted, or else give some reason for their retention.

Amendment proposed, In page l, line 18, after the word "evidence," to leave out the words "of all matters therein contained, and."—(Mr. Callan.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)

objected to the Amendment. It was necessary to retain the words. They were substantially the same as those contained in the Westmeath Act, being only more concise and condensed.

MR. METGE

said, the Pill up to this point had been allowed to contain a special limitation that the authority should be placed in the hands of the chief magistrate. A great deal of stress had been laid on that limitation. The Prime Minister told them that he had no fear that the powers conferred by the Act would be arbitrarily exercised, and that their reasonableness might be challenged on the floor of that House. Put they all knew what the result of such a challenge would be. It would be no consolation to a man who had been 18 months in prison, and driven to the verge of insanity, to have his case brought up on the floor of the House of Commons, when a good speech might probably be delivered by the senior Member, and a few remarks be made from the Ministerial Bench. The clause recited that any person could be arrested who was declared by warrant of the Lord Lieutenant to be reasonably suspected of having been guilty of certain crimes; but if every warrant was to be conclusive evidence of all matters therein contained, what would become of the reasonable suspicion? The law would at once hold that the accused person had been fully convicted on direct proof. He could not believe that that was the intention of the Committee—that they actually meant to say that the warrant was to constitute a crime, and that the warrant thus constituting a crime should be made substantial evidence of that crime. If the clause remained unaltered it would be impossible to raise any plea against the reasonableness of the arrest, because the warrant would constitute conclusive evidence of the crime, and be really the crime itself. He could not imagine that the Chief Secretary wished to obtain from the House an indemnity for his acts; and if the words which his hon. Friend wished to strike out were left in the Bill such an indemnity would be given, because the right hon. Gentleman could at once plead that the warrant itself should be taken as conclusive evidence of all matters therein contained. His responsibility would, therefore, be at once done away with. The expunging of these words would not in any way affect the strength of the Bill; but would merely give power to impeach the acts of Ministers if they abused its powers. The small concession asked for was of immense importance in view of the after consequences of the Bill.

SIR HENRY HOLLAND

hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would state whether these words were to be retained with any modification or not. He (Sir Henry Holland) understood the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce) had given Notice of a similar Amendment, and had withdrawn it upon some understanding with the Government. It was only fair and reasonable that such understanding should be fully explained to the Committee. He did not think the words were necessary, considering that the warrant was to be conclusive evidence, not only of the jurisdiction of the Lord Lieutenant, but also of the legality of the arrest and detention of the prisoner. If it was conclusive evidence of the jurisdiction and detention, it was necessarily conclusive evidence of all facts that justified the exercise of such jurisdiction.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, the question involved in these words was purely of a legal character; and, for that reason, he did not think his answer would be of much value to the Committee. He could not quite decide whether or not the words were necessary; and, under the circumstances, as he did not wish to retain any words that were unnecessary for the purpose of the Bill, he asked the Committee to give Her Majesty's Government time to find out whether they were required.

MR. BRYCE

explained that he had given Notice of an Amendment upon this subject; but, before moving it, he had endeavoured to discover what the legal effect of the words was in the view of Her Majesty's Government. Gathering from the Government there was some doubt as to their legal effect, he had not felt himself justified in asking the Committee to divide upon his Amendment, conceiving that it would be better that the point should be considered subsequently. But there had been no understanding between the Government and himself.

SIR JOHN HOLKER

was delighted to hear that the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryee) was so accessible to reason, and that he had, upon such slight grounds, consented to withdraw his Amendment. He (Sir John Holker) confessed that, after having carefully considered the arguments brought forward in favour of retaining the words, he did not see the reason upon which they were founded. It was very well to say that the warrant should be conclusive evidence of the jurisdiction to execute it, and of the legality of the arrest; but why the Committee should be asked to say the warrant should be conclusive evidence of all it contained he failed to see. A man might be arrested upon suspicion that he had been guilty of murder; and if this Bill passed into law the warrant would be conclusive evidence of his guilt. He was sorry to offer any opposition to the Government; but they appeared determined, for some reason or other, that they would admit of no Amendments to the Bill, which, in his (Sir John Holker's) opinion, stood in need of a good many. He was ready to support the further progress of the Bill, on the ground that it was necessary for the preservation of law, order, and good government in Ireland: but he could not forget there was such a thing as a Constitution, and that liberty was more precious than coercion.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)

would like to know where his hon. and learned Friend (Sir John Holker) had been since the introduction of the Bill, and why that night the Constitution of England was to be protected by him for the first time? He (Sir Henry James) protested against his hon. and learned Friend coming down in the midst of the arduous discussions which had taken place upon the Bill and formally taking the Constitution under his protection, as if its existence had been forgotten. He would ask him what course he proposed to take with respect to the present Amendment —whether he was about to act as he had done in the last Amendment? At the same time, he would urge him, with all his enthusiasm for the Constitution, to Have some regard for facts. There would only he a statement in the warrant that the Lord Lieutenant had reasonable grounds for suspicion; and, therefore, he asked his hon. and learned Friend to toll him upon what ground he said that the statement in the warrant would be conclusive proof of the guilt of the person arrested for all purposes? The hon. and learned Member for Preston owed that explanation to hon. Gentlemen who sat near him—to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin, and even to the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock, who cheered him so loudly. He would leave his hon. and learned Friend to settle his difficulty with those amongst whom he sat. If the words remained in the Bill they would not interfere with the Constitution; but it was not desirable to have it traversed in any way that the Lord Lieutenant had reasonable grounds of suspicion, and if the words were struck out, it would be in the power of anyone to contend that the Lord Lieutenant should be put to the proof that he had reasonable grounds for suspicion. Whether the Lord Lieutenant should be put to such proof was a matter upon which something was, perhaps, to be said upon both sides; but it appeared to him (Sir Henry James) that the Lord Lieutenant ought not to be challenged to establish reasonable suspicion.

SIR JOHN HOLKER

desired to say one word as to his vote on the last division.

THE CHAIRMAN

reminded the hon. and learned Member for Preston that, under the now Rules, he would not be in Order in speaking again, except to make a personal explanation.

SIR JOHN HOLKER

said, he had merely to say that he had voted in the last division under the impression that the Government had acceded to all he wished.

MR. WARTON

expressed his opinion that the difficulty in which the Committee was placed was due to the Government having followed too scrupulously the drafting of some former Pill. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, on the third reading of the Bill, would bring up a straightforward form of warrant.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, the Committee had a statement from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland with respect to some important words in the Bill that those words had not been brought to his notice before, and that, in spite of a quarter of an hour's consultation with the Irish Law Officers, he was not able to get into his head what they meant. Then, because the hon. and learned Gentleman the ex-Attorney General for England had expressed his opinion as to their effect, the hon. and learned Gentleman the present Attorney General directed his fury upon him for giving a perfectly clear and precise statement of the law. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) ventured to say that if the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland could not give the meaning of the words in question, it was perfectly impossible for the Committee to proceed beyond that portion of the clause which contained them. It was his duty to remind hon. Members opposite, who called themselves Liberal, and Members of the Liberal Party, who supported this Bill for the suspension of the liberties of the Irish people, and who, when the Chief Secretary for Ireland rose and said, with respect to important words in the Bill, that he was unable to give any opinion, actually endeavoured to talk down a Member of the House because he still kept to his opinion, that it was impossible to make progress with the measure until the right hon. Gentleman was able to give his opinion as to the meaning of the words in question.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

said, he was afraid the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock had unintentionally done the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland some injustice. The right hon. Gentleman said he had heard contradictory statements with reference to the words in the clause; and when the hon, and learned Gentleman the ex-Attorney General (Sir John Holker) rose to express his opinion, which must be in accordance with that of either one or other of those statements, he could not get an explanation as to whether the words were necessary or not. Absolutely, one of the conflicting and disagreeing Law Officers of the Crown rose and entered into a kind of gladiatorial combat with the late Attorney General for England. Let the Committee not lose sight of the fact mentioned by the hon. and learned Gentleman sitting on the Opposition Benches, that so persuaded were Her Majesty's Government that there was something untenable in these words that they had entered into a private transaction with the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce) with respect to them. If there had been a private negotiation the Committee should be plainly told that one of the Law Officers of the Crown had told the Chief Secretary for Ireland that the words in question were either unnecessary or mischievous. Would that hon. and learned Gentleman remain muzzled, or would he rise in his place and confirm the opinion of the late Attorney General for England? This Amendment had been given in at the Table two days ago; but the Chief Secretary for Ireland told the Committee that every word in the Bill had been carefully weighed, and had used that as an argument against accepting any Amendment whatever. The right hon. Gentleman now found himself in a quandary, and said that he required time to consider these words. Then let him candidly confess that Progress was impossible until he had assured himself as to the necessity of the words. He (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) should not move to report Progress for any such purpose, because he thought the Committee might continue their labours a little time longer; but he would suggest that if there was on the Treasury Bench a conflict of legal opinion, the Government were bound to pledge themselves explicitly with regard to the words in question.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

pointed out that the course he had pursued in asking a little time for consideration of the point raised was not at all unusual. He had, when in charge of Bills on former occasions, been obliged to do the same thing. In the present case he undertook, if the words were not necessary, that they should be removed from the Bill. He asked the Committee to accept his assurance upon this point. The Committee could not expect him to strike out, then and there, words that might turn out to be necessary from a legal point of view. He trusted the Committee would be allowed to continue its labours for a short time longer; his view being that they were now so near the end of the section that it could be finished that night.

MR. GIBSON

, having listened to the discussion with great attention, had regretted that neither of his hon. and learned Friends, the Attorney and Solicitor General for Ireland, had spoken, because, unquestionably, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had stated that he was at a loss to understand exactly what was the legal opinion given to him. It was in reference to that that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Preston (Sir John Holker) had stated that, having read the Westmeath Act, he was at a loss to understand what was the exact legal advantage of retaining these words. The first Amendment with regard to this point had been laid upon the Table of the House some days ago by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce), therefore he was sure this matter must have been considered by the Law Officers of the Crown for Ireland, as it was their duty, and they must have made up their minds by this date as to the necessity of these words. For his own part, he (Mr. Gibson), thought the Lord Lieutenant would be protected if the warrant were made conclusive evidence of the jurisdiction and the legality of the arrest. Nevertheless, he should be glad to hear the Law Officers of the Crown in their arguments to show that these words were necessary. If those arguments were conclusive, he should be willing to support their view; but he understood that, unless the Amendment before the Committee were withdrawn, they would have at once to vote upon the question one way or the other. Therefore, if that Amendment were not to be withdrawn, it was clearly necessary that Progress should be reported, or else that the Law Officers of the Crown for Ireland should state whether they considered it necessary that these words should be retained, and what was the advantage of retaining them.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOB IRELAND (MR. W. M. JOHNSON)

denied that there was any conflict of opinion between him and his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland. His opinion was that those words were necessary and essential. Nearly every Act of Parliament prescribed that the decision of some person under the Act in any matters which must be merely Ministerial should be taken as conclusive. The warrant would commence with a statement of the district; and the statement in the warrant that a defined district was prescribed would be conclusive of that fact by the words "all matters therein contained." The warrant must also declare that, the district being so prescribed, the Lord Lieutenant reasonably suspected that the person to be arrested had been guilty of some cimre—say arson, or whatever it might be, being a crime punishable by law, committed in the district prescribed and being an act of violence and so on. Unless the words "all matters therein contained" were maintained, it would have to be proved by evidence aliunde the warrant that the district was prescribed.

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY

said, the argument of the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. W. M. Johnson) was that the veracity of the statement must be made certain by the words "all matters therein contained"; but, as he (Mr. O'Shaugtmessy) understood it, the ordinary form of warrant did not embrace those words, and the last Act for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act did not contain them.

THE SOLICTTOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)

That Act gave the form of warrant.

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY

said, they were not questioning whether the warrant would be bad, but whether the warrant in itself was to be a proof of the matters stated, and of all other matters contained in it, and not what the warrant was to contain. The right hon. Gentleman stated that it would appear in the warrant that the district was prescribed, and also that the Lord Lieutenant had reasonable grounds for suspicion, and that it would be necessary that the warrant should be a proof of the district being prescribed, and of the grounds of arrest being reasonable. But all that was covered by the other words was that the warrant was made evidence of the jurisdiction of the authority which issued the warrant and of the legality of the arrest. If the district were not prescribed, and if the Lord Lieutenant had not reasonable grounds, then jurisdiction would not exist, and there would be no legality. Therefore, the words in the clause were not necessary.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

said, the position in which the Committee found itself was very much due to the reticence of the Irish Law Advisers, but primarily to the mysterious statement of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce). The Amendment which that hon. Member had submitted some days before was withdrawn at the last moment in consequence of a communication, the nature of which he did not describe, from a person whom he did not name or indicate, and that was enough to set the whole House by the ears, and to lead to that very animated debate. For himself, having listened to the explanation of the Solicitor General for Ireland, he was quite prepared to vote in favour of the Government, as be had done all through these discussions, and to throw on them the responsibility for the phraseology of a Bill which they conceived to be necessary for the restoration of peace and good order in Ireland.

MR. E. POWER

was very sorry to find at that hour that the Committee had got themselves into troubled waters. It had been said that in that House whenever lawyers took a prominent part in the discussions the House generally got into a confused state. He should conclude with a Motion; but he could not do so without expressing the deep regret which he felt, and which he was sure many hon. Members felt, at finding that the good feeling which had, up to that time, characterized the Treasury Bench and the Front Opposition Bench had entirely disappeared. He was not in the least surprised that the unholy alliance should have broken down; but a most extraordinary change had come over the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He declared that he must carefully consider every line and clause of the Bill, and in order that the right hon. Gentleman might have every chance of so studying every line and clause of the Bill, he (Mr. Power) would move to report Progress.

Motion made, and Question put, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."— (Mr. Richard Power.)

The Committee divided:—Ayes 38; Noes 212: Majority 174.—(Div. List, No. 48.)

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

DR. COMMINS

observed, that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. W. M. Johnson) had furnished the strongest case for leaving out the words as proposed by the Amendment. He (Dr. Commins) quite agreed with the hon. and learned Gentleman that it was right that a warrant should recite the jurisdiction and such facts as might be necessary to decide the question as between the person arrested and the Lord Lieutenant as to the legality of the arrest and detention; but it was proposed that the warrant should contain other matter than that. That was referred to by the phrase which it was proposed to be left out—"All matters therein contained" over and above the necessary facts; but until they had the form of the warrant before them they could not guess what it would be. The form of the warrant would depend on the Law Advisors, for the 2nd subsection provided that the Lord Lieutenant, by and with the advice of the Privy Council in Ireland, might, from time to time, make, and when made revoke and alter the order prescribing the forms of warrants for the purposes of the Act. They had not the slightest idea what the form of the warrant would be; and the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland and the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland, in their sketch of the warrant, gave a strong illustration of the danger of voting what would be put into the warrant, seeing that the warrant might be altered. Taking the illustration the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland had given, the recital in the warrant—that a man had committed arson would become conclusive proof oven though there had been no arson at all, but the occupant of the house had himself set fire to the house; and that person, although he had burnt the house himself, could go with a warrant in his hand before a Grand Jury and claim damages from the county. The result would be, if the Amendment was not accepted, that countless frauds would be committed, and an amount of mischief done which, could not now be conceived. He, there- fore, considered that the illustration given by the Attorney General for Ireland was absolutely conclusive as to the importance of the proposed alteration of the clause.

MR. SYNAN

put it to the Government whether, having placed the Committee in such a state of embarrassment, they should not consent to report Progress, and not force the Committee to a division upon words which they could not positively say were necessary, and which, if not necessary, might be mischievous? That was not a time to enter into a legal argument; but if it were, he thought he could show that the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland had no force whatever. Where would he find in the Bill that it was necessary to state in all cases that the district should be proclaimed? There was no necessity. He thought it would be better that the Government should take time to decide whether the words in the clause were absolutely necessary or not, and would, therefore, themselves move to report Progress.

MR. DILLON

said, the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland's remarks had proved to his mind that the words were unnecessary, and it had been shown by other hon. Gentlemen that they could be used for a very mischievous purpose—a purpose for which they never could have been intended. To his (Mr. Dillon's) mind it was perfectly absurd to discuss whether the words should remain in the Bill or not, without some definite statement from the Government as to the grounds on which they considered them necessary. There appeared to be a vague impression amongst hon. Members that the Government considered them necessary; but the only Member of the Government who had got up to prove it had conclusively shown the contrary. As for hon. Members on the Front Opposition Bench, they had, first of all, shown that the words ought to be left out, and then they had consented to their being left in, throwing the responsibility on the Government. That, he submitted, was not a proper spirit in which to approach the decision of such an important Amendment; therefore, he would conclude with the Motion that the Chairman do now leave the Chair.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do now leave the Chair."—{Mr. Dillon.)

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, he would not ask the Committee to go to another division; and if the Motion were withdrawn he would consent to reporting Progress.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.