PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) BILL— [BILL 79.] (Hansard, 16 February 1881)

§ MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY
had hoped that the Chief Secretary would have risen to announce, on the part of the Government, after last night's discussion, and after having given calm consideration to the question, that they could see their way to the acceptance of this 997 Amendment, and would withdraw the words objected to from the Bill. It would be remembered that last night the Committee got into a state of considerable confusion over these particular words. It was found—to put the case mildly—that there was a lack of cohesion and understanding among Her Majesty's Legal Advisers. The Attorney General for Ireland formed one opinion; the Solicitor General for Ireland another; but the Attorney General for England was unable to understand either of those learned Gentlemen, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary could make nothing of the three. Under these circumstances, he had thought it possible that the Law Officers of Her Majesty would meet and come to some clear understanding as to what the meaning of the clause was; and that some decision would have been arrived at to satisfy the objections raised on that side of the House. The present condition of matters was simply this. The Bill contained a declaration that the warrant issued by the Lord Lieutenant should Be 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. The Amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) was to leave out the words "of all matters therein contained." The objection to these words as they appeared in the Bill was the very obvious one that they seemed, on the face of the Bill, to make the warrant in itself conclusive evidence that the man charged was guilty of the offence ascribed to him in the warrant. That was not the meaning assigned to the words by the Government themselves; but it was the meaning assigned to them on that (the Opposition) side of the House, and especially by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Preston (Sir John Holker), the late Attorney General. The Chief Secretary said that it was not meant to absolve the Lord Lieutenant and his advisers from any responsibility—that it affirmed nothing more than that there was a reasonable suspicion on which to arrest the man. To this the answer was that the clause, as the Amendment proposed to make it, would still affirm the legality of the arrest and detention of 998 the person named in the warrant. The words which remained saved all the officials from any legal consequences arising out of the discharge of their duty; and it could hardly be required, in addition, that the officials should be relieved even of the vague imputation that they might have detained a man upon an unreasonable suspicion. If the Lord Lieutenant and the other authorities wanted to be exonerated from future consequences, the clause without the words objected to would give them ample indemnity. Possibly the Lord Lieutenant wished to be relieved of the responsibility of making a careful investigation of each case before he issued a warrant.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
I said, undoubtedly, that the Lord Lieutenant and his responsible Advisers would have to examine every case; but while I said that to show that they would be responsible for the conclusions arrived at, I did not mean to give an absolute pledge that they would examine into the facts of every individual case.

§ MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY
said, the right hon. Gentleman had refused to accept an Amendment which placed on the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary the responsibility of looking into every individual case.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
The hon. Member is referring to a past discussion. That, however, was not the Amendment. The. Amendment had reference only to the mode of conducting the investigation. I have never for a moment stated that the Lord Lieutenant would be acquitted of his responsibility of investigating the cases upon which he is required to issue a warrant.

§ MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY
said, that, at any rate, the Bill as it stood would relieve the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary of any responsibility for the arrest or detention of a person charged with an offence under the Act. Whether they trusted to themselves, or to subordinate officials, they would be still in some way relieved of all responsibility. The Bill even went a step further, and relieved them of the historical responsibility of having unreasonably detained a man on suspicion. It not only relieved them of legal responsibility, but it went further, and affirmed, by an Act passed by Parliament, that the Lord Lieutenant and the right hon. 999 Gentleman the Chief Secretary were historically free from the moral responsibility of having arrested and detained a man upon unreasonable suspicion. That was the only advantage which the retention of these words could have over their omission. But, on the other hand, there might be this great disadvantage in retaining them—that they would stamp upon any man arrested under the Lord Lieutenant's warrant the actual affirmation of his guilt, as if he had been actually tried and found guilty. ["No'"] That, at any rate, was the opinion of many of the legal Members of that House; and when a matter was so much in doubt, and men fully qualified to judge differed so essentially, he maintained that before the Government insisted on keeping the words in the clause, they were bound to show that there was some strong necessity for retaining them. He thought the Government would have done wisely, and would have run no risk whatever, if they had taken counsel among themselves since the Sitting of last night, and had consented to accept the Amendment for the omission of the obnoxious words. If they declined to take this course, they must not be surprised if the Committee came to the conclusion that there was some hidden meaning in the words beyond what had been already explained.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
The hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) has put his own construction upon these words, and it is a construction which is altogether unfounded. I can hardly imagine how, with the hon. Member's knowledge of the world, he could have arrived at such a conclusion. How would it be possible for the Lord Lieutenant or the Government to escape condemnation, by the technical words put in the Bill, for any misuse of their powders? It seems to me almost childish to suppose that we can imagine, by the insertion of any words in this Bill, that we could escape the historic responsibility of any misuse of the powers conferred upon us by a measure of this kind. Then comes the question—Why have the words been inserted in the clause? I at once admit that the words under discussion, being a technical part of the Bill, I have not, perhaps, mastered them as much as I ought to have done; but I considered it a technical legal question merely to establish the 1000 validity of the warrant, and one which in no way affected the real principle of the Bill. As I understand them, the words cannot be fairly supposed to mean that the warrant of the Lord Lieutenant is to be held to be conclusive evidence of the guilt of a man. I imagine it is impossible that they can have that result. The hon. and learned Member for Preston, the late Attorney General (Sir John Holker), is, unfortunately, not in his place; but I feel perfectly sure that he is of the same opinion, or he would not have continued the West-meath Act, which contains these exact words. What is the reason for retaining them? It is that the proof of the warrant for the purposes of this Act should be self-contained, that it should require no external proof, and that it should be conclusive evidence "of all matters therein contained," such matters being described in the previous part of the section—for instance, the fact that the offence has been committed within a prescribed district. It is desirable that the warrant should be conclusive evidence of the prescription of a district, and, not that the arrest by the Lord Lieutenant should be held to be proof of the guilt of a man, but that the Lord Lieutenant should have declared him to be reasonably suspected. It is desirable that a statement to that effect should be contained in the warrant in order that the warrant may take care of itself. It is recited, however, that the warrant is only conclusive for the purposes of the Act; and it is not intended, nor is it the meaning of these words, that it should be construed into a declaration that the warrant is to be put to any other purpose, or to be conclusive evidence of the guilt of the person accused.

§ MR. FINIGAN
could only account for the extraordinary argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary by remembering that not only he, but all the Members of Her Majesty's Government, had throughout the discussion of the Bill said one thing and meant another. The right hon. Gentleman asked how it would be possible that the Government could escape condemnation? He thought the right hon. Gentleman was trusting rather to his hopes than to his arguments. The Chief Secretary further told them that no hon. Member could interpret the words as they had been interpreted by the hon. 1001 Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy), without showing a great lack of legal knowledge. He (Mr. Finigan) thought Her Majesty's Government displayed a still greater lack of legal knowledge. He preferred to take the Bill exactly as it stood. It must be remembered that it would not be administered in accordance with the spirit of the speeches delivered in Committee, but according to the absolute wording of the Bill, as it would be understood by the Law Officers of the Crown in Ireland and by the Lord Lieutenant. By those officials it would be translated literally, word for word, and it was one thing to say that the retention of these words would not alter the character of the Bill, but quite another thing to prove it. The words as they stood, if they meant anything, meant tills—that upon a person being arrested under a warrant issued by the Lord Lieutenant, every-thing contained in the warrant should subsequently be held to be conclusive evidence against the accused, and accordingly they would form conclusive evidence of the reasonableness of the suspicion under which a man was arrested and detained. If Her Majesty's Government wished to be either a logical, a reasonable, or a just Government, they ought to make some attempt to get out of the quagmire into which they had been led by their Legal Advisers, and place the matter in a proper light. The Government could not want genuine conclusive evidence, because they had refused an Amendment by which evidence would have been rendered absolutely necessary; and the words in the clause could only mean that, whatever crime was specified in the warrant, the warrant itself should be conclusive evidence as to the commission of that crime. They either meant that, or they meant nothing at all. If the words were omitted from the clause, there would simply be an authority to arrest a man on a reasonable suspicion that he had done something wrong, and the warrant itself would form conclusive evidence of the jurisdiction to issue and execute such warrant, and of the legality of the arrest and detention of the person mentioned in it.

§ MR. WHITLEY
had no doubt that the meaning given by the Chief Secretary was the right interpretation of the clause. If he thought the interpretation 1002 given by the hon. and learned Member for Preston (Sir John Holker) was the right one, he could not support it; but he was satisfied that the only effect of these words was to protect the Lord Lieutenant in the exercise of the functions imposed upon him by the Bill. It would be unfair if the Committee, having imposed onerous duties on the Lord Lieutenant, were to refuse to give him the protection he needed in the discharge of those duties. The words of the clause were not mere words of technicality; but, to his mind, were words of importance, and necessary to be contained in the Bill, because they would prevent the Lord Lieutenant from being harassed by actions for acts which he did in the exorcise of the functions imposed upon him. He therefore trusted that the Committee would support the Government, believing that the clause would have no effect whatever upon the guilt or innocence of the prisoner.

§ MR. EDWARD CLARKE
hoped that, upon a re-consideration of this clause, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would consent to the Amendment. It was with very great reluctance that he had interposed in the discussion, and he would not have done so on any account if he thought that Her Majesty's Government were asking the Committee by the clause to give them any power that was essential to the proper conduct of the Bill. But he had listened to the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman, and he failed to find in it any indication that any useful meaning was attached to these words. He would ask the Committee to inquire with him what the words were. The warrant, if the words were to be retained, was to be conclusive evidence of all matters therein contained. The warrant had to declare, in the first instance, that a person was reasonably suspected. It would then go on to declare that the offence of which he was suspected was committed in a prescribed district, and that other matters required by the Act had been attended to. If the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant would himself examine the words of the clause, he would see that there was not the smallest necessity for retaining them, because they were followed by a provision that every such warrant should be conclusive evidence of the jurisdiction to issue and execute it. That covered the question 1003 of the proscribed district, because if it were not a prescribed district the jurisdiction would not exist. Then it further provided that it was to be conclusive evidence of the legality of the arrest and detention of the person mentioned in such warrant. That was a complete protection to the person who issued the warrant, and a conclusive answer to any charge that might be made in a Court of Law on the warrant. Then, what were these particular words wanted for? They were either mere surplusage, or they were to be conclusive evidence that the person charged was reasonably suspected. He did not think the Lord Lieutenant ought to ask for that. The Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary were entitled to ask that they, in the exercise of their discretion in issuing the warrant, should be amply protected from any proceedings that might be taken against them; but he did not think they were entitled to ask the House of Commons to declare that they should have the right to issue a warrant which was to be conclusive evidence that they had reasonably dealt with the matter. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary and those who wore advising him in regard to matters of law would see their way to consent to the omission of these words, because it would be with great regret that he should vote against the Government Bill at this stage, although, at the same time, it was with the greatest reluctance that he found himself obliged to support them in passing such an obnoxious measure.

§ MR. T. C. THOMPSON
thought that, unless great care were taken with the clause, the Committee would find themselves involved in considerable difficulties. All the prisoners in the United Kingdom were either convicted of offences, or, although unconvicted, were awaiting trial, having been put in prison because they were believed to have been guilty of offences. Having put a man in prison, he was only detained there, as a rule, until he could have an opportunity of being tried by a jury of his countrymen. But in this case they were placing every person who was merely arrested on suspicion in the position of convict. They were told that their sys-tem for the administration of justice was he best that could be found. He quiteadmitted it: but in this case the arrested man was at once placed in the position 1004 of a convict. The Bill itself showed that such practically was the case, because it contained a clause which declared that, although a convict, he should not be treated as one. Without referring to the largo number of persons who, when the passing of the Bill became imminent, would make a stampede and take places on board the steam-boats to America, it was very likely that some such man as Casey would be arrested, and that at some future time he might commit some other offence. In such an event, would it be possible for the Government to put in as evidence of a previous conviction this warrant of the Lord Lieutenant? He thought it should be clearly laid down in the Bill that the warrant should in no case be used for any purpose except the arrest and detention of a prisoner. A man might be brought up for an act of violence, such as an assault, and an attempt might be made to prove a previous conviction. The first thing done would be to put in this warrant, and the mere fact of its being placed before a jury would go far to prejudice a ease. In dealing with political offences of this kind, they should take care that the warrant should never, on any occasion, be used to prejudice any person who might be brought up on another charge.

§ MR. BRADLAUGH
was of opinion that the real point at issue had been clearly put before the Committee by the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Mr. Edward Clarke). These words were not needed for the protection of the Lord Lieutenant. That was made clear by the words of the section itself, because the warrant was made evidence of the legality of the arrest and detention of the prisoner and of the jurisdiction to issue and execute it. Therefore, if these words were necessary at all, they were necessary for some purpose that had not been declared to the Committee, and he should vote against their retention.

§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir FARRER HERSCHELL)
could not see how it could be supposed that any Court of Justice would permit the warrant to be used for any purpose except those connected with the Act itself. [Mr. GIB-SON dissented.] The right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gibson) shook his head; but he could quote 20 cases in support of his opinion. He was 1005 perfectly satisfied that no Court would ever allow the warrant to be even produced, except for the purpose of proving the legality of the instrument under the provisions of the Act.

§ MR. BRADLAUGH
remarked that the clause did not say "conclusive evidence for the purposes of the Act."

§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir FAERER HERSCHELL)
was aware that it did not say so; but no Court of Justice would allow it to be used for any other purpose; and his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary would have no objection to allow the insertion of words in the clause to provide that it should only be conclusive evidence of "all matters therein contained" for the purposes of the Act. That was certainly all that was meant. What the warrant did was to give power to arrest, not by reason of the fact that there was reasonable suspicion, but by virtue of a declaration of reasonable suspicion, and the warrant was only conclusive evidence that the Lord Lieutenant had declared a man to be reasonably suspected. With the view of avoiding all doubt, the Government would not have the slightest objection to insert the words "for the purposes of this Act."

§ MR. CALLAN
wished to call attention to the 14th New Rule, which stated that no Member should speak twice on the same question, except the Member in charge of the Bill or the Member moving an Amendment. He was anxious, as the Mover of the Amendment, to say a few words; and he hoped, seeing that an indulgence had been granted to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, that the same indulgence would be extended to himself. It would be most undesirable, he thought, to lay down one Rule for Members of the Government and another Rule for other hon. Members.

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is entitled to address the Committee for purposes of explanation; but he has no right to address it upon the general question of the Amendment.

§ MR. CALLAN
would only explain that when the Chief Secretary proposed to break the Rules of the House—["Order !"] He was perfectly in Order; and he wished to express his regret that the ruling of the Chairman should be so one-sided on so important a question.

THE CHAIRMAN
When the debate which was adjourned yesterday was resumed to-day the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill proposed to explain to the Committee the intentions of the Government in regard to the substance of the Amendment; and I thought the Committee would be aided by having such an explanation. The Committee would extend the same indulgence to the hon. Member who moved the Amendment; but the hon. Member would only be entitled to speak in the way of explanation as to any mistakes which might be entertained in regard to his Amendment.

§ MR. CALLAN
said, the mistake he had made in moving the Amendment was that in not referring to the Westmeath Act, on which the Bill was said to have been founded, and he had been led into an unintentional misstatement.

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is not at liberty to enter into that question.

§ MR. CALLAN
I ask to be allowed, Sir—["Order!"]

THE CHAIRMAN
If the hon. Member disobeys the ruling of the Chair he knows what course it will be necessary for me to take.

§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR
did not think that the Solicitor General had properly understood the point which had been raised by the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. T. C. Thompson). The hon. Member did not say that the warrant could be used as evidence in a Court of Justice, because a just Judge would not permit it so to be used; but what he said was that a counsel might bring forward the warrant as conclusive evidence in another case, and although the Judge might prevent the production of the warrant, yet the fact of its existence would have been placed before the jury, and it would thus produce an effect upon their minds. The hon. and learned Gentleman had had a long experience in Nisi Prius practice. Although not a lawyer, he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had often attended sittings in Court, and he had noticed the stratagem frequently resorted to for the bringing in of some document, which the counsel know very well would not be admitted as evidence, but which he knew, also, would have considerable influence on the mind of the Court. In the Irish Courts it was one of the best known species of strategy to edge in, as it were, some damning fact which was 1007 calculated to prejudice the minds of the jury. ["Oh !"] Of course, all lawyers according to themselves were virtuous, and the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland shook his head as if he had never heard of such a thing before in his life. He would not ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to examine his conscience and refresh his memory; he only mentioned the circumstance as one which had occurred within his (Mr. T. P.O'Connor's) knowledge, and as one, also, that was intended to produce an effect upon the minds of the jury. The hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Whitley) had favoured the Committee with his legal interpretation of the clause; hut he would pit against the authority of the hon. Gentleman the authority of the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Mr. E. Clarke), and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Preston (Sir John Holker). Certainly, if he wanted to employ a counsel, he should much prefer those hon. and learned Members to the hon. Member for Liverpool. He thought the hon. and learned Solicitor General had said something which proved that these words were not mere surplusage. In point of fact, the hon. and learned Gentleman admitted that they meant all that those who objected to them said they did. But suppose that they meant nothing at all, then what was the necessity for putting them there? Everything that was surplusage was mischievous in an Act of Parliament. Up to the present moment he had always been under the impression that the more words were necessary to explain an Act the better it recommended itself to the intelligence of a lawyer. He, however, altogether disputed the dictum that their surplusage was necessary or advisable in any Act. They could not have too few words to show the intentions of an Act of Parliament. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General took a clearly legal view of the question. Lawyers in that House always took a Nisi Prius view of a question to the exclusion of all others; and probably that was the reason why lawyers, as a rule, had never been successful as orators in that House. The clause said—"Every such warrant shall be conclusive evidence of all matters herein contained." Now a man's cha-acter was often his most precious pos-ession. Under this Pill he might be 1008 declared by a warrant of the Lord Lieutenant to be reasonably suspected of murder. The public would take up the Act, and would find that the warrant was conclusive evidence of all matters therein contained, and in that way it would be regarded as conclusive evidence of the reasonableness of the suspicion. A mischievous person would rake up the warrant and say to a man—"You were arrested on suspicion of murder; the warrant is conclusive evidence of the reasonableness of the suspicion; and, therefore, you were reasonably suspected and imprisoned for the committal of an atrocious and bloody crime." That was the social view of the matter. He came now to the legal view. Every one of these arrests might, in course of time, have to be discussed in that House. It might be that under the terms of the Act a Member of Parliament might be incarcerated. [Mr. WARTON: Hear, hear!] He was anxious to protect the future. The hon. Member for Brid-port (Mr. Warton) might be put in prison under this Act; and he presumed that this was the hon. Member's way of ex-pressing his gratitude for the pains he was taking to secure his comfort and protection in the future in the event of his being apprehended. If the hon. Member were put in prison under a reasonable suspicion of having committed murder or manslaughter, or inciting to acts of violence or intimidation which might disturb the maintenance of law and order, in fairness to the hon. Member he assumed that some time or other the case would be discussed in that House. If it was not to receive discussion, then the words inserted in the clause were meant as a snare for the unwary. ["Question!"] He was speaking strictly to the Question. If the warrant was to be laid on the Table of the House within seven days after the arrest took place, surely it meant either that the House could discuss the case or that they could not. If they could, then it was a legitimate provision against the harsh exercise of the powers conferred by the Bill; but if they could not discuss it, then it was only a snare. He would assume that an hon. Member was put in prison under the terms of this Act; and he assumed, as an inevitable inference, that the case would come under the review of the House. What would then take place? The right hon. 1009 Gentleman the Chief Secretary, being pressed by other business, would say that he was ready to discuss the case; but if they would refer to the Act they would find that every warrant should be conclusive evidence of the matters contained in it. The House knew that when Governments were pressed they would not stop for trifles; and, therefore, he anticipated that they would find the right hon. Gentleman rising to decline to discuss any case to which his attention might be called. These being the circumstances of the case, he submitted that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would be doing a graceful act if he would yield to the representations which had been made to him on the question, not by the Irish Members alone, but by the highest legal authorities on that side of the House. He was convinced that the best way to restore that good feeling which ought to exist was by concessions on both sides of the House, and a disposition to come to some satisfactory compromise. If, however, Her Majesty's Government insisted on rejecting the Amendment, he hoped the whole would be made perfectly clear to the public. The explanation made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary that clay encouraged and fortified the Amendment, because the right hon. Gentleman declared that he would not personally investigate each case, but that he would take refuge behind the words of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman had previously declared that he would personally investigate every case. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: I never said so.] Then the right hon. Gentleman had said that he would not personally investigate each case; and if the right hon. Gentleman would not personally investigate each case, what became of the responsibility which the Bill threw upon him? Did the right hon. Gentleman mean that the Lord Lieutenant would personally investigate each case? There was a vast difference between a personal investigation by the Lord Lieutenant and by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, who had a seat in that House and could be interrogated by hon. Members. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: near, hear !] The right hon. Gentleman accepted that explanation; and as he had relieved himself of the responsibility, the admission made by the right hon. Gentleman strengthened the case 1010 for the omission of these words. If the Lord Lieutenant was allowed to say—"Every such warrant shall be conclusive evidence of all matters therein contained," that would be a bar to all further inquiry, notwithstanding the fact that some poor man might have been put in prison on the evidence of some wretched informer like Talbot.

§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT
I do not rise to defend the character of the lawyers from the unfavourable opinion which has been expressed by the hon. Member, nor do I think that the points which have been put to the Committee by the hon. Member have really much force. What is his first point? He says that if you put those words in this warrant they may be produced for the sake of prejudicing a jury in some other case. But the warrant would exist whether these words are in it or not; and as far as that goes, if you strike out the words, the production of the warrant would have an equally prejudicial effect upon the mind of a jury. Therefore, there is nothing in that point at all. The Amendment would not affect that view of the case. Then he says—"It would have a social effect, and if you have these words in all the world will believe that everything stated in the warrant is true, whether it be so or not." Now, I do not think that the opinion of the public or of society is very much affected by Acts of Parliament, and whether these words are in the Act or not people will form exactly the same opinion on the subject. Let us look at what the real object of the words is. It must be remembered that the object of the Bill is avowedly to oust the jurisdiction of the Courts of Law. If you are to do that to any purpose at all you must prevent any question as to the legality of the warrant or of the arrest being raised in the Courts of Law. That is what we have to do, and we must not allow that to be done collaterally in a Court of Law which we do not intend to be done directly, and that no issue of fact or of law is to be raised on this warrant, or otherwise your whole object would be defeated. Then it is quite clear that some words of this kind are necessary for the purpose, in order to prevent such an issue being raised in a Court of Law in regard to the warrant or to the arrest. The hon. Member says that that is quite true, but that he has a further objection. What is the objection he takes? His 1011 objection is that the words in the Bill might be construed to go beyond the four corners of the object of the Act— that they might by possibility be employed for some other object than that which Parliament has in view. I do not think there is any indisposition on the part of the Government to meet that objection. My right hon. Friend said he was ready to insert words which should make clear the jurisdiction of the Court in reference to the warrant, making it apply to the arrest and detention, and to that alone. That appears to me to meet the case entirely. I will only mention the last point of the hon. Member—namely, that these words may have a political meaning, and that the Government may get up, when these warrants are laid on the Table of the House of Commons, and object to any discussion or inquiry in reference to them on the strength of this clause. Now, I venture to say that there cannot be a man in this House who believes this clause would have any such operation whatever. It is perfectly clear that the intention of the clause, with the addition of the words which my right hon. Friend says he is willing to import into it—and it will have no other operation—is to prevent the legality of the warrant, or of the facts contained in it, being questioned in a Court of Law in order to defeat the arrest or detention. I believe that that is a fair statement of the case, and I believe that the intention expressed by my right hon. Friend will meet all reasonable objection.

§ MR. SYNAN
said, the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary said it was necessary to exclude the jurisdiction of the Courts of Law. But any jurisdiction on the part of the Courts of Law was excluded by other words in the Bill, which said that the warrant should be conclusive evidence of the jurisdiction to issue and exclude such warrant, and of the legality of the arrest and detention of the person mentioned in it. Therefore, there was no foundation whatever for the argument of the right hon. Gentleman, seeing that the jurisdiction of the Courts was already excluded quite independent of these words.

THE CHAIRMAN
Has not the hon. Member already spoken upon the Amendment?

§ MR. SYNAN
said, he had not. He had spoken upon the Question of Pro- 1012 gress last night, but not on the Amendment.

THE CHAIRMAN
If the hon. Member spoke on the Motion for reporting Progress last night, he is not entitled to speak now.

§ MR. BOURKE
thought that a more convenient form of words than those contained in the present clause appeared in the Westmeath Act. The words there vi ere— For the purpose of such arrest, commitment, or detention, or justifying the same respectively, shall he, and he deemed and taken by all courts, judges, justices, and others, and in every proceeding stated and recited conclusive evidence of the existence of all facts and matters necessary to give and constitute the authority or jurisdiction, to make, issue, and execute such warrant, and of the legality of the arrest, commitment, or detention, under or in pursuance of such warrant of the person whom such warrant shall authorize to he arrested, committed, or detained. These were words of limitation; but they were evidently thought necessary at the time the Westmeath Act was passed; and after the observations which had been made by the Home Secretary and the Solicitor General, it was perfectly clear that the words which the Government proposed to introduce into the Bill would be a limitation in the same direction as the words he had just read. By adopting them, he thought the objection which was entertained upon those Benches to the clause as it stood would be removed. One word as to the form in which an Amendment could be introduced. The Amendment before the Committee proposed the omission of part of the present clause, and hon. Members might be in some difficulty as to the way in which they should vote. Personally, he should not like to vote for the omission of the words; and if the Government would introduce the words they had already promised, in a future stage of the Bill, he thought, under all the circumstances, that would be sufficient.

§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL
remarked that, in consequence of the curious way in which the Question had been put, it would not be possible to put another Amendment. He would, 1013 therefore, simply ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary whether he would agree to adopt the form of words used in the Westmeath Act?

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
The most convenient course, I think, would be, on the Report, after the words "conclusive evidence," to insert the words "for the purposes of this Act."

§ MR. CALLAN
said, it would be in the recollection of the Committee that great stress had been laid by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary and by the Law Officers of the Crown upon the fact that this Bill was ipsissima verba the same as the Westmeath Act. He hoped the mistake was not an intentional one; but it certainly was an inadvertence which had misled the Committee, and it had been stated as the sole and absolute justification for the insertion of these words. It now appeared that the words were not in the Westmeath Act at all. Ho, in common with other hon. Members, had taken the statement of the Government to be correct, and he now found that he had been misled. The Attorney General for Ireland had assured the House that the Westmeath Act had the words—-"All matters therein contained."["No!"] It would be quite sufficient for the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who was in his place, to correct the statement if it was incorrect, and not for non-legal Gentlemen below the Gangway, who probably never read an Act of Parliament in their lives, and, if they had, would not have understood it, to do so. The words "of the matters contained therein" in the Westmeath Act related to a very different recital from that which appeared in the present Bill. In the present Bill, if a man was suspected of writing threatening letters, the warrant was to be "conclusive evidence" that he had been reasonably suspected of having done so; but the Westmeath Act contained a very material limitation. It said that— Every such warrant for the purpose of such arrest, commitment, or detention, or justifying the same respectively shall be, and be deemed and taken by all courts, judges, justices, and others, and in every proceeding stated and recited conclusive evidence of the existence of all facts and matters necessary to give and constitute the authority or jurisdiction to make, issue, and execute such warrant, and of the legality of the arrest, commitment, or detention, under or in pursuance of such warrant of the person whom such warrant shall authorise to be arrested, committed, or detained. 1014 The Westmeath Act fully protected the Lord Lieutenant in the exercise of his extraordinary powers; but it did not declare that the matters contained in the warrant were conclusive evidence of the guilt of the persons charged. He would, therefore, move that all the words from the word "and," in line 18, down to the word "warrant," in line 21, bothinclusive, be omitted, and the words taken ipsissima verba from the Westmeath Act substituted. He did not see how the Government could object to this Amendment, seeing that the Westmeath Act formed a precedent for all Liberal Administrations, and all Liberal Irish Attorneys General to follow. Under that Act the clause merely affirmed the legality of the warrant by which a person should be arrested in Ireland, and the Act also gave the form of the warrant. In the present instance no form of warrant was attached to the Act; but they had an insidious clause that— The Lord Lieutenant, by and with the advice of the Privy Council in Ireland, may, from time to time, make, and when made, revoke and alter an order prescribing the forms of warrants for the purpose of this Act, and any forms so prescribed shall when used be valid in law. They were to leave everything to the Lord Lieutenant and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, and their excellent Adviser the Attorney General for Ireland. It put him very much in mind of the "confidence trick," for the practice of which, he believed, persons wore made amenable to the law. An innocent Irishman visiting Bradford, for instance, was met by a man who told him to place implicit trust in him. In the meantime a confederate came in, and the confiding Irishman was intrusted with the care of the confederate's watch. After an hour or two of suspense and anxiety the confederate returned and the watch was restored. The poor Irishman then intrusted his watch to the confederate; but after he had once given it up he never saw it again. The swindle had acquired the name of "the confidence trick," and the same trick was now being tried on by Her Majesty's Government in reference to the liberties of the people of Ireland. The Westmeath Act was said to have worked excellently in the past, and if it was to be. the precedent for future legislation it ought to be strictly adhered to. He would, therefore, move in the place of 1015 the words of the present Bill the substitution of the words he had read from the Westmeath Act—an Act which was so much praised and relied upon by the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland.

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)
wished to say, in answer to the hon. Gentleman, that he had never stated that this Bill followed the wording of the Westmeath Act.

§ MR. CALLAN
said, he understood the right hon. and learned Gentleman to say that the Westmeath Act was followed in reference to the words "all matters therein contained."

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)
had certainly not declared that this Bill followed ipsissimis verbis the wording of the Westmeath Act. On the contrary, he had called attention to the fact that the language of the present Bill was very much more condensed. That, however, was not the question for consideration. The question was what was the nature and effect of the clause as it stood. It would not have the slightest effect as to the actual guilt or innocence of the person arrested. Its object was to render the warrant of the Lord Lieutenant legal, and to afford conclusive evidence of its validity for the purposes of the Act. For that purpose, which was the only one intended, the Bill, as it stood, was better adapted than the language of the Westmeath Act, which the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) proposed to substitute. All that was required for the purposes of the present Bill was that the warrant should Be conclusive evidence of the facts therein 1016 stated—not for any collateral matter— but merely for the purposes of the Act. The hon. Member sought to make it appear that for some other purpose, such as supporting an indictment or a Parliamentary proceeding the warrant, by the retention of the words objected to, would be made conclusive evidence of the reasonableness of the suspicion, or even, it was urged, would establish absolutely, as a matter of fact, the guilt of the person arrested. The Government had never had any intention of that hind, nor would the words be so construed by any Judge. But, in order to preclude the possibility of their being so construed, and to relieve the minds of hon. Members opposite, the Government had undertaken to insert the words "for the purposes of this Act," which would remove all difficulty. He would now call attention to the words which the hon. Member proposed to substitute— Every such warrant for the purpose of such arrest, commitment, or detention, or justifying the same respectively, shall be and be deemed to be and taken by all courts, judges, justices, and others, and in every proceeding-stated and recited, conclusive evidence of the existence of all facts. It was, therefore, to be conclusive evidence in every proceeding not only before the Judges and justices, but all others of all matters therein stated or recited. He certainly failed to see what advantage would be gained by the substitution of these words for those proposed in the Bill, seeing that they would make the warrant evidence of all its statements not only in legal proceedings, but in all others.

§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR
agreed partly with the right hon. and learned Gentleman and partly with his hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Callan), and fancied that a viaâ media could be discovered by which the Committee could have the advantage of both propositions. He quite agreed with the right hon. and learned Attorney General that the words suggested by his hon. Friend would enlarge the operation of the clause, and he had made a representation to his hon. Friend to that effect when he proposed to move the Amendment. But his hon. Friend said very reasonably—"If the Government profess to follow the Westmeath Act they should do so completely."

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)
Because the language of the present Bill is much better.

§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR
remarked that if the language of the present Bill was much bettor in the eyes of the Government it was much worse in his eyes. It could only be because the clause, as it stood, gave more powers. [The ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Law) dissented.] The right hon. and learned Gentleman shook his head; but he (Mr. O'Connor) was compelled to fall back upon the old argument— that whenever the Government were found going away from a precedent established in a former Act of Coercion, it was only for the purpose of making the measure a still more Coercive Act of legislation. The words of the Westmeath Act were, that— Every such warrant for the purpose of such arrest, commitment, or detention, or justifying the same respectively, shall he and he deemed to he and taken by all courts, judges, justices, and others, and in every proceeding, stated and recited. So far those words enlarged the clause. They were certainly co-extensive with the words of the Bill, and, if anything, they enlarged them. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman took care not to notice the words which followed— Evidence of the existence of all facts and matters necessary to give and constitute the authority or jurisdiction to make, issue, and execute such warrant, and"— [The ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Law): Yes; "and."] He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) knew that if they took the two sections together the jurisdiction would be enlarged instead of diminished; but what he would propose was that, as the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had consented to insert some few words of limitation, the right hon. Gentleman should make the limitation similar to that contained in the Westmeath Act. The proposal of the right hon. Gentleman to insert words limiting the warrant to the four corners of the Act by no means met the objection which had been urged. It was not sufficient to say that the warrant would be conclusive evidence of the facts therein contained for the purposes of the Act. The contention was that the warrant might be used surreptitiously for other purposes outside the Act. He would, therefore, press 1018 upon the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary the desirability of coming to some compromise with the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment, by accepting the latter part of the section of the Westmeath Act in place of the words which he himself had suggested.

§ MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY
had been unable to find out from the clause what it was exactly that they were doing, or the exact legal scope of the Bill, if passed in its present form. For the purpose of enabling them to appreciate the operation of the Bill, he would ask them to look at sub-section 2 to the 2nd clause, which said— The Lord Lieutenant, by and with the advice of the Privy Council in Ireland, may from time to time make, and when made revoke and alter, an order prescribing the forms of warrants for the purposes of this Act, and any forms so prescribed shall when used he valid in law. Therefore, any new warrant made by the Lord Lieutenant would come within the purposes of the Act and all its provisions. The Lord Lieutenant might so alterthe form of his warrant as, in certain cases, not to declare a man reasonably suspected, but positively guilty, of the charge preferred against him. The Lord Lieutenant might not take that step in a serious case such as murder; but he might issue a warrant charging a man with inciting to sedition, and say that the accused was guilty of that offence, and thus the warrant became conclusive evidence of all matters therein contained, and the man would be looked upon as if he had been convicted of the crime. Therefore, as long as this clause remained giving the Lord Lieutenant the power of altering the form of warrant it was most essential that they should, in the most rigid manner, limit the purposes of the Act to insuring the jurisdiction and the legality of the arrest and detention, carefully guarding it against being employed to justify the charge preferred.

§ DR. COMMINS
was sorry that he could not agree with the Attorney General for Ireland as to the construction he put upon the clause proposed by his hon. Friend in substitution of the words contained in the Bill. The Bill, as it now read, made a recital in the warrant evidence for all purposes of the facts so recited. This was not only a matter of legal interpretation, but a matter of common sense, according to the grammatical 1019 construction of the words; and he did not see how the Chief Secretary could get rid of it. Probably, no Judge in a Court of Justice would construe the warrant to be evidence of the guilt of the man who had been arrested and detained; but it might be used for a great many purposes except those specified in the Act. And at present they did not know what the form of the warrant was to be. It was somewhat singular that the precedent of the Westmeath Act had not been followed, seeing that regular forms of warrant were therein prescribed. But this Bill departed from almost universal legislative precedent, and prescribed no form of warrant. It was an unexampled course in an unexampled Bill, and it was an innovation even greater than any other contained in the Bill. There was to be an unprescribed, unknown form of warrant; and yet it was to be conclusive evidence against the accused, who was to be committed to prison and detained under it. And these warrants might be used, whether the right hon. Gentleman meant it or not, for sinister objects, unless there were words inserted in the Act which precluded any such use being made of them. For instance, take the illustration given by the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland last night. Suppose an arson was committed, and a particular person was arrested under the Lord Lieutenant's warrant on suspicion of having been personally concerned in it. The warrant would recite that it was a prescribed district; and also the fact that arson had been committed within that district, and that a person had been committed upon reasonable suspicion of being guilty of committing it. If there were not some controlling words introduced that would prevent the words reciting that arson had been committed, it would beheld as being conclusive proof of arson having been committed in proceedings such as applications for compensation to Grand Juries founded on such supposed arson. He was quite sure that the Government did not wish to do anything but to carry out the object of the Act in a fair and proper manner; and he was far from supposing that they would wish the Act put in the hands of persons who might use it for sinister purposes. He, therefore, urged them to introduce some words such as were proposed into the Bill; and he would be quite willing, 1020 notwithstanding that the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland thought those words would press more against the people than the Act itself, to take the blame of the suggestion before the people of Ireland. Without some controlling words he feared that the Act would be turned to purposes which the House could not foresee and had not even contemplated.

§ MR. LEAMY
, referring to the Westmeath Act, argued that that Act at least stated what it was for which the warrant was to be deemed conclusive evidence. The present Act, however, left doubt as to the purpose, merely stating—"Every such warrant shall be conclusive evidence of all matters therein contained." Now, he only asked that the purposes to which the matters to be contained in the warrants issued under the proposed Act should be expressly set forth, as was done in the case of the Westmeath Act.

§ MR. METGE
believed the danger very great, pointing out, as what might happen, that the Act was more especially connected with the crime of inciting to violence.

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Gentleman cannot go back to the discussion of words that have been already dealt with by the Committee.

§ MR. METGE
said, he merely wished to show that it was necessary to introduce some qualifying words into that clause, because, as it stood, the Act would give very wide latitude in the application of it. The magistrates in Ireland, however, took a different view from that; and he found that, a few days ago, the resident magistrate at Longford read a speech, delivered at a Land League meeting, of which speech he (Mr. Metge) would read one paragraph—

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member must confine himself strictly to the Question, which is the introduction of these words from the Westmeath Act.

§ MR. METGE
repeated, that qualifying words ought to be introduced; and, referring again to the instance he had mentioned, said Mr. Lord, the resident magistrate at Longford, had said he would allow no man to go through the country—

THE CHAIRMAN
The Question be-fore the Committee is whether these words shall be introduced into the clause, and 1021 has nothing to do with anything decided by magistrates in Ireland.

§ MR. METGE
said, he was trying to show what seemed to him a good reason why qualifying words should be introduced into that part of the Bill, and was referring to something that had actually occurred.

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Gentleman must confine himself strictly to the point before the Committee.

§ SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA
said, he understood that the Solicitor General for Ireland had agreed that certain words should be introduced to the effect suggested on the third reading.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
The hon. Gentleman was not in the House at the time; but I have stated already that, upon another stage of the Bill, I will introduce words which will carry out the object proposed, and will insert after the words "conclusive evidence" the words "for the purpose of the Act."

§ MR. FINIGAN
considered that if the Government introduced those words into the clause they would meet all that he and his hon. Friends were asking for, which was simply some limitation.

§ MR. BRADLAUGH
said, the effect of the Amendment was to make the Bill still more coercive.

§ MR. ERRINGTON
intimated that as he did not see there was any chance of an Amendment he had proposed to put being accepted, he would not put it.

§ MR. DALY
said, the object of the Amendment he proposed to move was to insure that the punishment applied to persons who were suspected should not extend to their families. He observed that the Government made no pretension to infallibility as to a power of reasonable suspicion; and people who were perfectly innocent of the suspected crime might be immured, and so taken away from their business. There might be people who had innocently joined the Land League, with the full idea that it was necessary for the prosperity of the country; and yet they might be brought under the operation of the new law. In that way, as an instance, a small shopkeeper in the country might be immured without any chance of proving his innocence, and he would have to leave behind him a small business, which his wife might not be able to 1022 conduct. There should be reasonable facilities given to persons so detained to give instructions for the carrying on of their business; and he could not see what fair or reasonable objection there could be to that being done. It would be impossible, no matter what care or conscientiousness on the part of the Government, to avoid committing some injustice; and what he proposed was that such facilities should be given, "so far as prison arrangements would permit." All that he asked was that an imprisoned man should be allowed to carry on such communications as would prevent his family becoming paupers during the operation of the Bill. The last part of the Amendment proposed that such a man should be visited by such persons and for such time as might be necessary for the purpose. The Government were imposing a deprivation of Constitutional liberty, and an oppressive measure upon the Irish people; and he put it to them whether they proposed to punish not only those who had committed a breach of the law, but to extend the punishment to their families. He begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
I think the hon. Member will be satisfied with the answer I shall give him. I agree that we do not introduce the Act for the purpose of punishment; but for the purpose of prevention. We have inserted in the Bill a provision by which all persons accused of crime will come under the rules of the present law with regard to the persons awaiting trial. The 17th of the rules provides that— So far as prison arrangements may admit, facilities shall be given to such prisoners to work and follow their respective trades and employments, and all earnings of such prisoner, after payment thereout of such sum as the Commissioners may determine on account of the cost of his maintenance in the prison, or on account of the use of implements lent to him, shall belong to such prisoner. 1023 And then, with regard to visiting, it is provided that— Each such prisoner shall he permitted to he visited by one person, or (if circumstances permit) by two persons at the same time, for a quarter of an hour on any week-day, during such hours as may from time to time be appointed. Also— The Visiting Committee may, by permission in any special case for special reasons, prolong' the period of the visit allowed to any such prisoner, or allow him to be visited by more than two persons at the same time. There is another section which I will read, although it does not exactly carry out this object. Every endeavour shall be made to provide that such prisoners shall not, when being visited, be exposed to the view of the friends of other prisoners; and to prevent the friends of one prisoner from coming in contact with the friends of another while in the prison. I really believe that we have secured that there shall be this opportunity given to prisoners by accepting the rules of the Prisons Board.

§ MR. DALY
observed that, under the present prison arrangements, substantially what he sought was provided. Suppose that under the present arrangement a man was imprisoned, and his wife called to see him, would any conversation which she held with him be within the hearing of the turnkey? Suppose, for instance, she told him his business was going into bankruptcy, and asked him to ask his relatives to give him some assistance, would she be obliged to make such a revelation of their circumstances in the hearing of the turnkey?

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
She is not so obliged.

§ MR. DALY
Then I accept that.

§ MR. LEAHY
, in rising to move the Amendment which stood in his name, said, that if they only looked at the treatment which the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan) had received in 1866, they would see that they should be very cautious as to how prisoners arrested under the Act should be dealt with. A further instance of the way in which prisoners were treated in 1866 was afforded by a Report of Dr. M'Donnell, Superintendent of the Mountjoy Prison, He trusted that the Government would see that the men 1024 arrested would be treated property, and that, looking to the severe weather that had recently prevailed, suitable accommodation would be provided for them.

§ MR. MITCHELL HENRY
wished to remind the Government, before they committed themselves to refusing to accept the Amendment, of what took place during 1871-4. He did not believe that in any country in the world, not excluding Italy during the time when the Prime Minister wrote of the cruelties that were practised in that country, greater inhumanities were practised on prisoners than under the Westmeath Act. He presumed that it would be admitted that it was possible that persons arrested under the Act might be innocent, and there could not be a greater hardship or cruelty than to keep a man in one of the cells administered by the Government Board. By the present Act, passed two years ago, prisoners were deprived of the influence that had been exerted upon the discipline by the visits of persons from outside—magistrates and Prison Committees. There was still a pretence of visits by magistrates to prisons; but they had been deprived of all real power as to the treatment of the prisoners under their charge. They had now small State prisons in various parts of the country, the rules in which were administered on most mechanical principles. He did not know a more dismal thing than for a man to be put into a cell made of bricks, and only half warmed by pipes in the corridors; and he stated that recently, in the county of Galway, the number of prisoners was so large that the magistrates were compelled to lot them out on their own bail, because it was impossible to heat the cells. He hoped, therefore, that if the Amendment was not accepted, the Government would not place the prisoners under the ordinary rule applicable to untried prisoners. If the Government would say that they 1025 would make special rules as to the treatment of those persons, and especially would take care that they should not be placed in rooms with stone floors, he should be content; because he believed that the Chief Secretary for Ireland and the Lord Lieutenant and the Treasury Bench would not sanction the cruelties that had existed under similar Acts in the past.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
I hardly think that the hon. Member who has just spoken is referring to the Westmeath Act. I think the charges of hard treatment arose out of previous Acts, and referred to the prisoners arrested in 1866. I should very much like my hon. Friend to look into the grounds of his statement, for it is quite new to me that there was such harsh treatment under the Westmeath Act. I have carefully looked at the special rules under the Westmeath Act, and compared them with the rules for untried prisoners. I maintain that there was no complaint made of the treatment under the Westmeath Act.

§ MR. MITCHELL HENRY
The rules were all right. It was the administration of the rules that I spoke of. Cases of cruelty were repeatedly recorded.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
I am surprised to hear it; and I think the hon. Member is referring to 1866 and 1867. There were, undoubtedly, charges made at that time, and I do not suppose that enough precaution was taken as to the treatment of prisoners. In fact, at that time, there was not enough precaution for untried prisoners. The hon. Member says he does not complain of the rules. I have gone through the Westmeath rules, and I think the rules with regard to untried prisoners are more favourable to the prisoners than the Westmeath rules.

§ MR. MITCHELL HENRY
I did not say I was satisfied with the Westmeath rules.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
The hon. Member said it was the administration of the rules that he complained of. The 10th rule says the Visiting Committee shall, on the application of any such prisoner, cause special provision to be made for a suitable room or cell fitted with a suitable bed and bedding, and other articles in addition to and different from those furnished in ordinary cells. 1026 I do not for a moment suppose that we could ever make a prison a comfortable place; it is not in the nature of things that it should be so. I really think that it would be very difficult to make rules which, on the whole, would be more likely to give every kind of convenience, which is compatible with keeping people safe, than these rules; and I can hardly accept the Amendment, which, I think, goes into too many details. As to securing that the temperature shall be not less than 60 degrees Fahrenheit, it is very difficult to secure that temperature in our own houses.

§ MR. M'COAN
asked the right hon, Gentleman where copies of the Westmeath rules could be obtained, and the rules for untried prisoners?

§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR
asked the Chief Secretary to consent to the postponement of that part of the Amendment for a day, in order that they might have an opportunity of comparing the rules.

§ MR. R. POWER
said, that one of the points of the Irish Members was, that innocent men had been treated as convicts. Under the Act of 1866, men were thrown into prison without any charge, kept there—some for 18 months—and treated not as untried prisoners, but as convicts. Another point was, the cruelty of solitary confinement; and if the right hon. Gentleman would give some assurance—

THE CHAIRMAN
That Question does not come within the Amendment.

§ MR. R. POWER
said, he only called the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to that point.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
I should be very sorry to subject these men to any hardship. It is provided that the Visiting Committee, on the application of any prisoner, may direct that he shall be treated as an untried prisoner if the arrangements of the prison will permit it. I have already stated that such prisoners may receive visits from one person, or, if circumstances allow it, two persons for a quarter of an hour on any week-day; and that special permission may be given for longer visits. Then there is another provision, by which the prisoner may be permitted to be supplied, at his own expense, with books and newspapers, and any other means of occupation which are not, in the opinion of the Visiting Committee, 1027 or of the Governor, of an objectionable kind. He is also allowed to see his legal adviser, his solicitor, or his solicitor's clerk, on any week-day, at any reasonable hour.

§ MR. R. POWER
asked where copies of the rules could be obtained?

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
I think they are to be got in the Library; but if not, I will put them on the Table of the House.

§ SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA
thought there would be no objection to the Amendment being withdrawn, after the assurance of the Chief Secretary of his intention to see that persons arrested should not be subjected to anything like the privations and inconvenience which had hitherto been the rule rather than the exception. As to the question of temperature, it might be arranged that the temperature should not cool down to be-low 60 degrees; and, he thought there would be little difficulty in securing that. He, also, thought that boarded floors were absolutely necessary. His object was to ensure that the Act should be as indulgently administered as possible. The hon. Member for Galway had said it was possible that innocent men would be arrested. The Act would be fairly and scrupulously administered if half of the persons arrested were guilty; but, in order to arrest one-half of the guilty persons, three times the number would, he believed, have to be taken up.

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is going beyond the terms of the Amendment.

§ SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA
believed that it was important that the proposed amelioration should be introduced.

§ MR. METGE
suggested that the prisoners ought to be allowed to smoke.

THE CHAIRMAN
There is nothing about smoking in this Amendment. The hon. Member must keep to the Amendment.

§ MR. FINIGAN
asked the Government to postpone the consideration of the Motion until to-morrow, because by that time he hoped the Irish Members and other Members of the Committee would be able to see the prison rules, which were at present not known to them. He would remind the Committee of statements made by several Irish Judges of the working of the previous Acts, so far as the treatment of the 1028 prisoners was concerned. Mr. Justice Lawson had expressed the opinion that untried prisoners ought not to be subjected to any undue or improper treatment or stringency which was not absolutely necessary for their safe custody. He, therefore, thought that the Motion ought to be postponed until the rules had been laid on the Table of the House, in order that they might judge how far those rules were consistent with their ideas of justice.

THE CHAIRMAN
Before the dis-cusion goes further, I must point out that it is not within the power of the Committee to postpone part of the clause. If the Committee desire to postpone it, that can only be done on a Motion to report Progress.

§ MR. GIBSON
presumed that the rules referred to were the rules of the Prisons Board, adopted under the Act of 1877, in relation to the treatment of unconvicted prisoners. Those rules must have been passed shortly after the Act, and, under Section 57 of the Act, must have been laid on the Table of the House at least two years ago. Therefore, abundant copies of the rules must be in the Library.

§ MR. RYLANDS
said, he held in his hand a copy of those rules dated 1878. He should oppose the postponement of the Amendment, because he thought that those rules were very satisfactory; and that having had those rules on the Table of the House for two years, it was unreasonable that, because some hon. Members did not look through them, the Amendment should be postponed.

§ MR. T. D. SULLIVAN
thought there might be some difficulty in regard to boarded floors in prisons where the floors were mostly made of stone or some composition; but he would suggest that in those cases the floors should be covered with matting. That would not be by any means a luxury; it was a necessity of health. An innocent person might be arrested,' and delicate persons might be arrested, and it was not too much to ask that some humane and reasonable consideration should be given to them. He would like to know, in case it should be proved that during the detention of any man who was perfectly innocent he had suffered in health or circumstances by his unjust detention, what compensation would be made to him? To let him out would be no compensation in the case of 1029 an innocent man, whose health had been broken and whose family had been beggared by his imprisonment.

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is not talking to the Amendment, but to one of a different character.

§ MR. T. D. SULLIVAN
said, he was endeavouring to show why it was reasonable that some provision should be made for the comfort of arrested persons, many of whom might be, and would be, innocent, and many of whom might be delicate. He wished to put the matter to the Chief Secretary.

THE CHAIRMAN
The remarks of the hon. Gentleman are not relevant to the Question.

§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR
said, the proposal contained in the Amendment was that there should be suitable rooms with boarded floors. He might say, in reference to this matter, that, only yesterday, or the day before, he was speaking to a gentleman who had recently served three months as a first-class misdemeanant, and his statement was that, according to his experience, all the regulations in force for the special comfort of prisoners of this class were rendered abortive by two circumstances—first, the construction of the prison cells; and next, the interpretation put upon the prison rules formulated by the Prisons Board. In his (Mr. O'Connor's) opinion, the Amendment raised what was the most important question next to that of the liberties of the people; and at a later stage of the Committee he should have an opportunity of dealing with general principles affecting this question. Surely, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was quite as much interested as hon. Members on that side of the House were in seeing that those persons who would be arrested under this Bill were properly treated in the prisons where they would be detained. He asked the right hon. Gentleman whether this was not so? [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: Yes.] Very well; then the object of the right hon. Gentleman and of hon. Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House was precisely the same, and there was no reason why they should not discuss this question with perfect toleration on both sides. With regard to the provision of suitable rooms, the gentleman he had referred to had informed him that he was supposed, as a first-class misdemeanant, to have a suitable room; 1030 but, he added, by a suitable room it was meant that he had a cell, and the indulgence accorded to him amounted to this —that during certain hours of the day he was allowed to have the cell-door open. Furthermore, that gentleman had stated that even the concession of two rooms did not mean two ordinary rooms, boarded and properly heated, but two ordinary cells communicating with one another. He would put it to the right hon. Gentleman, whether such a state of things could be, in any sense, the provision of suitable rooms? And with regard to the question of boarded floors, he wished to ask, would the Chief Secretary undertake to say that in every prison in Ireland there were rooms with boarded floors, capable of accommodating all the prisoners who might be sent to gaol under this Bill? He challenged the right hon. Gentleman to say that this was so, as a matter of fact. Would the right hon. Gentleman answer the statement made by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry), who had informed the Committee that the prisoners had actually to be let out on bail from the prison in the town which he (Mr. O'Connor) represented, and which was the capital of the county of Galway, because the gaol did not contain the accommodation which the prison authorities were obliged, if they paid any regard to the proper interpretation of the prison rules, to provide for those who might be confined there. But what the prison authorities had done in the case of Galway, could not be done under this Bill. There they had admitted the prisoners to bail because of the imperfect accommodation afforded by the gaol; but this Bill contained no authority for letting a prisoner out on bail. If a man were arrested under its provisions, he must be kept in gaol till he cased to be regarded as dangerous, whether the accommodation was good or bad, whether there were suitable rooms with boarded floors, or common cells with stone pavements. Another proposal contained in the Amendment was that the rooms should be warmed in winter to a temperature of at least 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had said it was very hard for hon. Members to maintain 60 degrees Fahrenheit in their own houses. He wished the right hon. Gentleman would deal with the question in something 1031 better than a mere spirit of levity. ["Oh!"] Hon. Members might say "Oh!" but he held that it was nothing less than a spirit of levity for the right hon. Gentleman to get up, when the liberties and even the lives of those who were to be put in prison were at stake, and to say, "We cannot get 60 degrees Fahrenheit in our own houses." He trusted it would be impossible to institute any comparison between a prison cell and tie very worst house that any hon. Member of that Assembly could occupy. If the right hon. Gentleman know anything about prison life—of course, he meant through other people—he must be aware that want of warmth was far greater torture than want of food. He (Mr. O'Connor) had several friends who had had personal experience of prison life; and one of these, a gentleman of the highest honour and respectability, who had suffered incarceration as a political prisoner, had assured him that all through the winter he suffered most intensely from cold. That gentleman was of slight, spare habit; and having only a small amount of food, it was probable that he required a larger quantity of clothing and greater warmth than would be needed by a man of more robust frame. That gentleman—a man of as high honour as anyone in that House—had assured him that all through the winter he never ceased to shiver from the excessive cold. He held in his hand the report made by a surgeon of Mountjoy Prison in Dublin, a prison in which many persons would doubtless be confined under the provisions of this Bill before many weeks were over; and that gentleman described the results of the treatment extended to the prisoners there. He stated that— On the 7th of January, 1865, on visiting the punishment cells, he found a prisoner in one of them looking very miserable. He was stooping-forward, with his hands thrust between his legs. His extremities were cold, his cheeks sunken, his teeth chattered, and he shivered. [Laughter] Hon. Gentlemen behind the Ministerial Bench seemed to find something to laugh at in this. It must be an extremely funny thing in the opinion of those hon. Gentlemen; but in his (Mr. O'Connor's) opinion, if those hon. Gentlemen could not discuss the sufferings of their fellow-creatures in prison without laughing at them, the sooner they left that House the better. The description given by the 1032 gentleman whose report he had been reading went on to say the prisoner complained of being very cold; that he had no bed and bedding, except the single rug which was allowed him during the night; that he had lain on the floor with no other covering, and was cold to his very bones. These were the atrocities to which prisoners were subjected; and he put it to the right hon. Gentleman, whether he was wrong in asking that they should not be extended to prisoners detained under this Bill? An hon. Member spoke of the Conservatives. Did the hon. Gentleman mean to say that the Conservative Predecessors of the right hon. Gentleman were not fully as generous and humane as the present Government? It would be a most criminally unjust and atrocious charge to say that the hon. Members of the late Government knew of the cruelties that had been thus perpetrated. This was not a question of men, but of actions—not of heads of a Party, but of their subordinates—and it was on this basis that it must be discussed. By a reference to the Registrar General's Return, it would be seen that at the beginning of January, 1865, the cold was some nights intense, being several degrees below freezing-point; and such was the position of the prisoner at whom hon. Members behind the Treasury Bench had laughed when he had brought the matter forward. Well, he asked the Committee was there anything unreasonable in demanding that during the winter the room should be warmed to a temperature of at least 60 degrees Fahrenheit? What was it the House wanted? Did it want to punish these people? This was not the object in view. All that was wanted was that they should be prevented from committing crime. So long as they had a man within the four walls of a prison that was all, so far as the prevention of crime was concerned, that could be required. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary in no controversial spirit on this point. He did not believe that the right hon. Gentleman was not a humane man. He should be very sorry to accuse the right hon. Gentleman of inhumanity; but he must add that he should be bound to accuse him of inhumanity if he did not pay attention to the representations now made to him, and see that under his administration men should not, as under previous administra- 1033 tions, be done to death. ["Question!"] Hon. Members called "Question !" He assured those hon. Gentlemen that he was not to be put down by cries of "Question !" when he was speaking of a matter affecting the health, and even the lives, of a number of unfortunate men who might be sent to prison under this Bill. Was it not the duty of the right hon. Gentleman to guard himself by some such regulations as were proposed in this Amendment against atrocities which, although they might be perpetrated in complete ignorance on his part, would, nevertheless, be perpetrated under his responsibility. As he should have the opportunity of speaking on another Amendment, he did not propose to say anything more at the present moment, except to suggest to the Committee that this was a serious question, and that it would not only be a graceful, but also a humane and proper act, if the right hon. Gentleman would consent to adjourn at that juncture the further discussion of this part of the clause. They had now gone through more than half of the day, and if the right hon. Gentleman would break off at once, and come down to the House to-morrow with a code of regulations dealing with this part of the subject in a manner that 'would be satisfactory to the Committee, a great advantage would be gained. For his own part, he (Mr. O'Connor) would not be satisfied until he saw some further code of regulations—

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is not in Order. He is speaking to an Amendment he has given Notice of his intention to move.

§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR
begged pardon, as he believed he was transgressing in the manner pointed out. What he wished to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman was that he should postpone the discussion on this Amendment for the present; and he could assure the Chief Secretary, on the part of his Friends and himself, that he would not be losing a moment's time should the right hon. Gentleman propose rules in accordance with the proposal before the Committee. Such a course would not have the effect of delaying the progress of the Bill for an instant; and he must add that his hon. Friends and himself were determined to have this subject fully discussed, so that atrocities, which rivalled those of the darkest days of English and 1034 Irish history, might not be committed in future.

§ MR. LEAMY
said, the Amendment asked for the provision of suitable rooms, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would not accept it, because he said the persons to be arrested under the Bill must be treated as ordinary prisoners awaiting trial were treated now. Now, he (Mr. Leamy) had looked through the rules for the treatment of prisoners awaiting their trial, and he asked the right hon. Gentleman whether that was the treatment he meant? [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: Yes.] That being so, he wished to know what the right hon. Gentleman had to say to this? One of the rules provided that a prisoner might occupy, on payment of a small sum fixed by the Prisons Board, a suitable room or cell. Now, some of the prisoners to be arrested might, and probably would, be men who were not carning. more than 9s. or 10s. a week, and they could hardly be expected to pay for this accommodation, for while they were in gaol their families would have to go to the workhouse, and it would be impossible for such persons to take advantage of specially prepared cells. This being so, he felt that he had very strong ground for supporting the Amendment; because, even if there were objections to that part of the Amendment which provided for a boarded floor, there could be no objection to providing suitable cells. The right hon. Gentleman might say that prisoners could have such rooms by paying for them; but surely it was intolerable that a man who was possibly innocent should be compelled to pay for suitable accommodation while in gaol. Where, he asked were the prisoners to get the money from? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had not stated whether the Visiting Committee could dispense with these payments, and if they had no such power at present, there was nothing in this Bill directing that they should exercise it. Under these circumstances, he would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he was willing to make any concessions at all to hon. Gentlemen on that (the Opposition) side of the House? When the Bill had been read a second time, they certainly thought they would have a reasonable chance of passing suitable Amendments in Committee; and he asked the right hon. Gentleman, was it 1035 not reasonable that, when it was proposed to take a man from his home on suspicion, and the possibility of his being innocent was recognized, he should have decent accommodation during the period of his detention? He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to giving his assent to the Amendment.

§ MR. DALY
said, he thought it quite reasonable to ask that the Amendment relating to the treatment of prisoners should be postponed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the late Attorney General for Ireland had referred to the Prisons Act, of which Sections 13 and 57 related to this question. He (Mr. Daly) had looked at both those clauses, and had found that the 13th gave power to make rules, while Section 57 set forth that those rules must be subject to certain conditions. He had been to the Library and looked at the rules framed under that Act and laid on the Table of the House two or three years ago; and he put it to Her Majesty's Government that there would be a great saving of time if they would concede that hon. Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House had a right to be reasonably satisfied that the prisoners to be detained in custody under this Bill should be benevolently treated. One important point was as to who were the persons who had to see how these prison rules were carried out? Were they to be the Visiting Justices, or the Local Prison Board? It was important that the House should have a satisfactory assurance that it should be compulsory upon those who held the position of Visiting Justices, or whatever else they might be called, that they should be compelled to order a certain state of things which could not be prescribed by the rules unless they were directed by that House. If he were satisfied that under the prison rules reasonable precautions would be taken for the health and comfort of those who would be incarcerated, he should not be one of those who would take up the time of the Committee in arguing for the adoption of Amendments placed on the Paper with regard to the treatment of prisoners. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman either at once to put in the hands of hon. Members rules that might be read side by side with the Amendments, or to postpone the Amendments bearing on this question until they could have the oppor- 1036 tunity of examining the rules. He put it to the right hon. Gentleman on two grounds—first, on the ground of humanity; and, secondly, on the ground of saving time. There was no Irish Representative on that side of the House who would not—

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is not keeping to the Amendment, but speaking on other questions altogether wide of it.

§ MR. DALY
said, he desired to confine himself to the Question before the Committee, and he wished to refer to that part of the Amendment providing that the cells should be heated to 60 degrees Fahrenheit; but if he was not allowed to urge the wording of the rules on this matter as a reason for the postponement of the argument, he must submit to the direction of the Chairman.

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member could not have been in the House when this point was first submitted to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, and when I explained that it was impossible to postpone the consideration of these Amendments unless Progress was reported.

§ MR. DALY
said, he was not aware of that ruling on the part of the Chairman. Keeping to the Amendment before the Committee, he thought it commended itself to the humanity of the Committee. Many of the prisoners might suffer from disease and bronchial affections. It might be said, in reply to this, that the doctors would order these persons to be sent to the Infirmary; but he asked the Committee whether they had heard the statement of the hon. Member for Gal-way (Mr. Mitchell Henry), from which they must be painfully cognizant of the fact that prisoners were sometimes subjected to great hardships, and that the Government would be morally guilty if they neglected to take precautions for the health and comfort of those who would be arrested under the Act. He hold that it was not an unreasonable request to make to the Government that persons immured under the Bill should occupy suitable rooms with boarded floors, and heated in winter to a temperature of not less than CO degrees Fahrenheit. What practical objection, he asked, could be made to this? Her Majesty's Government had the selection of the prisons, which were their own, and would not necessarily be obliged to 1037 lodge a man in the prison of the district in which he might be arrested. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: Hear, hear!] The Chief Secretary said "Hear, hear !" to this. Then, why did he not consent to the Amendment, or offer some really practical objection to it, or propose an Amendment of his own? Reference had been made by the hon. and learned Member for Meath to the concrete floors of prison cells. He (Mr. Daly) believed that the use of cocoa-nut matting on those floors would be of great utility. Granting that the power of detention would be deterrent from crime, or might be applied as a punishment for past crime, he did not see how, to secure these objects, it would be necessary to send a man out of gaol an invalid for life, or else feet-foremost in a coffin. He should like to know what practical objection there was to the Amendment? If a man were arrested in Cork and the prison were found not to afford the accommodation necessary for his health, he could be transferred to Mountjoy or some other gaol in the country; and he did not think that he and other hon. Members wore unnecessarily taking up the time of the House in thus pleading the cause of humanity.

§ MR. HERMON
said, the question of the treatment of untried prisoners was not an unimportant one, and the more he looked at it the more convinced he was that the Bill must ultimately come to the stage called the Report. He believed there had been an endeavour to avoid that stage; but he thought they were losing a deal of time at present that might be more profitably devoted to other parts of the Bill, and that might be so used if it were only understood that hon. Members from Ireland would have an opportunity on the Report of raising, and possibly justly raising, these questions as to the treatment of prisoners. It might easily happen that, through mistaken identity or some other cause, innocent men might be arrested and detained; and he thought it unreasonable that the whole time of the Committee should be taken up on these matters when the Government, by agreeing to the stage of Report, might get on with the rest of the Bill without sacrificing any principle as to what ought to be done in the treatment of untried prisoners.

§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL
said, the Committee had been confining 1038 itself too much to arrests in prescribed districts, and had lost sight of the first part of the Bill, which was a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act all over Ireland on account of treason or treasonable practices. It was clear that the Government would arrest a great many persons on these grounds, for whoever they thought they had reason to suspect of treason or treasonable practices they would apprehend. When the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended in 1866–7, according to a high authority, 700 persons were arrested. Well, it would be obviously unjust, and of a rigour unbecoming in any Government, particularly in a Liberal Government, for them to treat prisoners suspected of these offences in exactly the same manner as prisoners awaiting trial. These persons would not be waiting their trial at all; they would never be tried. A great many of them would, no doubt, be reasonably suspected; but they would belong altogether to a class of life which could not be properly dealt with.

THE CHAIRMAN:
The Amendment before the Committee is with regard to a— Suitable room especially fitted for such persons, with a boarded floor, and suitably warmed in winter to a temperature of not less than CO degrees Fahrenheit. All general observations outside that Amendment are irrelevant.

§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL
said, what he had been saying was that persons arrested under the first part of the Bill, whom they had reason to believe would be very numerous, or the Government would not otherwise have asked for a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, had a right to be treated differently to prisoners awaiting trial. No one would contradict that; and he would, therefore, suggest that before the Report the Chief Secretary should give the matter his careful consideration, for he did not think that amid the innumerable matters that had attracted the right hon. Gentleman's attention this subject had been fairly weighed. No doubt, hon. Members would be satisfied if the right hon. Gentleman would investigate the matter, and arrange that the prison rules should not apply in the ease of persons not awaiting their trial, but detained on suspicion.

§ COLONEL BARNE
said, he would venture, on the other hand, to remind 1039 the Chief Secretary that if he made the cells too comfortable for the prisoners, he would he encouraging people to the commission of treasonable acts. They would have every ruffian in Ireland endeavouring to get suspected of high treason in order to get into these cells, if they were made as comfortable as was proposed. The object of putting a man in prison was to punish him, and deter others from the commission of crime; and if the Committee was not careful it would defeat that object.

DR. CAMERON
considered that the treatment of prisoners arrested under the Act was the most important question that could come before the Committee, and he did not wonder at the Irish Members desiring to be heard on the subject. Many hon. Members in the House had seen a Paper giving a correspondence with Dr. Macdonald as to the arrests under the last Act of this sort; but the hon. and gallant Member who had just sat down could not have seen it, otherwise he would not have adopted such a heartless tone. Feeling, as he did, on this particular matter, a few days ago he had made it his business to acquaint himself with the facts. He had studied the prison rules, and he had found that those for untried prisoners, under which category prisoners arrested under the Act would be brought, were very humane, and, in fact, went a long way in the direction that was desired. But, as had been pointed out by hon. Gentlemen opposite, these rules enabled untried prisoners to supply themselves with a few little luxuries at their own expense; and it seemed to him that while the country was justified in shutting up characters held to be dangerous without bringing them to trial, it was not justified in inflicting upon them any unnecessary punishment, and in refusing to them privileges which were allowed to untried prisoners. He could understand the Chief Secretary resisting Amendments, because, as they all knew, any Amendment would involve another stage—the Report; but let the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, or the Home Secretary, pledge himself to introduce some amendment in the prison rules to enable the authorities to supply these little luxuries to poor people arrested under the Act who were unable to purchase them for themselves. There was no question of safe 1040 custody or dangerous communication with the outside world in this. They gave the man with money certain luxuries; and he could not see why they should not, to a moderate extent, give these luxuries to the man who, whilst he was in custody, could not pay for them. It would be good policy to do so, and surely this nation would not grudge a few extra pounds in order to avoid the infliction of all unnecessary hardship.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, the question was likely to become one of Order, as he had already spoken on the subject; but, probably, there were some hon. Members present now who were not in the House when he made his explanation before, and he felt sure he could remove a great deal of the objection which seemed to exist in some of their minds as to this part of the Bill. He could not accept the Amendment, for it went too much into detail, and would bind the Committee to make a special rule, which it was hardly their work to do. He should be very glad, when they came to the next Amendment, to fully explain—and he hoped it would be to a larger House—the mode in which they intended to treat these prisoners.

§ MR. O'SULLIVAN
hoped the Committee would not dissent from this very reasonable Amendment, for, if it did, he should be driven to conclude that the Committee would not accept any Amendment, however just. In the interest of humanity alone, he would ask them to give this proposal their favourable consideration. Perhaps the Committee were not aware that in 19 cases out of 20 the only accommodation prisoners under this Act would have—particularly in county prisons—would be a cell 7 feet wide by about 13 or 14 feet long, and that they would have to remain in it for 22½ hours out of the 24. As for the temperature in winter, the cold in the cells was more intense than in the outside air, owing to the draught that was sent through for ventilation. There was a 4-ineh pipe running across the cell, and he had known prisoners to sit on it for hours with their hands against it for warmth. In 1867, several men whom he knew were sent to these prisons, and after being incarcerated eight or nine months they came out with rheumatic pains that never left them for the rest of their lives. There was some satisfactory at- 1041 tempt made to warm the cells in the Mountjoy Prison, but in the county gaols there was little or no attempt, the pipes, with partly heated water in them, being of no use whatever. All that was asked for, for the people who would be arrested under the Bill, was a suitable room warmed at a proper temperature. Amongst the other hardships that persons had had to suffer in these county prisons was that of not being allowed to speak to each other—

THE CHAIRMAN
I must remind the hon. Member that that part of the Question is not referred to in the Amendment.

§ MR. O'SULLIVAN
said, he would not go further into it. The Chief Secretary said that the Amendment wont too much into detail. He could not see how it could be going too much into detail to ask the Government to take some interest in the treatment of the unfortunate prisoners, and to see that they had proper cells, that the cells were properly heated, and that the people would not be loft to got rheumatic pains that would stick to them for the rest of their lives.

§ MR. CAINE
was satisfied that there was a strong feeling on this subject amongst the English constituencies. He did not forget that his Friend the hon. Member for Mayo, in 1866 or 1867, was arrested under a Coercion Bill, in Dublin, by two policemen; that he was not told why he was arrested; that his dietary in gaol consisted of—

THE CHAIRMAN
I must remind the hon. Gentleman that the question of dietary is not included in the Amendment.

§ MR. CAINE
did not wish to go further into the matter than to express a desire, that he believed was felt by the various constituencies of England, that every indulgence should be shown to the men arrested under this Act.

§ MAJOR NOLAN
said, there was another reason why these prisoners should be treated better than untried prisoners, and that was that they would be in gaol for a much longer period. Owing to the discomforts experienced by untried soldiers, it was provided in the Army Discipline Act that soldiers should not be kept more than 14 days without trial; but under this Bill men would not be kept 14 days, but a year and a-half without trial. Then, hon. Members were, perhaps, not aware of the transition 1042 state of prisons in Ireland at the present time, owing to the operation of the recent Act dealing with those establishments. Under the Prisons Act the county prisons had been taken over by the Government; but many of them were very imperfect and unfitted with the modern improvements, although the modern rules applied to them. Men imprisoned in these places would not experience that indulgence and laxity and forbearance—say as to obtaining warmth and getting exercise—which they would get in larger Government gaols. They would not have the benefit of the improved appliances for warming the cells, nor the benefit of the new rules as to personal contact. The state of the county prisons imperatively demanded that they should enter into some such details as the hon. Member for Kildare had brought forward in his Amendment. He did not say that some of the Government prisons were not in very good order; but the ordinary county gaols, that were now Imperial gaols, were such that great cruelty would be inflicted on the prisoners unless some provision of this kind were inserted in the Bill. An hon. Member who had lately spoken seemed to think that hardly any treatment could be too severe for these persons taken up on suspicion, and that no special rule should be made forthem. Well, it was quite possible that prisoners might be subject to officials— county magistrates and gaolers—of the same views as the hon. Member, and unless they could tie them down to special and definite rules, they might see repeated some of those things the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr.O'Sulli-van) had described; they might see men coming out of prison crippled and injured for life. He did not think that, after this Coercion Bill was forgotten, and they had got a good Land Bill, and Ireland had settled down, it would be desirable that they should have memorials going round the country, keeping the hardships and the sufferings of certain individuals fresh in the recollection of the people.

§ COLONEL COLTHURST
did not think the Government would find difficulty in properly treating the better class of prisoners who might be arrested on suspicion of treason; but he feared that such men as small farmers and labourers who might be taken up, would not have 1043 much comfort unless measures were taken to provide them gratuitously with those things which untried prisoners who were better off could purchase for themselves.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
thought the Amendment an eminently reasonable one, and could not understand why the Government should refuse to entertain it. In order to see how reasonable it was, it was necessary first of all to consider who the men were for whom this provision was stipulated, and what was their offence. A man to be arrested must not necessarily be suspected of high treason, treason-felony or treasonable practices; but he might be taken up because he was declared to be suspected of being accessory to inciting to the writing of a threatening letter. Such a man might be put in prison for 18 months and it was merely asked that if such a person were to be kept in gaol for such a period, that he should be treated with some humanity. The Chief Secretary had referred them to prison rules passed in the year 1877, and had evidently thought that these were sufficient to meet the case. What did these rules prove? That the Visiting Committee of a prison might permit any untried prisoner, on payment of a small sum fixed by the general prison law, to occupy a suitable room or cell specially fitted and furnished with suitable bedding and other articles in addition to, or different from, those furnished for ordinary cells. But who were the men who might be imprisoned on suspicion of having been concerned in inciting someone to write threatening letters? In a great many cases they would be men whoso absence from their homes necessarily involved their families in ruin. They would have no means at all; the very fact of putting them in prison depriving them of all means of earning anything. It was a mere mockery to say that these people, if they furnished the funds, should have a little extra bedding, or some other little comforts, for it would be absolutely impossible for them to produce a farthing. Again, according to the regulations which the Chief Secretary had fallen back upon, the beds of such prisoners were to be made, and the rooms swept and cleansed—

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member cannot travel beyond the Amendment 1044 before the Committee, which has reference to a suitable room for a prisoner.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
Quite so, and the Amendment proposed that the room should be suitably fitted. Well, he maintained that a room to be suitably fitted for such persons should be kept in a state of cleanliness. According to these rules—which the Chief Secretary was in Order in referring to, but which, it seemed, it was not for him (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) to deal with—a prisoner could be dispensed from cleaning his own cell, and making his own bed, and performing such unaccustomed tasks and offices on payment of a sum to be fixed by the Prisons Board.

THE CHAIRMAN
When the right hon. Gentleman referred to these rules and details, I explained to him that he was out of Order; but it seemed that he was only complying with the desire of the Committee to have information on these matters. The hon. Member is now clearly out of Order in referring to them.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
said, he bowed to the Chairman's ruling, but must admit that he did not understand it. This cell or room that was allowed to a man, and was to be made suitable for him, ought to be such that he could remain in it without any unreasonable amount of suffering. It was necessary in the case of all prisoners that they should be allowed some exercise, and in certain cases prisoners were allowed to exercise separately—

THE CHAIRMAN
I must ask the hon. Member to discontinue his speech if he continues to go through these rules, which have no reference to the Amendment under discussion.

§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR
said, he was desirous of adhering closely to the terms of the Amendment, and it had appeared to him that he was not travelling beyond the ground actually covered by that Amendment in pointing out what he conceived to be essential in order to render these rooms "suitable" for the occupation of the persons detained in them. However, as he was not allowed to do that, he would no longer follow that line. The room, to be made "suitable," must be furnished and have all the necessary utensils, which must be kept clean by the officials, for it certainly would not be "suitable" for the prisoner to attend to them. As to the 1045 temperature of the room, it was plain that nothing could be more reasonable than the Amendment. Everyone must know that after the exercise a man obtained in free life, during his detention in prison his vitality became very materially lowered, and that heat was a great deal more essential to him than to a person under different circumstances. The Chairman would know, perhaps, bettor than any man in the House, how necessary CO degrees of heat was to the health of a person in confinement. He trusted the Government would give the Committee an assurance on this subject— something they could take hold of and challenge him on hereafter if necessary.

§ MR. J. W. PEASE
said, there was a strong feeling in the House as to the manner in which these prisoners were to be treated. On all sides it was admitted that men apprehended under the Act, whether guilty or not guilty, should be treated with great consideration. He wished to point out that it was no use whatever the Committee accepting the Amendment, because, after all, the question really depended upon the course of action which the Government would take, and the strong protection which the prisoners would have would be the power of hon. Members in the House to raise the whole question as to the way in which persons arrested were treated, and the fact that the Press was unfettered by the Bill. They had discussed this matter at such length, that it appeared to him the time had now arrived when they should go to a division. He could not conceive that it would do the prisoners much good to insert words in the Bill which, after all, if they wished to override the wishes of the House, the Government could set aside. The safety of the prisoners would be in the hands of the Government, the conduct of the Government could be brought before the House, and condemnation could be passed upon it which would soon upset those who had acted wrongfully. There was nothing the people of England took a stronger interest in than the treatment of these semi-political prisoners; but they were anxious for the Bill to pass in order that other important measures might be proceeded with.

§ MR. DILLON
said, the arguments which had been put forward just now proved most distinctly the absolute ne- 1046 cessity of this Amendment, because an hon. Member had stood up and said that the House took an interest in the treatment of the prisoners in Ireland, and that there was nothing they would be more jealous of than the conduct of the Government with regard to these prisoners. At the present moment there were fully 20 of his constituents in the county gaol receiving the most barbarous treatment. Would the hon. Member support him if he brought their case under the notice of the House? Or would the hon. Member and his Friends shout him down when he attempted to prove that these 20 respectable persons were detained in prison for no justifiable cause?

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member must confine himself strictly to the Amendment before the House.

§ MR. DILLON
said, that in excuse for what he was saying he would state that he was answering an argument which the Chairman had allowed an hon. Member to use to prove that the Amendment was not necessary. The hon. Member had said that this House took a jealous interest in the treatment of prisoners in Ireland, and he (Mr. Dillon) was endeavouring to prove that they did not take any interest at all in the matter. However, he would pass over that line of argument, since the Chairman had ruled it out of Order. The chief argument relied on by the Government for resisting the Amendment was that it was not wise or necessary to go into too many details as to the treatment of prisoners. Well, it was his opinion, on the contrary, that it was absolutely necessary to go into the most minute and particular details. What he regretted to have to state, but what was perfectly well known in Ireland, was that the Act would be made use of for the purpose of inflicting vengeance on the Land Leaguers. They would be put in prison by the most petty persecution possible under a Liberal Administration, and no rules would be sufficient to protect them from the potty vengeance which the men with whom they had been at war for so many months would endeavour to inflict on them. He had proof that such was the temper of the Irish magistrates. ["Order!"] He was endeavouring to show that these minute regulations were necessary for the protection of the pri- 1047 soners against the magistrates. Was not that the Question? If the magistrates were humane men, who were only anxious to do justice, he, for one, would not think it necessary to support such an Amendment; but it was because he had no confidence in their mercy towards the prisoners, and because he believed that they would endeavour to take vengeance that he thought such proposals were necessary. At this moment, the magistrates were doing that particular thing which he was afraid they would do under this Act. This morning he had received letters of complaint from men who had been placed in prison, who were allowed only one hour for exercise out of the 24—

THE CHAIRMAN
I must remind the Committee that this Bill is one of urgency; and that, under Rules specially framed. I am bound to keep hon. Members closely to the Amendment under consideration. I have already, several times, explained what is the Question before the Committee.

§ MR. DILLON
said, that what he was endeavouring to show was that, under the present rules, it was within the power of the magistrates to give a man only one hour out of the 24 for exercise.

THE CHAIRMAN
The question of exercise is not within this Amendment.

§ MR. DILLON
said, he was coming to the argument that, therefore, it was the more necessary that the cell in which the prisoner was confined should be kept at a such a temperature that it would keep life in him—that he should not be killed in a week. It was possible to turn this Bill into an engine for killing and murdering men. He was talking about things that were happening in Ireland every day. He had a particular friend who was apprehended some time time ago, and put into one of these very prisons which would be used under the Act. It was four days before he could see his friend, being refused admission. The prisoner, he subsequently learnt, was, in the depth of winter and while the snow was on the ground, kept without any means of warming himself whatever; and it was not alone there was no warmth in the cell, but the walls were running with water. That man was Michael Davitt, and the treatment nearly killed him. It was three months before he got well again after his short imprisonment; and, for some time, he (Mr. 1048 Dillon), as a medical man, was seriously alarmed for his ultimate recovery. If an incarceration of this kind could put in imminent peril—as he would pledge his honour it did—the life of his friend, an untried prisoner, was he not entitled to appeal to the House that they should give some assurance that the hundreds and thousands of persons they were now going to put into prison should be secured against similar punishment? The Chief Secretary, if he wished to be honest in this matter, should, at all events, see that in every prison the prisoners should have the means of warming themselves. The county prisons were left to get what warmth the summer sun would give, and to soak in all the wet of an Irish winter; and were hon. Members to have nothing to trust to but the mercy of the magistrates or the Governors of the prisons? In conclusion, he would ask the Chief Secretary whether he would permit a committee of the friends of the prisoners in Ireland to visit the prisons and report upon them? ["Oh!"] Yes, he had no faith in the visits of the enemies of the prisoners, of the men who hated and were determined to have vengeance on them. Hon. Members jeered at the suggestion that a committee of the friends of prisoners should be appointed to visit the prisons, because they knew they could not and dared not allow such a committee to go round.

§ LORD EDWARD CAVENDISH
had no doubt he was expressing the opinion of 99-100ths of hon. Members when he slated that they deeply regretted the necessity for any Coercion Bill, and were anxious that the persons who might be arrested should be treated with every consideration. It appeared that hon. Members opposite entirely ignored the words that fell from the Chief Secretary a few minutes ago. [Mr. BIGGAR: Of course we do.] The right hon. Gentleman had stated, in the most straightforward manner, that as soon as he had liberty to do so he would introduce words into the Bill to ensure prisoners being treated in as humane a manner as possible; and that assurance the Committee ought to accept. He trusted the Amendment would not be pressed to a division.

§ MR. METGE
did not doubt the kindly feelings of the noble Lord (Lord Edward Cavendish), but kindly feelings would not 1049 do alone in this matter; they must have some actual details, for the prisons in Ireland were in exactly the same condition as they were when the enormities to which reference had been made were committed. In Mountjoy Prison, at the present moment, there were cells only 6 feet square, and surely these were unfit for the residence of the people likely to be crowded into them under this Act. The late Dr. O'Leary, who was an hon. Member of this House, had, in an affidavit, declared that the treatment to which prisoners were subjected in gaol had hastened their decease. The cells were so small that the prisoners had been obliged to go to the ventilator to got breath to keep up vitality; and, under the circumstances, he agreed with the hon. Member for Tipperary that a committee, say of county or borough Members, should be appointed to inspect and report upon the condition of the prisons. The Chief Secretary had said that he did not seek to punish any persons; and if that were so, and the Government really did not wish to torture their prisoners, they would see that suitable rooms and suitable warmth and ventilation were provided.

§ MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY
said, the Government had told them that all they wanted was the detention of these prisoners, so that they might not be the means of creating disturbance; that they did not want to inflict punishment. If this were so, it was most important that they should show the country they could accept the Amendment in principle, and were prepared to provide suitable rooms for the prisoners. He would remind the Government that this country was almost unique in its treatment of prisoners under detention; that in most other countries, such persons were simply detained in custody and no more, being allowed all the comforts they enjoyed at home. It was clear that, in order to obtain the greatest security for the proper treatment of prisoners, the Committee must go into detail to some extent; and the Irish Members were entitled to contend that, unless they had these details clearly set out in the clauses of the Bill, the intentions of the Government—which he supposed to be good natured and kindly— would not be carried out. They wanted definite rules to bind not the Government themselves, not the Chief Secretary, but the prison officials, who often treated 1050 the men under their charge as enemies. He would urge upon the right hon. Gentleman to accept the Amendment, at least, in principle, to show the people of Ireland there was no intention of repeating the bad treatment of prisoners of former years which had led to such ill feeling amongst the whole population of that country.

MR. MARJORIBANKS
would like to ask this Question of the Law Officers of Ireland—namely, whether there was any difference between the cells in which prisoners awaiting trial were confined and those allotted to convicted criminals; and, if so, in which class of cell persons arrested under this Act would be detained?

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)
could not give the exact details; but it might not be superfluous to mention that the distinction between the cells in which convicted persons were imprisoned, and those in which persons awaiting trial were detained, was clearly laid down by Parliament in the Prisons Act. In the case of persons awaiting trial, it was laid down that their confinement should be as little as possible oppressive, due regard being only had to their safe custody.

§ MR. A. M. SULLIVAN
Answer the Question.

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)
said the Prisons Board had authority to make certain rules to carry out the intention of the Act. The provisions of the Prisons Act had been much discussed in Parliament in 1877, and the broad distinction there laid down between the treatment of tried and untried prisoners was, if he recollected rightly, largely owing to the exertions of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), who took considerable interest in the matter; and, no doubt, that hon. Member had very carefully examined the prison rules carrying out that distinction which had been lying on the Table since 1878—

THE CHAIRMAN
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is travelling altogether beyond the Amendment.

§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR
I rise to Order. The Attorney General for Ireland has not answered the Question put to him.

§ MR. RITCHIE
should like to hear the Irish Attorney General answer the Ques- 1051 tion. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had told them a great deal about tried and untried prisoners; but he had not said in what category the prisoners detained under this Act would be placed.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
They will be treated as prisoners awaiting trial.

MR. J. COWEN
said, the question was distinctly put, whether prisoners awaiting trial and prisoners under this Act would be put into the same cells?

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)
said they would.

MR. MACARTNEY
said, if the Visiting Committees proposed were to examine these places—

THE CHAIRMAN
I must point out, before the hon. Member begins his speech, that "Visiting Committee" is not within the Amendment at all.

MR. MACARTNEY
said, he thought he was at liberty to refer to what other hon. Members had spoken of. The prison rules to which allusion had been made had been considered by the House in 1878, and anyone who was in the House at that time would remember what an immense amount of time their discussion took. He saw no reason why persons taken up under this Act should be treated any differently to persons awaiting their trial.

§ MR. BYRNE
said, the question of the suitability of the rooms was a very important one, and he was glad to see that humanity had not departed from hon. Members on both sides of the House. With regard to the prison rules, what the Committee had to do was to consider, not what the rules intended, but the facts as they existed at the present time, and as they had been stated by the hon. Member for Tipperary. As to this suitability, if any hon. Gentleman on the Ministerial or Conservative side of the House was going to lodge any member of his family, or his horses or dogs, in a now habitation, the question whether that habitation was suitable or not would be very carefully considered by him. Yet, according to the hon. Member for Tipperary, the room in which a particular friend of his had been imprisoned was not only damp and cold, but water was absolutely to be seen coursing down the walls. Would any hon. Member on either side of the House like to be confined in a room of this kind? The prison rules might not apply to eases that were 1052 likely to occur under this Bill, and the Government, he considered, were bound to give a reply, "Yes" or "No," to the question whether they would or not. But, further, if they wore going to keep suspected persons in gaol for 18 months, the places in which they were confined should not only be suitable, but properly fitted, and so appointed that the prisoners could leave them in a state of health, and not in a crippled condition and with shattered constitutions. He did not go the length of saying that Turkey carpets should be put in their rooms, but he would go the length of saying that suitable and decent furniture ought to be provided.

§ DR. COMMINS
urged the Chief Secretary for Ireland to give a full explanation of the views of the Government on this matter, to satisfy the minds of hon. Members. It was said that all the Government wished to do was to secure persons who were considered to be dangerous, and that they were anxious to avoid giving unnecessary pain and annoyance to these persons; but it depended upon the careful treatment these people received whether unnecessary pain was not inflicted on them and whether their lives were not shortened. He had had the advantage of going over several prisons in England and Ireland —not under such advantageous circumstances as some of his hon. Friends— namely, as a prisoner, but as a looker-on—and he had found that the cells in which the tried and the untried prisoners were detained were identically the same. They were of a certain size, the prison regulations fixing how long and narrow they wore to be, and what was to be the minimum height; and, so far as his experience was concerned, these places were of the regulation size all through the Three Kingdoms. Untried prisoners were allowed this little relaxation—they were allowed to gather together in one place for the purpose of working, for they were allowed to work, and could even subject themselves to hard labour if they thought fit. The floors of these prisons—all of which, he believed, were the same—were made of stone, and everyone knew that, in such a climate as that of Ireland, a room with a stone floor was a very uncomfortable place. The prisoner had not even a bad to lie down upon. There was a bench surrounding the cell, a mattress about an inch 1053 thick, and a single counterpane of prison manufacture. The rooms were cold, and to warm them fires might be lit; but these, owing to the size of the cells and the defective ventilation, would consume the air which was necessary to enable the prisoner to breathe. The injuring of the ventilation, the diminution of the quantity of air necessary for people to breathe, would shorten the lives of the prisoners as surely as though they were served with continued small doses of arsenic. In order to obviate this, the Amendment provided that there should be different cells for tried and untried prisoners. In Ireland a person charged with crime must be brought to trial within three months, for the Quarter Sessions met every three months—in some instances, indeed, the Sessions were held twice in that period.

THE CHAIRMAN
I must call the hon. Member's attention to the fact that he is going quite beyond the limits of the Amendment.

§ DR. COMMINS
said, his desire was to keep, as closely as possible, to the question, and he was pointing out that this torture, this injury to the health of a person, could not last more than three months in the case of a person about to be tried for a crime; but in the case of a person arrested on suspicion under this Act it could last for 18 months. No matter how healthy a man might be when he was put in prison, if he were to remain 18 months in one of these cold cells, with nothing but a mattress an inch thick to lie upon, with nothing but a counterpane to cover him, he must come out with impaired health, perhaps crippled, or with a broken constitution.

§ MR.MACDONALD
thought the Committee was entitled to have a direct answer from the Government with regard to the cells in which these people were to be placed. It had been said that the tried and untried prisoners would not be put in the same kind of cell; but there was no guarantee of that at the present time, and what guarantee could they have that any kind of cell would not be used for persons detained under the Act when the prisons became crowded? He would ask the Chief Secretary whether it was not the custom even now to put untried prisoners in the cells used for convicted criminals when the prisons were crowded; at any rate, until such time as bettor accommodation 1054 could be provided? He thought the evasions they had had from the Government for a considerable time were such as to entitle him to say—although he did not wish to use a strong expression —that the Committee was being trifled with. [No, no!"] Hon. Gentlemen might say "No !" but if they liked to hear discussions continued for two or three hours, when the Government could bring the matter to an end at once by giving a direct answer, he did not. Would the right hon. Gentleman also see that the cells had wooden floors, and not the miserable stone pavement? The assurance that there would be wooden floors would, in some degree, lesson the prospective horror of the place. He thought that, considering that some of those now occupying those Benches might get a residency there as well as others, they ought to insist on this much being done.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
asked, could he or could he not be allowed to answer these questions?

THE CHAIRMAN
If the right hon. Gentleman confines himself to a simple answer to Questions, no doubt the Committee will extend an indulgence to him.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
wished that the hon. Member who spoke last had been in the Committee throughout the whole of the discussion. He was obliged to say rather more than simply "Yes," or "No," for that would not De a fail-answer to the Questions. The hon. Member asked whether the cells of untried prisoners were similar to those used for unconvicted prisoners. [Mr. MACDONALD: Whether they are the same cells?] Of course, they were not the same cells, because there would not be two men in the cell together. He believed, however, that according to the prison rules they generally were similar cells. As he had already stated, the Visiting Committee must provide, having regard to the ordinary habits and conditions of life, on payment of a small sum, a suitable room or cell specially fitted for such prisoners. If he had an opportunity of describing—but, of course, he was prevented by the Rules—he should have said he considered the adjective "small" ought to be reduced to the smallest possible sum.

§ MR. MITCHELL HENRY
said, the right hon. Gentleman had said nothing about the boarded floor.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he could not undertake to say that boarded floors should be provided in every case. But merely to answer that Question without explanation would, perhaps, induce hon. Members to vote under a misapprehension.

§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL
said he really must rise to Order. He asked the Chairman, had not the right hon. Gentleman done all that was permitted, and given a plain answer to a plain Question, and whether he was not now travelling beyond those limits?

THE CHAIRMAN
The Question was also distinct with regard to boarded floors. If the Committee wish to hear an explanation, the right hon. Gentleman is within his right.

§ MR. T. D. SULLIVAN
said, he also had asked that matting might be put on the floors of the cells.

§ MR. CALLAN
asked that there might be an answer from the Treasury Bench to the very fair Question of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) as to boarded floors. It was not a very difficult Question. Given the measured length and breadth of each cell, any contractor could say what would be the cost of boarding; or, perhaps, the experience of the First Commissioner of Works would enable him to give an estimate of the cost of covering each cell with 1-inch boarding', if expense was the only consideration, for there certainly could be no objection on humanitarian grounds. If any Member would pay a visit to Pentonville or Clerkenwell, they would see for themselves and learn from tin? prisoners what these stone cells were.

§ MR. BIGGAR
thought the direct charge of evasion made by the hon. Member for Stafford was well founded. A simple Question was asked a few hours ago, and during all the time since no direct reply had come from the Front Bench. These Amendments had never been met on their merits; but the Government had simply raised quibbles, and the result was that hon. Members who were in favour of the Amendments were forced to exhaust all the arguments they could think of. These Amendments, which would have been agreed to by any other Ministry—

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is now speaking to some abstract proposition, and not to the Amendment before the Committee.

§ MR. BIGGAR
said, what he said bore exactly upon the Amendment before the Committee. This Amendment of the hon. Member for Kildare (Mr. Leahy) was of an exceedingly general nature, except in two particulars. The first objection raised by the right hon. Gentleman who replied was that it went too much into detail. But in what way did it do this? It stated in the most general terms that there should be a suitable room suitably furnished. Then it said, with regard to matters of detail, that the room should have a boarded floor; and the next matter of detail was that the temperature should be kept up to 60 degrees. The right hon. Gentleman raised quibbles in reply; and now, at last, after a long cross-examination Government admitted that the cells were to be exactly similar to those of untried prisoners. He contended that that was not a suitable cell for the persons who would be confined under the provisions of this particular Bill. Untried prisoners had always, more or less, a primâ facie case against them; but the persons arrested under the Bill would be entitled to very much more consideration, for the probability was that they would be really innocent. And more than this, a cell suitable for a person who would only be confined in it for a few weeks, was not suitable for a person to be detained for a year and a-half. Further than that, the furniture and bed-clothes suitable for a person confined for a short time, would not be suitable for the general health of a prisoner detained for a longer period; and his circumstances required better treatment and accommodation, and included in these propositions was the boarded floor for which he wished to contend. It was said, when the Prison Bill was passed, that the new prison arrangements would allow of the classification of prisoners, certain gaols being set apart for certain classes; so it was perfectly within the power of the Government to do what was asked, or to punish these persons vindictively. He charged the Chief Secretary with vindictive conduct with regard to the passage of this Bill, when he was perfectly able to set aside—

§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)
rose to Order, and asked was the hon. Member in Order in charging another with vindictive conduct?

THE CHAIRMAN
I did not notice the word; but if he charged the right hon. and learned Gentleman or any hon. Member of the House with vindictive conduct, it is an un-Parliamentary expression.

§ MR. BIGGAR
said, he would withdraw the expression, and apologize to the Committee for having used one that was not Parliamentary; but if he could use any word to convey the same idea he would do so.

THE CHAIRMAN
Unless the hon. Member distinctly and entirely withdraws the expression, he is guilty of a want of Order, and of contempt to the Committee.

§ MR. BIGGAR
said, he entirely withdrew the expression. It was entirely within the power of the Government to have certain prisons fitted up in the way shadowed forth by the Amendment, in Dublin or other parts of Ireland, and with boarded floors. It would be perfectly easy to heat the cells with hot water in a way to make them reasonably comfortable, and so that the prisoners would not suffer much personal inconvenience and have their health destroyed.

§ MR. M'COAN
confessed that he was quite unable to reconcile the refusal of the Government to accept this Amendment with the statement made by the Home Secretary only that morning. It would be in the recollection of the Committee that the right hon. Gentleman had said that the main object of the Bill, and intention of the Government, was simply to insure the safe custody of the persons who were to be detained under the Bill. If that object were secured, everything else was matter of detail, in which he had expressed the readiness of the Government to accede to the sentiment of the Committee. If this were the Government object, he could not conceive why the Chief Secretary should decline to make the concession now asked for—a concession not merely to the victims of the Bill, but to humanity, and to the general sentiment of the Committee in relation to this particular Amendment. The Government had no right to ask for more than the powers adequate for the preservation of the public peace in Ireland. He would not say that they asked for the power to be cruel, and that they would be vindictive; but he must apply that to the general action of the Government 011 this Bill.

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member is repeating what I distinctly stated was an act of disorder and contempt of the House if applied to Members sitting in this House; and I hope the hon. Member will not repeat the expression.

§ MR. M'COAN
said, he meant his remarks to apply rather to the policy of the Government than to any individual. It was surely fair to say that of the general action of the Government as a body.

THE CHAIRMAN
I have already repeated the ruling I have given. The hon. Member must not use the words.

§ MR. M'COAN
said, then he would say that in asking for the power to enable them to be cruel their action would not commend itself to the humane sentiments of the country. The Government, after all, were but the servants of the country, and their duty was to carry out the will and feeling of the country. He would not take advantage of his position to use impertinent language to the House or to the Government; but—

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Member has not yet approached the Amendment before the Committee.

§ MR. M'COAN
said, he would merely add a word to commend the adoption of this humane Amendment. He had another Amendment on the Paper; but he was accidentally out of the House when called upon. If all the Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench were angels—and some of them were not angels—he would not put within their absolute discretion the power to be cruel to any subject of Her Majesty—

THE CHAIRMAN
Having directed the attention of the Committee to the irrelevancy of the remarks, I rule that the hon. Member discontinue his speech.

§ MR. W. CORBET
rose to offer a suggestion that might get the Chief Secretary out of any difficulty. There was, in the county he represented, an unused county gaol; it had been out of use for a considerable time, as there was no crime in the county, and, consequently, no prisoners to put into it; and he would suggest that this gaol should be fitted up in the manner proposed by the Amendment for the purposes of this Bill.

§ MR. M'COAN
rose to Order, and, with feelings of the sincerest deference to the Chairman and to the Committee, asked for the guidance of the Chairman as to what should be his course under the particular circumstances. With reference to the incident which just now occurred, when he was ruled out of Order in applying a certain adjective—

THE CHAIRMAN
The hon. Gentleman must understand that my ruling was for the irrelevancy of his remarks.

§ MR. M'COAN
gladly accepted that explanation. He understood that he had been ruled out of Order.

§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY
, in rising to move the Amendment which stood in his name, said, he thought the general principle upon which they should proceed in considering the rules for this description of prisoners was that the object of the Bill was not to punish people for crimes. The avowed object was very different; it was to prevent persons who were suspected of treasonable practices, and certain other offences, from pursuing those courses. This object of the Bill had been stated by the Government more than once, and those persons being put into gaol it was admitted they should not be treated as criminals, but only under such rules, having due regard to the object for which they were detained. Therefore, the Committee was bound, so far as they could, to mitigate the severity of the punishment, and one of the greatest severities of prison discipline was exclusion from friends. The Amendment was not very much to ask. These persons would be imprisoned possibly for a period of 18 months; and unless the rules were relaxed in their favour their detention would have many of the features of solitary confinement. By the regulations that dealt with untried prisoners, they were allowed a quarter of an hour to receive visits from their friends each day. In dealing with these they dealt with the case of those who were only in prison for a few weeks at most; but in the case of those whose imprisonment might last 18 months it was not too much to ask that they should have a larger amount of time for intercourse with their friends. In dealing with untried prisoners they dealt with those whom it was intended to bring before the tribunals, and to justify the course adopted; but in the class dealt with by the Bill there was no intention to justify the action in the ordi- 1060 nary course of judgment, so, on that account, they were entitled to greater relaxation of the ordinary rules. It should be borne in mind that these men would not be unconvicted prisoners in the ordinary sense. So far from the presumption of crime being strong against them, it had been laid down by the Attorney General for Ireland that the reason for the Bill was because the case of the Government against these men was an imperfect case; that was the cause for the procedure of the Bill. Then, surely, it was not unfair to ask that, when the case against these men was so entirely imperfect, they should enjoy the indulgence described in the Amendment. He did not know whether the Government would concede this or a similar Amendment; but he was certain that if they meant to deal with these men fairly they ought to introduce and lay before the House the regulations, setting forth in detail the indulgences to which these prisoners would be entitled, both in regard to this and analogous Amendments, and such regulations should be laid before the House before the debate on the Bill concluded. The last portion of his Amendment was to dispense with the pre-sense of a prison officer during these visits, and he thought it would be admitted it was not an unfair addition to make. These interviews could not in any degree be of a satisfactory character if there was always an officer near listening. That might be necessary when a man was convicted, or about to be brought before the tribunals of the land; but when they took a man against whom the case was acknowledged imperfect, and he was only detained for the purpose of safe custody for 18 months, it was not too much to except these hurried interviews from the presence of an official.

§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)
said, of course they were all agreed that the object was to detain these persons merely 1061 for safe custody, and that it was not intended to punish them. The object of the Government, in common with every hon. Member in the House, was to see that nothing more was done than was necessary for the safe custody of the persons who were incarcerated for a time under suspicion. But there would be a great difficulty in putting all these matters of detail into an Act of Parliament of this kind for this reason—so far as the particular matter of detail was concerned a provision of the Act might deal with it; but possibly it might also omit, and, therefore, be held to exclude other matters of detail. Therefore, if matters of detail were to be dealt with at all it would be necessary that it should be done in some way like a Schedule of rules to be laid before the House. That appeared to him—he would not say an answer—but a reason why the Amendment should not be accepted. But another objection to the Amendment was, that sufficient provision was already made by the prison rules. Among the rules for prison discipline, there was one by which the Visiting Committee themselves (by rule 19) were permitted to prolong the periods of visits allowed to any person for special reasons or in special cases. That was the general regulation of the Commissioners. The Prisons Act, under which the rules were made, also recited (s. 13) that it was expedient that a clear difference should be made between the treatment of persons unconvicted of crime, and in law presumably innocent, during the period of their detention for safe custody only, and prisoners committed for trial. The rule which he (the Solicitor General for Ireland) had referred to was applicable to the rule the hon. Member for Limerick mentioned when he spoke of the quarter of an hour visits, and allowed an unlimited extension on any week day, not merely one day in the week. That would go beyond the Amendment. Then, following what had been already mentioned, the rule alluded to (the 19th rule) provided also that the Visiting Committee might, for special reasons, extend the privilege of visiting to more than two persons at the same time, so that the Visiting Committee, while they could enlarge the period of the visit to an in-definite time, could extend those visits to any number of persons at the same time. It seemed hardly possible to express in wider language the facilities 1062 all desired to see extended to persons not committed for trial, but only for safe custody. So far as was consistent with that they would have pretty much the same advantages as they had out-of-doors. And then, as to the presence of the prison official, there was nothing in the prison rules that required his presence, except so far as was necessary to prevent an attempt to escape, or to tamper with evidence.

§ MR. O'SULLIVAN
admitted the rules read very well from the book; but in working they were very different. It was important to know who the Visiting Committee were.

§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)
said, of course he could not speak again without permission; but he might be allowed to say they were appointed under the statute at the time and in the number prescribed by the Lord Lieutenant, and selected by the Grand Jury much like the members of the old Board of Superintendence. The statute also empowered any magistrate to go at any time he thought fit to examine the state of the prison.

§ MR. O'SULLIVAN
said, the old Board had no sympathy with the persons imprisoned; they enforced the rules most stringently, and, indeed, their conduct was one cause for the vindictive behaviour of the prison officials. He knew himself of an instance where, because two persons had paid a visit to a prisoner, a third, a child of 12 years, was not allowed to see his parent. With a Visiting Committee in whom the people had no confidence these rules would be of little use.

§ MR. MITCHELL HENRY
thought they ought to pin the Government to the statement of the Solicitor General for Ireland. If that was to be taken seriously, then it was perfectly clear that fresh rules would have to be made for these prisoners. Did the hon. and learned Gentleman really mean to attempt to persuade the Committee that prisoners were allowed to be visited without the presence of a warder? Why, it was a thing unheard of; and they must take care that the statement of the Solicitor General for Ireland, which, he confessed was exceedingly satisfactory, was carried out in practice. He put it to the Chief Secretary—for he believed the Government were anxious that these imprisonments should be carried out in 1063 a humane manner—whether, before the third reading of the Bill, he would consider a code of regulations to be embodied in the Bill for the treatment of prisoners, where their treatment differed from that of ordinary convicted prisoners. It was important when the Solicitor General said that visits could be made without the presence of a warder. This was a concession astonishing to him; and, without wishing to say anything disrespectful, the Committee must guard against being put off the scent by a concession made in this manner.

§ SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS
said, he should like to hear at another time from the Chief Secretary what was the moaning of this statement. He was not aware that prisoners were allowed to see their friends without the presence of an officer.

§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)
said, the 13th section of the Prisons Act of 1877 provided that the rules should be made as little as possible oppressive, due regard only being had to safe custody; and sub-section 2 of the same section provided that, with respect to communications between prisoners and their solicitors and their friends, the rule should be made so as to secure to the prisoner as unrestricted and private communication between the prisoner, his solicitor, and his friends, as might be possible, having regard only to the necessity of preventing any tampering with evidence, and any plans for escape, or other like considerations.