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

HC Deb 18 February 1881 vol 258 cc1238-342

(Mr. W. E. Forster, Mr. Gladstone, Sir William Harcourt.)

COMMITTEE. [Progress 17th February.]

[SEVENTH NIGHT.]

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

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

MR. O'DONNELL

moved as an Amendment, in page 2, line 6, after "Ireland," to insert "the Parliamentary Representatives of Ireland."

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out to the hon. Member that the Amendment which he proposes to move-namely, the insertion of the words "the Parliamentary representatives of Ireland," is inconsistent with the whole tenor of that portion of the Bill to which the Committee has already agreed, and, therefore, cannot be put.

MR. O'DONNELL

would suggest that the Amendment might be altered. He had thought that there might be an objection to that form, as he had placed it on the Paper; but he thought that it might be amended so as to make it regular. His object was not to molest the authority of the Lord Lieutenant, but to relieve him, to some extent, of his responsibility; and he, therefore, wished to insert a proviso, which would allow the Lord Lieutenant, in addition to taking the advice of the Privy Council, to consult the Parliamentary Representatives of the Irish people. The Amendment which he proposed to insert in the Notice as it appeared upon the Paper would make the proposal stand thus— And the Parliamentary representative or representatives, of the part of Ireland specified as prescribed. The Parliamentary Representatives were the Constitutional medium between the people of any part of the country and Her Majesty's Government, and any complaint or any representations made by the people ought to come from the Lord Lieutenant through the Parliamentary Representatives. Therefore, instead of saying "the Parliamentary Representatives of Ireland," he would submit— And the Parliamentary representative or representatives of the part of Ireland specified as prescribed. He believed that this would tend to bring the popular feeling in unison with the Act of Parliament.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member will see that the Amendment, as altered, amounts to precisely the same thing. The Amendment is quite inconsistent with the provisions of the Bill that have already been agreed to.

MR. GRAY

rose to move, as an Amendment, in page 2, line 7, at end of sub-section (4), to add "but no portion of the County of Carlow shall be included in such district."

THE CHAIRMAN

I must hold that this Amendment, and several other Amendments of a similar character, of which Notice have been given, are inadmissible according to the Rules of the House, as being inconsistent with other provisions of the Bill to which the Committee have already agreed. In sub-section (1), in the clause under consideration, power is given to the Lord Lieutenant to arrest and detain persons for certain offences committed in prescribed districts, and sub-section (4) defines prescribed districts to be any part of Ireland in this behalf specified by an order of the Lord Lieutenant. The discretion and responsibility in regard to these prescribed districts are accordingly vested in the Lord Lieutenant. This, and other Amendments, would exclude a considerable part of Ireland from the operation of the Bill, although the Committee have already decided to place the whole of Ireland under its provisions.

MR. GRAY

Do I understand, Sir, your ruling to be that when general words have been introduced into a clause it is not competent for other words to be subsequently introduced to limit its operation?

THE CHAIRMAN

I have exactly stated my reasons for the ruling. The first Amendment that is in order is one that also stands in the name of the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray); but I would suggest to the hon. Member that it is not in the right place. There is no objection to the form of the Amendment; but only to the place in which it is proposed to insert it.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he was desirous of proposing an Amendment to sub-section (4),by adding a proviso to the effect that no district should be prescribed for the purposes of this Act without a preliminary investigation as to whether the existing disturbance was traceable to, or was caused by, the extortion of exorbitant rents in a population declared to be distressed by the Relief Acts of 1879 and 1880. He would ask, in the first place, whether the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair would consider such a provision compatible with the purposes of this Bill? He would take the advice of the Chairman on the point of Order first.

THE CHAIRMAN

Will the hon. Member bring up the exact words of his Amendment, as I have not been able to follow him.

Mr. O'DONNELL

having complied,

THE CHAIRMAN

I must inform the hon. Member that this proposed Amendment is inadmissible, being beyond the objects contemplated under the Bill, which deals only with criminal action, and has nothing to do with civil contracts. I will now call upon the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Gill) to propose his Amendment.

MR. GRAY

I understood you to rule, Sir, that my Amendment was in Order.

THE CHAIRMAN

It is perfectly in Order as far as the words go; but the hon. Member does not propose to insert it in the proper place. If he will bring it up as a new clause, or lower down in the present clause, he will be quite in Order. The position in which he proposes to introduce it in the Bill is not applicable to the object of the Amendment.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

Does your ruling, Sir, apply to the Amendment which I have placed upon the Paper— Provided, That no district shall he so specified unless and until some one or more of the offences specified in the first subsection of this Clause have been committed therein after the passing of this Act: Provided also, That no district in which any such offence may have been committed stall be deemed to be of greater extent than the barony in which it has been committed.

THE CHAIRMAN

Exactly. It would limit the size of a "prescribed district" to a barony, whereas the Committee have already agreed to leave the size to the judgment and discretion of the Lord Lieutenant.

MR. GILL

rose to move, as an Amendment, in page 2, sub-section(4) to insert the following sub-section:— The families of persons detained under this Act, or persons dependent upon them, who may be rendered destitute or deprived of their usual means of support owing to such detention, shall be entitled to out-door relief suited to their station, anything to the contrary notwithstanding in the Acts relating to the Relief of the Poor in Ireland.

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out to the hon. Member that there has been an understanding come to that a clause carrying into effect the object of this Amendment should be brought up on the Report.

MR. PARNELL

thought that the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Westmeath (Mr. Gill) was not postponed by the Committee until the Report, but was postponed until the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had time to inquire into the details of the operation of the Poor Law in Ireland.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

intimated that, after the clauses of the Bill had been disposed of, he should be able to state to the Committee the course the Government proposed to take in this matter.

MR. LEAMY

rose to move, as an Amendment, in Clause 2, after the word "county," in line 12, the insertion of the following words:—"Which suspect shall have been arrested under the said warrant."

THE CHAIRMAN

Before the hon. Member moves this, I have first to put the Question on the adoption of Clause 1.

Motion made, and Question put, "That Clause 1, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided: —Ayes 302; Noes 44: Majority 258.—(Div. List, No. 56.)

Clause 2 (Supplemental provisions as to warrants, &c.)

MR. M'COAN

in rising to move, as an Amendment, in page 2, line 11, after the word "Act," to insert— Together with a succinct statement of the grounds on which the person arrested has been held to he reasonably suspected, and together with the name or names of the person or persons on whose information such reasonable suspicion has been based, said, he ventured to think that the reasonableness of the Amendment would commend itself to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Its object was to secure that with the warrant should be filed a statement of the grounds on which the Lord Lieutenant exorcised his discretion, or, in the words of the Act, based his reasonable suspicion. The right hon. Gentleman had readily admitted that he desired to act in conformity with the strictest justice and fair play towards the persons arrested under this Act. He had also stated that he would be ready to furnish innocent men who might be arrested with every facility for proving their innocence; but without some such information as this the friends of the arrested person, whether in that House or out of it, would be perfectly helpless to afford him any assistance whatever. All he wanted was, that concurrently with the instrument of the arrest, there should also bo furnished a statement of the grounds on which the man was arrested, in order to afford his friends a clue by which they might possibly substantiate his innocence. He thought the force of this suggestion was apparent, and that the Amendment could not be looked upon as a factious one. He, therefore, put it to the right hon. Gentleman as an Amendment which was consistent with equity and fair play. He asked him to connect with the warrant some information that would give a clue to the ground on which the man had been arrested, in order that if he should happen to be innocent his friends might be able to establish his innocence to the satisfaction of the Lord Lieutenant.

Amendment proposed, In page 2, line 11, after the word "Act," to insert the words "together with a succinct statement of the ground on which the person arrested has been held to be reasonably suspected, and together with the name or names of the person, or persons, on whose information such reasonable suspicion has been based."—. (Mr. M' Coan.)

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

MR. W. E. FORSTER

This matter, Sir, has already boon practically decided My right hon. Friend, the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) proposed something similar; and what I then stated was, that the Government would have no objection to give what is proposed already in the terms of the claus— namely, the nature and character of the crime. I promised to bring up an Amendment to that effect on the Re-port, requiring that it be inserted in the warrant. In sub-section 3 of the 1st clause, there is provision for a list of all persons for the time being detained in prison under the Act, with a statement opposite each person's name, and the prison in which he is detained for the time being, and of the ground stated for his arrest in the warrant under which he is detained. I think it was also decided that the particulars now asked for by the hon. Member should not be given. This section requires that a copy of the warrant shall, within seven days of its execution, be transmitted to the Clerk of the Crown for the County of the City of Dublin, and be filed by him in his public office in that city. I really think the same objection applies in the one case as in the other; and I am sorry to say that I cannot accept the Amendment.

DR. COMMINS

remarked that, if anything he could say would have any effect on the Chief Secretary for Ireland, he would press upon him that it would be only fair to make this concession. It was true that the matter had been decided already in one way. The Committee had decided that the particulars now sought should not form any part of the warrant; but the same objection would not apply to having these particulars filed, together with the warrant, at the office of the Clerk of the Crown. There were several reasons why these particulars should be filed. One of them was, that it was surely intended by the House that a person who might be imprisoned under the Lord Lieutenant's warrant should have some means or other of questioning the propriety of his imprisonment. He did not imagine that the right hon. Gentleman claimed infallibility, or that Her Majesty's Government in Ireland collectively claimed infallibility. Beyond all reasonable doubt or question, a large number of persons would be imprisoned under this Act, and would be the victims of some unfounded suspicion, or of some private malevo- lence, as it was often found, even in cases where there were sworn depositions and open information. Even the hearing of charges made against a man often resulted—after a public trial in open Court, where the man was brought face to face with his accuser—-in an acquittal. In point of fact, 25 per cent of those brought to trial before a Judge and jury were acquitted; and only 43 per cent of those accused, in the first instance, were even sent for trial. If, then, where the proceedings were open and aboveboard, 25 per cent were acquitted, there must, at the least, be 25 persons out of every 100 who were legally innocent; and it was very probable that a much larger portion would be morally innocent, and that the suspicion raised against them was an unjust suspicion. There ought to be some means, therefore, by which those persons who were unjustly suspected might be able to turn the inquiry into a proper and legitimate channel, so as to open the eyes of the Executive in Ireland, and show them that they had been misled, or deliberately deceived. So far, there was no provision in the Bill whereby the innocence of a man could be made known; and on this ground he would strongly press upon the Committee the importance of having these particulars filed along with the warrant. They would not become a matter of public notoriety, and would not be likely to affect any person prejudicially. He saw no other means by which his object could be obtained except by furnishing a statement of the particulars and filing them with the warrant at the office of the Clerk of the Crown, where it might be obtained on certain conditions, such as the payment of a fee. It was not likely that persons against whom there was a well-founded suspicion would challenge a public inquiry; but persons who were unjustly suspected ought to have some means whereby they might obtain some public inquiry, and be able to vindicate themselves, if possible. There was another reason, equally good. Unless these particulars were filed, and kept on record, it might be lost sight of altogether by whose instigation these persons had been arrested, and upon what information this severe law had been put in motion. As far as he understood the Bill, he did not think there was any provision in it to protect the innocent from those who might maliciously put the Act into motion. Unless there was some way of pointing out who the parties were, and of ascertaining whether they were likely to be actuated by malevolent intentions in putting in force the provisions of the Act, an innocent man might be arrested without a remedy, and be compelled to remain incarcerated in gaol for 18 months; and when he came out of gaol he would absolutely have no means of finding out who the person was who put the law into motion, and by whom the Executive Government had been led astray and deceived. It was an old legal phrase that "there should be no wrong without a remedy." Every man had a right to his liberty unless he had committed some offence contrary to the law. This Act said—"If you are open to suspicion, your right to your liberty is taken away." That was all very well; but then came in the legal principle, that if any person, through malice or without reasonable or probable cause, should have put this Act in motion, so as to deprive a man of his liberty for one or 18 months, the legal rights of the accused were affected, and he ought to have a remedy. This remedy would be provided in an action for malicious prosecution. But, instead of enabling this to be done, Her Majesty's Government appeared to be desirous of throwing a shield of darkness round those malevolent persons, who might maliciously incarcerate an innocent person, against whom they had a grudge, by industriously circulating suspicion, and taking advantage of some act which, in itself, might be very innocent, and probably very harmless, He put it to the right hon. Gentleman who had charge of the Bill, and who would have the administration of it afterwards, that some copy should be kept on record of the accusation, so that if a man was imprisoned wrongfully he might be able to proceed in the ordinary Courts of Law, and obtain some compensation for as severe a wrong as it was possible for one human being to do to another, short of taking away his life. Upon this ground he thought they were entitled to have the names of the persons who moved the authorities to act, and the charge ought to properly kept and filed with the warrant. There were two reasons which, he thought, were unanswerable for keeping this record, and he pressed as earnestly as he could upon the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary and the Law Officers of the Crown the desirability of adopting the suggestion that had been made, and, by so doing, to prevent a serious injury to individuals by giving thorn some means of redress in the event of their being arrested maliciously.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I do not wish, Sir, to break the Rules you have laid down, and I will stop instantly if you think I am doing so; but, as this Amendment was not on the Paper, I did not fully understand it when I addressed the Committee just now.

MR. M'COAN

It was on the Paper a few days ago, but was passed over.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

It is not on the Paper to-day. I understood that the hon. Member was merely asking for a statement to be filed. I gave my reasons for objecting to that. I see now that, in addition, the hon. Member proposes that the name or names of the person or persons on whose information reasonable suspicion has been based shall be given. Now, the chief reason for this Bill is that the Government cannot obtain evidence in consequence of intimidation; and if we were to require that the names of the persons who give information should be put in a public document, there would be no justification for the Bill.

MR. RYLANDS

thought it was inconvenient that they should be called upon to discuss an Amendment of an important character which was not upon the Paper.

MR. M'COAN

said, that the Amendment was upon the Paper for seven days.

MR. RYLANDS

said, that, in some of its main features, the proposition corresponded with an Amendment which had already been discussed, He (Mr. Rylands) had voted in favour of the Amendment of his right hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), and in favour of a subsequent Amendment pressing the question upon the attention of the Government. But he understood that his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland intended to add to the Bill on the Report a provision to accompany the warrant with certain facts. [Mr. M'COAN: NO, no.] He had certainly understood the right hon. Gentleman that the matter would be contained in the Report; and the right hon. Gentleman did not deny that. MR. W. E. FORSTER: May I he allowed to explain? What I undertook was that the warrant should contain a description of the nature and character of the crime.

MR. RYLANDS

said, that was what he had understood; and, to a certain extent, it was a modification of the Bill as it stood at present, in accordance with the views which had been expressed on that side of the House. He quite agreed that in regard to those particulars the Government had now conceded all that could be expected from them; and, having voted against them on two Amendments of a similar character to that be-fore the Committee, now that his right hon. Friend had made a concession which met the necessities of the case, he need not vote against them a third time.

MR.PARNELL

said, he did not understand why the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) should lecture the Irish Members on the course they considered it their duty to pursue. If the liberties of the hon. Member's constituents were at stake, he would see the necessity of going more into detail than they had gone at present. It had so happened that a conspicuous example of the wrong-doing which the hon. Member for Burnley had just brought against the Irish Members was afforded by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland himself, who had moved and had obtained the adoption of a most important Amendment with regard to the power of making rules for the treatment of prisoners, without having first placed it upon the Paper. But it so happened that his hon. Friend the Member for Wicklow (Mr. M'Coan) had not incurred the imputation which the hon. Member for Burnley thought to attach to him on this occasion, because the Amendment of his hon. Friend was upon the Paper for several days, and the hon. Member for Burnley might have seen it if he had chosen to exert himself a little more. Now, he (Mr. Parnell) did not understand the principle on which the Government declined to agree to the Amendment of his hon. Friend, for giving the ground upon which persons were to be detained under the operation of the Act. He could understand the reason for refusing to give the names of the informants, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman's objection to that portion of the Amendment was reasonable from the right hon. Gentleman's point of view, and from the point of view which the House had adopted as the main feature of the Bill. But that objection did not apply to giving the grounds of detention. What was it that they were going to do? They were going to give the Lord Lieutenant power to declare that a person was reasonably suspected of high treason, treason-felony, or treasonable practices, wherever committed. The Chief Secretary for Ireland said that he would, on the Report, introduce an Amendment to secure that a description should be given of the nature of the offence. But the description of the nature of the offence would, in the case of high treason, simply be a statement that it was high treason, and, in the case of treason - felony, that the person was reasonably suspected of treason-felony. No particulars would be given of the grounds on which the person was suspected, or particulars as to when and where he committed the offence; whereas he (Mr. Parnell) apprehended that, in a case of treason-felony, the right hon. Gentleman could only fulfil his obligation by stating particulars of when and whore the offence was committed. The hon. Member for Burnley had charged the Irish Members with making an unreasonable request; but he (Mr. Parnell) would give a case by way of illustration. During his stay in Paris he had been watched whenever he went out.

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that he is now travelling beyond the Amendment. If he has not been in the House recently, perhaps he does not know the strictness of our now Rules.

MR. PARNELL

said, he could assure the right hon. Gentleman that, during his absence, he had watched the proceedings of Parliament with great interest, and had studied them most attentively; but he thought he should be able to show that his illustration was strictly applicable to the present Amendment, which provided that the grounds of the offence should be stated when a man was arrested under this Act. During his stay in Paris he was always followed, when he went out, by two de- tectives, who, he was informed on good authority, were sent by the Chef de Police at the request of the British Embassy. Now, he wished to show how his illustration applied. Supposing the Government desired to deprive him of his liberty under the operation of this Act, all that the Lord Lieutenant had to do was to state that he (Mr. Parnell) was reasonably suspected, say, of high treason, or treason-felony. The noble Lord might receive from the two detective policemen who followed him about in Paris a report which, to the mind of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. W. E. Forster), might seem to involve circumstances of a suspicious character. In that case, he (Mr. Parnell) would never know anything about it. He would never know upon what occasion, or when, or where, he was reasonably suspected of having come under the operation of the Act; and he would never be informed of any details which it would be vitally necessary for him to know, and which, in all probability, if he did know, would, he believed, enable him to show to the satisfaction of the Lord Lieutenant, or during the periodical revisions provided under the Act, that the suspicion on which he was arrested had no foundation whatever. Hon. Members would see at once the application. He had chosen a personal instance. Perhaps he ought not to have done so; but the same thing would, of course, apply in many other cases. He had no doubt there would be many persons arrested under the operation of this Act who, if they had the slightest clue to the offence charged, would be able to explain it to the satisfaction of the Lord Lieutenant. And yet there was to be no such opportunity. The Bill said—"High treason, treason-felony, or treasonable practices, wherever committed;" and the Government employed French detectives to make up a case in foreign countries against persons whom they described as fellow-countrymen, and as an integral part of the British people, and whom British Liberals loudly proclaimed their desire to treat with equity and justice. The only explanation he could give for the action of the Government was this—that at the commencement of the proceedings of the Committee they set out with the determination to resist every Amendment. Among others, they refused the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr Stansfeld); but since then the Chief Secretary for Ireland had seen that it was absolutely necessary to amend the Bill in Committee, and he had amended it himself. He believed that if the right hon. Gentleman had seen it before, he would have given more consideration to the Amendments requiring the details of the offences to be given. Thus, by the power of arresting on suspicion of those offences "wherever committed," a man described as a fellow-countryman might be deprived of his liberty on the information of French detectives, and thrown into solitary confinement. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: Not solitary.] All their experiences of past suspensions of the Habeas Corpus proved that the persons imprisoned had been subjected to the strictest solitary confinement; and he asked the Government whether they would re-consider their position, and whether it was not fair that some information should be given to the accused person as to the time, place, and as to the particulars of the offence itself with which he was charged. He could not think that that Liberal Government was advancing its reputation for liberality by resisting stubbornly every concession in regard to such reasonable suggestions as had been made. He was sure, if the Irish Members had been met in a different spirit at the commencement, if the Government had shown that they were open to reason, the proceedings of that Bill in Committee would have been very materially accelerated; and he would ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, even now, at the eleventh hour, to consider this matter, and not to turn his back on all the principle—

THE CHAIRMAN

I must again remind the hon. Gentleman that he is travelling beyond the Amendment.

Mr. PARNELL

resumed his seat.

MR. HEALY

said, the Amendment was framed to give innocence a chance of asserting itself. It proposed that certain particulars should be given of the reasons for incarceration; and if the right hon. Gentleman consented, its effect would be to prevent the arrest of innocent persons in a great many cases. He had, however, refused to do this. There might be cases in Ireland that warranted imprisonment; but if the Committee insisted on a statement of reasons for in- carceration being given on the face of the warrant, it would be found that a smaller number of persons would be imprisoned than otherwise. If the right hon. Gentleman objected to the wording of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wicklow (Mr. M'Coan), let him draft some Amendment of his own which would give the desired result. Almost all his hon. Friends had had experience in their own persons of the vindictiveness of the myrmidons of the law in Ireland which this Amendment was intended to defeat. He had himself been put to an expense of £200 in defending himself from a charge made by them; and was, in addition, arrested, and taken 10 miles between two policemen. When indignities of that sort were offered to persons like himself, what, he asked, might persons of a different class expect who were likely to come under the operation of the Bill? The right hon. Gentleman had said that it would be inconvenient to give the required particulars but that was the whole case of those who supported the Amendment. It was the inconvenience of giving the particulars on the warrant, which would prevent arrest; because if there were no real grounds for arrest, it would be impossible to state them, and no arrest would follow. He should, therefore, support the Amendment, as the best guarantee against abuse of the powers of the Bill. Again, the Government told them to trust to their foresight and the way in which they would investigate all these cases. But the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would have to investigate hundreds of cases, and the pressure of his official duties made it impossible for him to do so thoroughly. According to the right hon. Gentleman, he could have no great difficulty in finding reasons for arresting the "village ruffians," because he said he knew them all. He ventured to say there was not a single man in Ireland against whom the Government could not get some spy to make a charge. Not only had the hon. Member for Cork City been watched, but he (Mr. Healy) and his hon. Friends were all watched. He had himself been followed by two detectives, to whom he had, no doubt, been pointed out as one of the Chief Secretary's mauvais sujets. For his own part, he did not shrink from facing the consequences of anything he had done; but he objected to be put into gaol on the evidence of some "village tyrant" in the shape of a detective. The Government would have to rely upon that class of persons; and, therefore, unless they introduced words into the Bill to prevent vindictive arrests, he should give the clause all the opposition in his power. It was said if some statement, however slight, of the proofs of the offence were given, the friends of an arrested person would be enabled to attempt to prove his innocence; and he maintained that, in many cases, a man taken up in a village in Ireland could get his friends, or even, perhaps, some member of the police, to show that he was really innocent. If, however, they must rely entirely upon the benevolence of the Chief Secretary, these friends would be only working in the dark.

MR. CHARLES RUSSELL

said, he did not think the Government ought to be asked to accept the Amendment exactly as now framed. Looking at all the peculiar circumstances under which the Bill was brought in, there would be a grave objection to give the names of the persons upon whose information the Executive thought themselves justified in acting; but, as he was afraid, it must be obvious to hon. Members that the Bill, however carefully administered by the Chief Secretary for Ireland and the Lord Lieutenant, must be a source of some injustice. It would, therefore, be the wish of hon. Members on both sides of the House to minimize, as far as it was possible to do, substantially with the object of the Act, the extent of that injustice. He understood the right hon. Gentleman intended to assure the Committee that, upon Report, he would consider the exact form of the words in which he would state the grounds upon which—["No, the motive!"]—it had been so understood by some hon. Members on that side of the House—arrest was made, and he did not think it would be found that there was much difference between the concession made and the concession asked for. But, whether it were the offence or the grounds of the offence, he (Mr. Russell) would point out that if the right hon. Gentleman meant merely by that, that he would state that the man was charged with treason, or treason-felony, or treasonable practices, or an act of violence or intimidation, or inciting to an act of violence or intimidation, no information of any use would be conveyed, for it would not serve, in the least degree, the purposes for which it was suggested the information should be given. The object of the information was to prevent the imprisonment of innocent men upon grounds which really had no existence. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether it would not be perfectly possible for the Government, while giving effect to the purposes for which the Act was directed, to state the date and place, and to state, substantially, the circumstances of the case, so that the friends of the incarcerated person might identify the transaction, so that they might see if they were justified in bringing evidence before the Lord Lieutenant and Chief Secretary for Ireland to show that the man was unjustly detained. Such information would not enlighten or serve a man who was guilty, and who, therefore, knew the facts incriminating him; but it would, or might, materially help an innocent man to prove his innocenre.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir FARRER HERSCHELL)

said, it would at once be obvious that to state the grounds upon which a man was reasonably suspected would be practically impossible, unless they were to give the very class of information which the hon. and learned Member for Dun-dalk (Mr. Russell) admitted it would be impossible to give consistently with the purposes and objects of the Bill. ["No, no!"] That, he submitted to the Committee, was the case. If they were to give the grounds of the suspicion, it would be of little avail if they did not show from whom the information was obtained. He understood his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland would, on Report, consent to state on the warrant what particular offence the arrested man was charged with. The right hon. Gentleman would be prepared to provide for the statement of the cause of arrest, whether it were treason or an act of violence, such as incendiarism. Moreover, the right hon. Gentleman would provide that the act should be defined so as to show clearly what it was in respect of which the charge was made. It would be obvious that the sole reason why the Government were not desirous to make a larger concession was that it would be inconsistent with the very purposes of the Bill.

MR. HERMON

said, it was difficult to tell exactly what the right hon. Gentleman had promised, and the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) was evidently quite at sea as to what was intended when he voted for the Amendment of the right hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld). The object of the Bill was the protection of life and property in Ireland, and not the punishment of innocent people. Her Majesty's Government said that to give the names of the parties who supplied evidence upon which persons were arrested, would defeat the object of the Bill; but he thought persons cast into gaol should have an opportunity of bringing before the Lord Lieutenant such evidence as would show they had been cast into prison by mistake. The Committee could, no doubt, get out of its difficulty, if the Government would say that with the copy of the warrant they would also supply the time and place where the offence charged was committed. He believed if the Government extended that to persons who might be cast into gaol on an unfounded charge, it would have a good effect.

MR. LABOUCHERE

remarked, that the hon. and learned Solicitor General had said that the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be perfectly willing to state that a man had been imprisoned on suspicion of incendiarism. But he (Mr. Labouchere) asked, would it be possible that this man could meet the charge that at some time, he did not know when, and in some part of Ireland, Heaven knew where, he had committed an incendiary fire? If the right hon. Gentleman would give time and place, then this unfortunate man, if he had not committed the crime of which he was suspected, would have an opportunity of proving it to the Lord Lieutenant himself. That was all the Amendment proposed. The hon. and learned Solicitor General said this matter had been discussed before. It was said that the delay of the law was the price which a man paid for his liberty. In the days of letters de cachet, under which it very frequently happened that a man was confined in prison on the suspicion of some policeman, the difficulty was that the relations and friends of the man arrested on mistake were never informed on what charge he was arrested. He objected to all Coercion Bills; but it was certainly not necessary to make any Bill of the kind more harsh than was absolutely necessary. The right hon. Gentleman, he (Mr. Labonchere) was sure, was the last man to wish that any man should be unjustly put into prison. It was not he, but his agents, who would be the cause of unjust arrests; and he could not for a moment suppose that his agents were so good and so wise that they could not make a mistake, and he hoped, therefore, he would yield on the point under discussion.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, the Bill, as it originally stood, provided that nothing should be stated on a warrant, except that it was issued for treasonable practices, or for acts of violence and intimidation. That was arrived at after hours of discussion; and he (Lord Randolph Churchill) protested against the action of the Government, after announcing their intention of accepting no Amendments, and letting hours and days pass in discussing those Amendments, to make the concession proposed by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, that the particulars of the time and place of an offence should be stated on the warrant, and that the offence, whether it was an incendiary fire, or seditious speech, or what not, should be particularized, so as to give the accused an opportunity of making out his case. The Government, by their action, had wasted time and given opportunities for much useless discussion.

MR. GLADSTONE

The account given by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) of the pronounced intention of the Government is entirely without foundation; and the noble Lord could not have been in his place during the progress of the debate upon the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld.) [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: I was here.] Considering the remarks made by the noble Lord, I thought it an act of justice to him to assume that he was not in his place; but I will readily withdraw the admission I have made in the noble Lord's favour. It will be in the recollection of the Committee that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law), who spoke at an early period upon the Motion of the right hon. Member for Halifax, distinctly stated the practice to be followed under the Bill, and he them stated that the kind of act of violence or intimidation to which reference has been made would be introduced. I state that it was without the slightest doubt so intended; and subsequently, on the same occasion, it was distinctly understood on the part of the Government that provision should be made in the Bill for securing what the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland described as the natural practice under the Bill should be fixed in the Bill.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I answered a Question yesterday on the same point.

MR. GLADSTONE

In that case, it is unnecessary to observe that yesterday a Question was answered, and the very same thing has been since repeated; but it was not yesterday that it was made known for the first time. It is a pity, therefore, that entire unacquaintance with and inattention to the course of the debate should have led the noble Lord to make these observations, and to lead to this waste of time.

MR. DALY

said, the Amendment sought that there should be such details given as would enable the person charged to appeal to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who would be possessed of the secret in formation and have the prisoner in his keeping. The Government had conceded the principle of sending the warrant to a public office in Dublin; but he contended it was only fair and reasonable that there should be deposited in that office such particulars as would afford persons conscious of innocence grounds to enable the Lord Lieutenant to alter his decision, and that, he thought, could be done without the Government betraying the names of their informants. The Amendment carried with it but a small measure of remedy, which, he hoped, would be conceded. It was not feasible to the Government to imprison men without bail for 18 months, and not allow their relations and friends outside the prison to collect evidence to be laid before the Lord Lieutenant and Chief Secretary with a view to getting their case considered.

MR. CALLAN

thought that one of the benefits which would arise out of the Coercion Bill would be the publication of a glossary of Parliamentary terms. During the course of the debate the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), with whom He (Mr. Callan) found himself more in accord than with the advocates of Liberal principles opposite, had accurately stated the course of the discussion up to the time when he addressed the Committee. If that statement were correct, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had made no concession. But while the noble Lord was speaking, words had been used on the Treasury Bench which, he was sure, must have escaped the hearing of the Chairman, for otherwise he would have called the right hon. Gentleman to Order for having made use of un-Parliamentary language. The words used by the Chief Secretary for Ireland were, "not true;" and they had been uttered without reproof from the Chair.

MR. MORGAN LLOYD

asked whether the hon. Member was not travelling far beyond the Amendment?

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member has never yet come to the subject of the Amendment, but is speaking to a point of Order. I certainly never heard any such words as the hon. Member has mentioned fall from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland.

MR. CALLAN

had already stated that he was sure the right hon. Gentleman had not heard them, but several hon. Members had. They had been heard by the hon. Members for Waterford and Meath. With regard to the Amendment, he certainly hoped the first half would be accepted. To state a crime without mentioning the time or place at which it was committed, would practically be useless. People would never know of what offence they were being accused. He might himself be arrested under this Act. ["Hear, hear!"] He hoped that cordial "Hear, hear!" did not apply that he would be arrested. He hoped not. He was in County Louth last October conferring with the farmers, and shortly afterwards there was some hesitation as to the payment of rents.

MR. MORGAN LLOYD

rose to Order. He wished to ask again whether the hon. Gentleman was not travelling wide of the Amendment?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he understood the hon. Member for Louth was proceeding to illustrate his case.

MR. CALLAN

said, he hoped the Speaker would bring in a New Rule in reference to unnecessary interruption, and that any infringement of it should be a disqualification for a County Court Judgeship. Again, he had made a speech in December last in Ireland, which was not fully reported; and was he to be arrested because in that speech he had denounced the Chief Secretary for Ireland, although at the same time he had denied several false charges which had been brought against that right hon. Gentleman? He had attacked the administration of the right hon. Gentleman, and, perhaps, under the clause he might be arrested for interfering with the maintenance of law and order.["Question!"]

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member has scarcely made a single remark having reference to the Question before the Committee.

MR. CALLAN

concluded by saying that if he were arrested on the charge of uttering words tending to incite to intimidation, he would not know during which of his visits to Ireland he had committed the offence, and, therefore, could not bring forward his friends to prove his case. The illustration he had given would show the Committee the necessity of stating upon the warrant the time and place at which accused persons were guilty of committing the offence for which they were arrested. Therefore, he would suggest to the Government that they should accept the first half of the Amendment, and that the hon. Member for Wicklow (Mr. M'Coan) should consent to withdraw the other.

MR. P. MARTIN

regretted that the Chief Secretary for Ireland had not had his attention called to the Amendment at an earlier period, because he believed that had he looked carefully into the matter he would have been more favourable to its adoption. He did not think that any Member of the Treasury Bench would desire that possible injustice should be committed on any person detained under the Act; on the contrary, he believed they were anxious to guard against the possibility of injustice being done. The Chief Secretary said that he was willing to state the nature of the offence. But he (Mr. P. Martin) thought it was absolutely requisite that the concession should go further, and that time and place should be stated. He reminded the Committee that what was now asked for was contained in every warrant under which a man could be arrested in this country— namely, the offence, as well as the time and place where it was committed. If every man arrested for pocket-picking or felony were entitled to that, surely a person taken up under this Act should not be loft without the same protection. The Committee, however, in their wisdom, had decided that the warrant should not contain these particulars. It must be remembered that the Committee were dealing not merely with the case of political offences, but also with the case of persons who might be taken up for offences punishable by law—that was to say, for inciting to violence and intimidation. What, he asked, was the value, for the purpose of protecting persons unnecessarily arrested, of having a warrant lodged with the clerk at the Queen's Office simply stating the offence with which they were charged? With all due respect to the Government, he was obliged to characterize this as an idle sham. He maintained that the accused ought to have some further protection than that. Suppose, as in the case alluded to by the hon. Member for Dundalk, a man, for one out of four or five speeches, had, in the judgment of the Chief Secretary, incited to some act of violence and intimidation. Under such circumstances, he held it would be only fair to specify the time and place where that speech was made. Otherwise, how was it possible that the accused person could make a representation to the Executive to establish his innocence? Again, in the case of a person inciting to violence. An accusation would be lodged with the Chief Secretary, and, in the event of the person being innocent, what protection would there be in stating that the man was accused of the crime of inciting to violence by inducing tenants not to pay rent? It would give nothing approaching to protection. Therefore, he respectfully submitted that the concession of the right hon. Gentleman must go further, and give particulars of time and place. It was said that few innocent people would suffer under this Bill; but it was impossible to say what number of innocent people would not suffer. It was well known that in country places men were somewhat intemperate of speech and action, and that the reports of country newspapers gave exaggerated accounts of what took place. Now, the sub-inspector of the district, in the fair discharge of his duty, would send up those reports to the head office. He believed that the constabulary in Ireland would not distort any act; but it was not an uncommon thing for them sometimes to over-colour the matter a little. Under the circumstances he appealed to Her Majesty's Government not to reject an Amendment which was so fair and reasonable in its character, and which merely asked what every accused person in England was entitled to the moment he was arrested.

MR. DAWSON

argued that there must be no ambiguity in the words used in the warrant. It was provided that the "ground stated" should appear in the warrant; but it was necessary to know what the word "ground" meant. To say that a man had committed an offence was not stating the ground of arrest, and he contended that the word should be deprived of all ambiguity and distinctly and clearly understood before a conclusion was come to. The mere name of a crime was not reasonable ground; but, although it might not be reasonable to ask for the names of the witnesses, the time and place were the essence of the ground upon which the Government would proceed. He did not think there could be the slightest reason to withhold a promise that a prisoner should have, in addition to the crime, the time and place, for he might be able to prove an alibi; and, with such a proof in his hand, was it right and just, and in accordance with the wishes of the Government, that a person should be punished without the opportunity of proving that he could not have been at the place at the time mentioned? He thought the right hon. Gentleman would see the necessity of making it clearly understood what was meant by the word "ground."

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

rose to support the latter part of the proposal— namely, that which suggested that the names of the informers should be given, because the value of the evidence would depend very much on the character of the informer, and it was desirable that the persons arrested should have an opportunity of acquainting themselves with the names of their accusers. It was said that that would expose the informers to intimidation. That style of argument had been used over and over again throughout the debate; the alleged intimidation was made to account for and to cover every breakdown of the Government case. But why should not those "saviours of society," those gentlemen who were to give the information, have the courage of their principles? It was said that only a few ruffians and dissolute people were the terror of society in Ireland at present. Surely, then, with the exception of those few, the informers would be held in high honour by everyone. They would have the credit of coming to the rescue of law and order in Ireland, and of associating themselves with benevolent, humane, and eminent gentlemen. All those things ought to count for something. But that was not the real state of the case. It was injurious and mischievous on the part of the Government, for England as well as for Ireland, to create this "Star Chamber," into which the informers would enter, but into which no man could follow them. That was the system on which Ireland had been governed for centuries, and it was productive of great mischief to Ireland and also to England. It was the system of governing by agents, spies, and impostors. It was time a better state of things should arise, and that the men who came to the rescue of all that was noble in the land should come forward, so that their evidence might be valued according to their character. Who knew what high rewards awaited them? Dublin Castle would be open to them, and they would, perhaps, receive invitations to the Lord Lieutenant's leveées. Let the people have honesty in this matter; let them know their accusers; and let the action of the informers be valued by all classes of people in Ireland and in England according to its merits.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

entirely dissented from the latter part of the Amendment, and thought the request of the hon. Member (Mr. M'Coan) a little unreasonable. It was manifestly unfair to ask the Government to give on the warrant the names of the informers. But he presumed those names would be on record, for the names of past informers had been discovered from the records. He dissented entirely from that part of the proposal; for, as everybody must see, the persons who gave such information to the Government would run the risk of popular odium, not to say popular indignation. But he would make a fair offer to the Chief Secretary for Ireland— that he would not say another word on that Amendment, if the right hon. Gentleman would consent to accept the first portion of it. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER dissented.] The right hon. Gentleman would not take the offer, and he would be bound to proceed. As he understood the first portion of the Amendment, it asked that the warrant in every case should give the particulars of the alleged offence. If the Government refused to every prisoner in Ireland that information which was given to every prisoner in England, they were manifestly putting an untried and merely suspected person in Ireland on a lower level than the people suspected of serious offences in England. Was it fair to put people who might be innocent on a lower level with regard to the preservation of their rights than the lowest criminal in England? The question they were now contesting was a question which was fought out in England and conquered for the people many years ago. In Mr. Walpole's History of England from 1815, there was a most impartial and lucid account of the period of the Six Acts. There was no period of our history, at least, during the present century, which should be regarded with such distrust as that marked by the Six Acts. If they examined that period they would find that the spirit of repression which the Government of the time tried to establish led to a largo crop of spies and informers, who rendered public security and social order impossible. Would the Government repeat now the sad features of the social and political life of the country at that time? Would they have the lives and liberties of men placed at the disposal of spies like Edwards and Oliver? Would they have those abuses which followed in the train of coercive legislation repeated? If they attempted to repeat those things, did they not know that their existence as a Ministry would not last one day longer? What was the feature brought out in that history which almost necessarily and inevitably followed repressive legislation? That coercion begat informers and spies; that informers and spies were as unjust and untrue in their statements as they were justified. Accordingly, if the present Bill was passed, the Government must be prepared for a harvest of evil such as ensued in 1819 and 1820—spies swearing away the lives and liberties of people. As a proviso against that abuse, was it not necessary, at least, to give the people who were detained an opportunity in some way of rebutting the charges against them? A charge of treason or treason-felony or treasonable practices was easy to mate, but not so easy to refute; and from some of the statements made from the Treasury Bench, he was inclined to believe that already Members of the Treasury Bench were being deceived by spies and informers. He had seen more than one indication that they were under the impression that information which was supplied from some quarters was trustworthy, whereas everybody knew that it was only so much information supplied by people who knew that the more alarming the information they gave the higher would be the reward for their services. He could see how they were working on the Government and the country. Under such circumstances, he appealed to the Chief Secretary to consider the proposal he made, which was designed to stop halfway between the non possumus of the Government and the rather extravagant demand of his hon. Friend. What he asked was that the Government should give, not the names of the informers, because that might expose them to public odium and danger, but the time and place of each alleged offence. To ask that Irishmen should be allowed to be put in prison without that much information, was more than a Minister had a right to demand.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

could not endorse the term "unreasonable," which the hon. Member who had just spoken (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had applied to the proposal of the hon. Member for Wick-low, because the demand that a man should know who his accuser was, was in accordance with one of the best established and. most fundamental principles of English Law—namely, that a man should be confronted with his accuser. He would not pursue that part of the question; but in regard to the Amendment, as in regard to a great many other matters, there were two sides to the case. There was the side of the Government, anxious for coercion and suspension of the liberties of an entire country; and, on the other side, the case of the people who were to be imprisoned. The Go- vernment seemed to have considered one side, the side of those who were to imprison the people. He would, however, ask them to consider the other side; and although the majority of Members on the Ministerial Benches were not likely to be imprisoned under the Act, there was certainly one amongst them who had done what was more than sufficient to bring him within the scope of the Act. He would like that right hon. Gentleman to consider how he would like, if he went to Ireland after the passing of the Bill, to be seized under a warrant which specified in general terms that he had committed an offence on an occasion unspecified and at a place unnamed, which had incited the people to treasonable practices. He had heard a Member of the Government not many months ago using language which unquestionably was strong enough to found a charge and an arrest upon. That right hon. Gentleman, speaking of the injustice of the existing law, and of the iniquity of the existing administration in Ireland, had said— If any gentleman on this platform will repeat in Ireland that which I have been reading in an English poet this afternoon, he will he clapped into gaol within 24 hours. Under this Bill the Lord Lieutenant was to have power to arrest anyone summarily without showing cause, and confine him in prison for 18 months. Now, the Lord Lieutenant was the Representative of the Queen, and yet one of the Ministers had declared over and over again that he regarded the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland as a wretched post, to be got rid of at the first opportunity. Was not that opinion likely to be treated, at all events by the Lord Lieutenant, as coming within the elastic phrase "reasonable suspicion?" If that right hon. Gentleman was arrested, and charged with having incited people to treasonable practices, and sent to gaol, without bail or trial, or being confronted with his accuser, he would then realize that there were two sides to the question. In refusing to consider the other side of the question, the Government were guilty of great injustice.

MR. FINIGAN

desired to point out to the Government one or two considerations, with a view to some sort of compromise. It might or might not be true, as the Government said, that in the present state of the law they could not get sufficient evidence, nor get juries to convict upon the meagre evidence they could obtain; but how did that statement tally with the statement of the Chief Secretary for Ireland when introducing the Bill, that the Government were perfectly aware of the people who would be embraced within the Bill, that the police were perfectly acquainted with the persons who either committed or incited to violence? Either that statement was not well-founded, or the objection of the Government to the proposed Amendment failed. He would suggest, by way of compromise, that if the Government would not accept that Amendment, they might empower the Lord Lieutenant to keep a record of the crime, the date and place, and the commission, and the names of the informers in each case, such record to be left in charge of the Lord Lieutenant, and only to be produced on the revision of a committal, on leave given by the Chief Secretary upon a Motion in the House. Without including in the warrant such particular facts, the Government could in that way preserve a record which would not be open either to hostile criticism—for he would suggest also that the record could be examined by Legal Advisers to see if it established a primâ facie case—or to mere curiosity. He thought the Government might easily do that, for, although in the first instance they had been willing to give on the face of the warrant the genus of the crime, they had now consented to give the species. They would, therefore, only be following their own precedent, with some show of justice, if they would consent to such a record being kept by the Lord Lieutenant, in order that if there were any innocent man imprisoned, there would be an ulterior remedy by which injustice could be undone and justice fairly done.

MR. DILLON

said, that he could not understand the reason why the Government had not acceded to the Amendment. He certainly could see some reason for refusing the second portion of it. If time had been wasted by a great multitude of speeches, on the other hand, he must say that the Government had not acted fairly towards the House. The first portion of that Amendment would not interfere at all with the Act. They ought to accept the principle so far as it went, that a man who was in prison wrongfully should be able to appeal to the sense of justice of the Lord Lieutenant; and if he could command absolute proof that would carry conviction to the mind of the Lord Lieutenant that he was not guilty of the crime of which he was accused, he should be discharged. They would thus be giving him a chance of escape, and all they asked was that a prisoner should know the time and place of the crime of the commital of which he was accused, or the time when the speech for which he was arrested was delivered, in order that it might not be possible to imprison simply by the warrant of the Chief Secretary, who had proved, in that House, that he could put into one man's mouth what another had said. How could a poor man prove that he was innocent, when he was put into prison for speeches which he never delivered, on a general charge? He was suspected of having delivered a specific speech, and of having generally incited to violence, and when the 18 months' imprisonment were over, then he would be able to convince the Chief Secretary that he had been imprisoned for somebody else's speech. The Government had not attempted to give any reason why they would not accept the Amendment. It would not tie the hands of the Lord Lieutenant, but simply give the prisoner a right to appeal. If sufficient evidence were forthcoming to show that he was not guilty, he would be discharged. That was one reason why they considered it important, and the only argument that had been brought against the Amendment was that it was not necessary to insert those words. Would it not be wiser for the Government to take the Amendment if it be necessary, than to waste hours in disputing whether it was necessary or not? Another reason why they were anxious that the Amendment should be accepted was that dwelt on at some length by the hon. Member for Galway, that it would act as a check on informers. If it were known that the information that had been given would be handed to the prisoner, it would not be so likely that a man would be arrested on unfounded charges made by the policeman, and the spy, and others, out of a desire to revenge themselves upon the action of the Land League, who had, in many cases, forced men to give up farms that they had taken. Such a provision as that in the Act would be a wholesome check on information of this kind. He invited right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench to point out one objection only to the Amendment. In the absence of their so doing, it ought to be certainly accepted. It had been said that some concession had already been made; but they (the Irish Members) said that did not apply to the present Amendment. If it were stated on the warrant who was the accuser, that would be a fair concession, and it would then be exceedingly likely the discussion would be brought to a close; but so long as the Government pursued the present course, and refused to answer the arguments, the discussion would probably continue.

MR. BIGGAR

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had stated that the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord RandolphChurchill) was mistaken with regard to some statement that had been made by him. The fact was, that one thing had been stated by the Chief Secretary and another by the Prime Minister. His experience in that discussion was that one Member of the Government said one thing, and another another continually; and so confused were they, that they did not know what the Government meant or intended to do. With regard to a Speech that had been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister at an earlier stage of the Bill, he had then made a certain contention which he had altogether explained away at a later stage of the Bill; therefore, it was perfectly impossible, unless the facts were stated in the Bill, to know what the Government were going to do. With relation to the Amendment then before the Committee, he did not agree with some Members with whom he usually acted as to the parts of the Amendment. He thought that both parts should be agreed to by any reasonable Government; but, of course, the present Government would not agree. It was right to give some reasons why they thought that a reasonable Amendment. One of the provisions of the Bill before the Committee was that certain parts of Ireland should be proclaimed districts, and that for a certain class of offences committed in those districts a person should be punished under that Bill. If, however, the same offence were committed in any other part, the person would not be liable to punishment. If that be so, how could a party charged with an offence know whether the offence was committed in a proclaimed or an unproclaimed district? It would be impossible for him to know whether his action had been legal or illegal. If the object of the Government was justice, he could not see why they should refuse to state the time and place of the pretended offence. It was well known that detectives watched the steps of many men in Ireland. He had himself often been watched by them. The fact was, that those men had to make a show of doing something for their money. With regard to the names of the witnesses, that was perfectly reasonable. They had found no difficulty where trials took place hitherto, and witnesses had suffered no penalty for giving evidence in such cases. He did not see why a similar opportunity should not be given to every accused person under that Bill, so that he might scrutinize and criticize the conduct of the witnesses against him. Nothing was more common in the Courts of Law than the cross-examination of witnesses as to character; but in this case the Government proposed, on an ex parte statement without cross-examination, to take the details given by the informer, and not to give an opportunity of criticizing the personal character or the credibility of the witnesses. The Government, moreover, proposed to put a man into prison, keep him there a long time, and give him no opportunity whatever of proving his innocence. He could not understand the reason why the Government refused to accept the Amendment.

MR. R. POWER

did not rise to make an appeal to the Government. Appeals had been so often made to them with so little result, that it was fruitless. He did not intend to discuss the principle of the Bill; but he would merely say that that Bill was founded on suspicion, tyranny, and intrigue, and that the Amendment before them raised a serious question. He thought he should be borne out by the House when he stated that the Irish were naturally a suspicious people, and, therefore, the Government ought not to have acted as they had upon that occasion. By refusing to accept the Amendment they had clearly proved that they would make no concession. But what had they asked them to do? Merely to name the time and place upon the warrant where the supposed offence was committed. If they did that, undoubtedly it would be a great benefit to the unfortunate person arrested. He supported the Amendment, not only upon that ground; for, moreover, the Amendment would put a check upon the dishonesty and intrigue which would be created by the Bill. The Government would mate it the interest of every informer and spy to hunt down these men. Those informers were taken from the lowest grades, and were always willing to work when they saw a good reward for every man that they arrested. They, therefore, had great suspicions about everyone they met. For instance, if an unfortunate man left Dublin and travelled to Waterford on a business matter, the moment a detective or spy saw him at Waterford he would watch him, trace him to some house, and would decide that he had some grounds of suspicion; he did not know whether it would not be his duty as a spy to report him. That man might be put in gaol, and his relations in Dublin, who would probably be poor, would not be able to assist him to obtain his discharge. That man would be left in gaol and forgotten under the existing provisions of the clause. Again, suppose that he (Mr. R. Power) had the honour of addressing his constituents upon an occasion, and he made, as he usually did, a moderate speech to them. In his county there were a great many gentlemen that carried his name. One of those gentlemen might get up and make a speech in which something seditious might have been uttered, and for that speech he himself might be arrested and put in prison, because he would not have the opportunity of showing that he was not the person referred to. An instance occurred in that House only the other day. A gentleman of the same name had made a speech with which he did not agree, and he was horrified to see that it was put down to him in the next morning's paper. His constituents believed that he had made it, and they were about to pass a vote of censure upon him, so that he was obliged to telegraph to them to set the matter right. It was quite possible that he might be reported by one of the spies as having made a speech that he never delivered. Again, it was not always very easy to know when one was making a speech whether it was exactly treasonable or not. He would put a case. Suppose he went over and addressed his constituents, and delivered these words—"I most regret to have to report to you the continued series of votings transacted Session after Session with the three Readings and Royal Assents which go to make up a law. As many as you like can make a law; but they cannot make that which is unjust a law by Act of Parliament, and hang men for not obeying it. Those who pass such laws, I submit, have made a miserable blunder, and it is not wrong if we disobey such blundering impotence." He should like the Solicitor General's opinion upon that quotation. He might, perhaps, inform him that it was not original; the words were those of one of the greatest men of the time, Mr. Carlyle—

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is travelling a good deal from the Amendment.

MR. E. POWER

said, he was about to bring his remarks to a conclusion. The Chief Secretary had stated that there were three classes that would be arrested. They were the mauvais sujets, the dissolute ruffians, and village tyrants. He did not know whether he himself had arrived at the age of a mauvais sujet. He did not know, therefore, tinder what head he might be arrested. He thought there might be some truth in what he had heard—that the right hon. Gentleman had made out a list of persons who were to be arrested. A friend of his who had seen a copy had stated that his name appeared in the list. Whether that was true or not, he did not know and did not care. If it were true that he occupied an honourable position in that list, he should like to be able when he was released to expose the tyranny by which he had been arrested. That was one of the reasons why a poor man should have the opportunity of bringing what evidence he could in order to obtain his discharge if possible.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

was sorry that the Government did not accept the Amendment. He did not understand what serious objection there was to the earlier portion, at any rate. He could quite well understand that they might object to that part regarding the names of the men who gave information. Why should the Government object to allow a man who was arrested to know for what precise offence he had been put into prison? If the man knew that he was accused of inciting to violence, incendiarism, or treasonable speech, or something of that kind, he would have some chance of clearing himself of an unfounded charge; but, as the clause stood, he had no means of knowing what the precise act was for which he had been arrested, and therefore he could not prove that he had not done it. The Government must proceed upon one of two assumptions—first, that no man would be unreasonably or unjustly arrested— which assumption he took to be clearly absurd—or else they must intend to deal out a very peculiar sort of even-handed justice, and treat the innocent and guilty alike. He could not understand that they seriously intended not to allow a man an opportunity of proving his innocence, and yet, if they refused to give him the time and place at which the alleged offence was committed, that would necessarily be the consequence. They knew that under each of the different Fenian movements men wore arrested under a mistake, and afterwards were able to show that they were not the men referred to in the warrants. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Forster) shook his head, but he would remind him of an important case that occurred during the last Fenian movement. Five men were arrested and brought to trial, charged with the killing of a policeman in Manchester. Of those five, two were discharged from custody—one man be-cause he made it plain that he was not present, nor near the place at the time, and was not the man that the Government intended to have charged. Another man, who was an American citizen, made it clear that he was not open to the charge, and he too was discharged; so that out of the five men arrested, two were able to prove that they were not in any way concerned in the murder. The effect of the present Amendment would be to allow men the opportunity of showing that the precise charge against them was not true, and that they did not commit the offence alleged. As the clause stood, the men would be simply sent to prison. There would be no possibility of their being set free. That was one illustration. He would give them another. They were not exempt, even the Members of that House, from such unfounded charges. Did not the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister charge his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) with having made a speech and uttered sentiments which he never uttered? The Prime Minister, who was a man of deeply conscientious feeling, had made a mistake, and was it not much more probable that mistakes would be made by the officials and spies? The consequence of leaving the clause as it was would be that there would spring up an ardour to make charges against all manner of people. It was impossible that the Chief Secretary could himself examine all the cases, and even then there might be a percentage of cases in which the charges could not be sustained. It would be a most unfair thing if the warrant did not state on the face of it the precise offence for which the man was arrested.

MR. LEAMY

said, that the Chief Secretary had agreed that the warrant should contain a description of the offence. But suppose that a man were arrested on suspicion of having been concerned in an incendiary fire; it would be then put in the warrant that he was suspected of committing that offence. What was the first thing that the man would do in such a case as that? He would try to find out what fire had occurred in his own neighbourhood, whore it was likely that he would be suspected of being the offender. Supposing that a fire did occur in the neighbourhood on the farm of a man who at any time had been the employer of the accused. The accused must naturally conclude that he had been arrested for being suspected of the incendiary fire which had occurred in that particular district. If the particulars which the Amendment demanded were inserted in the warrant, the man might very likely be able to clear himself of the crime; but if no particulars of time and place were inserted, it was absolutely impossible that he could by any means obtain his discharge. The Chief Secretary, by stating the particular offence a man was charged with, would afford some clue to enable his friends to discover the ground of suspicion against him, and if the place where the offence was committed, together with the date, were mentioned in the warrant, this would be quite sufficient. The man himself, and his friends, would be able, if necessary, to get up rebutting evidence. Under these circumstances, be thought the Chief Secretary should consent at least to this portion of the Amendment which required that the date and place should be given. He could not understand why the right hon. Gentleman refused to give this information. It could not be said that by stating—"You are suspected of having been concerned in a certain outrage at a certain date, and at a certain place," the information would enable the man to come to a conclusion as to who gave the information. The Chief Secretary had undertaken to state the nature of the offence upon the warrant; and if the Bill was to have a Report stage, it could not make much difference whether these further particulars were added or not.

MR. M'COAN rose to address the Committee—

THE CHAIRMAN

I believe the hon. Member for Wicklow has already spoken.

MR. M'COAN

Yes, Sir; but, as the Mover of the Amendment, I wish to make a brief explanation.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Gentleman can only make an explanation in regard to any misunderstanding that may have arisen as to his own Amendment.

MR. M'COAN

said, the explanation he wished to make had reference entirely to the Amendment. It asked that a succinct statement of the grounds on which the person arrested was held to be reasonably suspected, together with the name or-names of the person or persons on whose information such reasonable suspicion had been based, should be given. Now, the first part of this Amendment was met by the right hon. Gentleman by saying—

THE CHAIRMAN

This is not what I understand as an explanation.

MR. M'COAN

said, in deference to the universal feeling of objection which seemed to attach to the latter half of the Amendment, he would not press it. He had himself seen that there was an objection to it when he drafted it; but he had thought it his duty to ask the Committee for as much as he could. He would, however, withdraw that part.

THE CHAIRMAN

The only way in which the hon. Member can do that is to ask leave to withdraw the whole of the Amendment, and then to propose again the words he wishes to move.

MR. M'COAN

said, that was the course he wished to take.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. M'COAN

The Amendment will now stand thus— Together with a succinct statement of the grounds on which the person arrested has been held to he reasonably suspected.

Amendment proposed, In page 2, line 11, after the word "act," to insert the words "together with a succinct statement of the grounds on which the person arrested has been held to be reasonably suspected."—(Mr, M'Coan.)

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

The Committee divided: —Ayes 50; Noes 116: Majority 66. (Div. List, No. 57.)

MR. LEAMY

moved, as an Amendment, in page 2, section 1, after the word "county," to insert— In which these suspects may have been arrested under the said warrant usually resided, and tiled with the said Clerk of the Crown in his public office in the said county, and that a further copy of such warrant shall, within seven days after the execution thereof, be exhibited in the office of the said Clerk of the Crown. The object with which he moved this Amendment was to give to the relatives of persons arrested under the Act greater facilities. A copy of the warrant under which the arrest had been made was to be given by the clause as it at present stood; for it was provided that a copy of every warrant under the Act should, within seven days of its execution, be transmitted to the Clerk of the Crown for the county of the City of Dublin, and be filed by him in his public office in that City. He was of opinion that a copy of the warrant should also be kept in the office of the Clerk of the Crown for the district in which the man usually resided. It was even more desirable that a copy of the warrant should be filed in the county in which the man usually resided, than in the county in which he was arrested. It was well known that many of the persons who might be arrested under the Act would be very poor people. Their families, however, would be living in the place where they usually resided, and would be able to give some account of their actions. Consequently, if a copy were filed in the county where the man had just been living, it was perfectly possible that a poor man, who might have gone to the North of Ireland a short time before he was arrested, would be able, through his relatives in the South, to show what he had really been doing; whereas, under the Bill as it stood, the relatives in the South would have no means of knowing what had become of him at all. He thought the Chief Secretary might easily accept this Amendment, which only went to the extent of requiring that a second copy of the warrant should be filed.

Amendment proposed, In page 2, sub-section (1), line 12, after the word "county," to insert "in which these suspects may have been arrested under the said warrant usually resided, and filed with the said Clerk of the Crown in his public office in the said county, and that a further copy of such warrant shall, within seven days after the execution thereof, be exhibited in the office of the said Clerk of the Crown."—(Mr Leamy.)

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

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I have no objection to the principle of this Amendment. The clause requires that a copy of every warrant under the Act shall be filed by the Clerk of the Crown for the county of Dublin. Now, we could not undertake to find out the usual residence of a man who is wandering about the country. I think the hon. Member's object would be secured by taking care that the notice of the arrest should be lodged at the place where he was residing at the time of that arrest. Even if he came from another part of the country, his friends would know the place where he was residing. If the hon. Member likes to put the Amendment in those words, I have no objection to it.

MR. BIGGAR

said, it did not seem to him that what the right hon. Gentleman proposed was sufficient, and for this reason—the person arrested might be away from the place where he usually resided by 50, 60, or 100 miles. If a man were arrested in the county of Cork, it would be no satisfaction for his relatives to have a notice filed in the county of Cork, when his usual residence might be in Belfast, in the North of Ireland. He could not see upon what ground the right hon. Gentleman raised an objection to the Amendment as it was proposed. Of course, when a man was arrested, the first thing he would be asked was his name, and then his place of abode, and if there was any difficulty in the matter, it would be very easy to put the post-office in motion. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary appeared to be so suspicious in regard to any proposition that came from that side of the House that, however reasonable it was, he declined to accept it as it was proposed. There did not seem to be any great mystery about this matter. All that was wanted was that the relatives of the persons arrested Should have some little notice of what had taken place. For his own part, he was prepared to divide upon the Motion, because he believed that the proposition was a reasonable one, and that the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman was most unreasonable.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

remarked, that, as he understood his hon. Friend (Mr. Leamy), there would be no very wide difference in substance between his hon. Friends and the Chief Secretary for Ireland, if the right hon. Gentleman would make it "the present or last known place of residence." He (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) saw the reasonableness of what the Chief Secretary for Ireland had said—namely, that it would put upon the Government the duty of hunting up what really was the residence of a man who might be wandering about. On the other hand, the Committee might reasonably weigh what was suggested by the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), that a man might be arrested for addressing a meeting in the county of Antrim who was well known to be a resident of the city of Cork. It was in Cork, therefore, that a copy of the warrant should be filed, and not in the county of Antrim.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I think I can meet that objection. I will substitute the words "in the last known place of abode of the person arrested."

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Leamy) is not in his place to say whether he accepts the Amendment proposed upon his Amendment.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

My hon. Friend asked me to make the suggestion with the intention of accepting it.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

Then I would propose to amend the Amendment in the form I have stated.

Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment, To leave out the words "in which, those suspects may have been arrested under the said warrant usually resided," in order to insert the words "in the county which was the last known place of abode of the person arrested."—(Mr. W. M. Forster.)

Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the said proposed Amendment," put, and negatived.

Question, "That the words 'in the county which was the last known place of abode of the person arrested,' be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

Further Question, "That the Amendment, as amended, be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

MR. LEAMY

moved, in page 2, at the end of sub-section (1), after the word "City," to insert these words— And such Clerk of the Crown shall furnish a true copy of the warrant, certified under his hand to be a true copy, on the demand of any relative of the person arrested, or his solicitor.

Amendment proposed, In page 2, line 13, sub-section 1, after the word "City," to insert these words: "And such Clerk of the Crown shall furnish a true copy of the warrant, certified under his hand to be a true copy, on the demand of any relative of the person arrested, or his solicitor."—(Mr. Leamy.)

Question, "That those words be there added," put, and agreed to.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

rose to move an Amendment, when—

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

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

resumed, and moved as an Amendment, in page 2, line 14, leave out sub-section (2), and insert— The warrant shall be in the form of No. in the Schedule to this Act annexed, or to the like effect. In order to explain the Amendment, it was necessary to go back for a few moments to the discussion which took place in the Committee the other day. The 1st clause of the Bill provided that the warrant of the Lord Lieutenant under which a man might be arrested— Should be conclusive evidence of all matters contained therein, 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. This very important discussion arose as to the words "shall be conclusive evidence of all matters therein contained;" and the impression of a great many Members of the highest authority in the law was that the meaning of these words was to declare that a warrant stating that a man had been arrested for any particular offence would actually amount to conclusive evidence of his having committed the offence on the suspicion of which he was arrested, and that the effect of the warrant might be to brand a man with having committed an offence which he never had committed; nor could he, at any time afterwards, clear his character, owing to the statement contained in the warrant. The warrant itself would be held to be conclusive, and to contain the evidence of the man's guilt. On the other hand, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and other Members of the Government, pointed out that this was not the intention or meaning of the words; but that the meaning of the words "conclusive of all matters therein contained" was that they were conclusive evidence that the man had been reasonably suspected, and arrested on that reasonable suspicion. Even this definition declared that the man, at least, had been reasonably suspected of some particular crime; and throughout his whole life, however innocent he might have been, there it would remain as conclusive evidence that the Lord Lieutenant had reasonable grounds for suspecting him of being a criminal. Such a suspicion might most seriously affect a man's future career. It was then suggested by the Government that the words "for the purposes of this Act" should be inserted. This meant that the warrant should be conclusive evidence of all matters therein contained "for the purposes of the Act;" in other words, for the purpose of establishing the legality of the jurisdiction under which the man was arrested, but not conclusive evidence that he was guilty of the crime charged against him. This seemed reasonable enough, until they came to consider another clause of the Bill, by which it was declared 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 form of warrants for the purposes of this Act, and any form so prescribed shall, when issued, be valid in law. By this clause the Lord Lieutenant might introduce any other form of warrant he pleased, and the kind of check imposed on the warrant by the words of the first clause would be of no value whatever. There was no reason to suppose it likely or probable, but it was not impossible, that the Lord Lieutenant might actually invent a prescribed form of warrant which would not only contain an allegation of reasonable suspicion, but which would also actually contain an allegation of the man's guilt. The Lord Lieutenant might prescribe a form of warrant stating that a man had been arrested because he had been guilty of incendiarism, or an attempt to murder, or inciting to violence, or any other of the various crimes to which the Act would apply. Although it was not likely that the Lord Lieutenant would do this, there was no guarantee that he might not do it. The clause, as it now stood, left any man arrested under the Act actually at the mercy of the Lord Lieutenant and his Advisers, and at the mercy of any form of warrant the Lord Lieutenant might choose at any moment to devise. It was quite possible that circumstances might arise to induce the Lord Lieutenant to think that he was acting wisely in completely altering the form of warrant, so as to make it altogether different from anything provided in the Act. At all events, this was a serious danger. He (Mr. Justin M'Carthy), therefore, proposed the present Amendment, the effect of which was to provide that the Committee itself should prescribe a definite form of warrant for the Lord Lieutenant. That was, if he were not mistaken, the course taken under the Westmeath Act, and he thought it would got over all the difficulty and danger. The Committee itself could draw up a form of warrant comprehensive enough to cover any object the Chief Secretary and the Government had in this legislation, but so shaped that it should not be open to mischievous application. That was the whole scope of the Amendment, and he hoped that the Committee would see that it was one of real importance and considerable moment. It was more than probable that many men who would be arrested in Ireland under this Act would be entirely innocent of the charges made against them. The adoption of this Amendment would prevent possible accidents, and take away an unnecessary power. It could not fetter or hamper the Lord Lieutenant or the Government in doing anything they had a fair right to do, and it would leave the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary for Ireland in the full possession of the power they desired to possess under the Act.

THE CHAIRMAN

Do I understand that the hon. Member for Longford desires to introduce as part of his Amendment, a Schedule which does not at present appear in the Bill? If that be the case, it would be impossible to move his Amendment. But if he accept the Schedule proposed in the name of Mr. M'Coan, his Amendment would be in Order.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

Yes. If I may do so.

Amendment proposed, In page 2, to leave out from the words Lord Lieutenant," in line 14, to the word "law," in line 18, inclusive, and insert the words, "The warrant shall be in the form in the Schedule to this Act annexed, or to the like effect."—(Mr. Justin M'Carthy.)

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

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

said, the hon. MemberforLongford(Mr. Justin M'Carthy) did the Government no more than justice, when he said he was perfectly sure that the Government had no desire except to carry out the objects of the Bill; nevertheless, the hon. Member implied that the Lord Lieutenant might prescribe a warrant in any form he pleased without having regard to the object of the Bill. To a certain extent this was a reflection on a Nobleman of high character; it also applied to his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He was quite sure, from the tone of moderation in which the hon. Member for Longford always spoke in that House, that he had no intention to make such a charge. [Mr. JUSTIN M'CARTHY: Oh, dear, no!] That being so, the question remained, what was to be the form of warrant? It could not be a warrant according to a Schedule that was perfectly blank. He would endeavour to point out to the Committee that the matter was already settled. The warrant could only be a warrant under the Act, and must conform to what the Act required; and it must go further, and conform to the clause the Committee had already passed. For instance, it must declare the person to have been reasonably suspected of a crime specified by the Act. It must also declare that the offence was committed in a prescribed district. Then it must be one or other of the general classes of crime mentioned in the clause—namely, those connected with treason, or those connected with an act of violence or intimidation. All those details must appear in the warrant. The clause recited that, in every warrant whereby a person was declared to be reasonably suspected of having committed any crime, the warrant should state the nature and character of such crime. The Committee, having passed that clause, could not go back and require the warrant to state something more. So far, the Committee had prescribed everything except the mere form of the warrant issued by the Lord Lieutenant, by and with the advice of the Privy Council. So much for the warrant. Secondly, as to the effect. The hon. Member for Longford said that the warrant would afford conclusive evidence that the person charged had been guilty of the crime of which he was accused, even if that charge amounted to murder; but the Committee had already, in the 18th line of the 1st sub-section, inserted, after the word "shall," certain words which provided that the warrant should only be conclusive evidence for the purposes of the Act; and for the purposes of the Act only could it be produced in evidence. The result, therefore, of empowering the Lord Lieutenant to make an order from time to time, prescribing the form of warrant for the purposes of the Act, would only be the issue of warrants that were to be conclusive of nothing more than that the person was reasonably suspected.

MR. FINIGAN

had expected, from the opening sentences of the hon. and learned Gentleman, that he was about to concede the principle of the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. M'Carthy); but when he came to examine the very different line of argument afterwards followed by the hon. and learned Gentleman, he found that the hon. and learned Gentleman took very good care to wind up in a manner as hostile as possible to the Amendment. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that if they looked to the previous part of the Bill they would find that the Lord Lieutenant was authorized to issue his warrants on reasonable suspicion, and that it only referred to the crime of high treason and acts of violence and intimidation. Now, first of all, with regard to acts of treason. Not only was the crime of treason and treason-felony included, but they had the unstatutory, the unknown, and the unjust offence laid down of treasonable practices. Such offences were nowhere defined. The hon. and learned Gentleman told them, further, that the Committee could not go beyond that clause, and that the whole matter was now complete; but if the whole power given to the Lord Lieutenant was complete under the 1st clause, why should they, in this subsequent clause, permit the Lord Lieutenant to alter or vary, or even revoke, the warrant. If the hon. and learned Gentleman had stated that which was legally correct they ought to abide by the 1st clause; but immediately afterwards he told the Committee that the Government were desirous of giving to the Lord Lieutenant the power of changing the form of warrant as he liked. He (Mr. Finigan) urged that that House was alone responsible for the government of Ireland; and the Committee should insist that the arbitrary power of the Lord Lieutenant in this respect should be definitely laid down and prescribed. They might agree to trust the Lord Lieutenant personally; but they were quite aware that it would not always be the Lord Lieutenant who would draw up these warrants. He believed that most warrants were upon a printed form, and were merely formal documents which required filling up, and they would be filled up, not by the Lord Lieutenant, but by subsidiary officers; and if the Bill was carried out in an acrimonious spirit, they might be filled up in a way that would be altogether antagonistic to the interest of the prisoners. If the Lord Lieutenant was authorized to issue an order in the way in which that clause was drawn up, he would he able to accept any kind of warrant which might he prepared by any officer serving under him. That was asking for something more than a mere measure of prevention and justice. Why should not the Government be just to those whom they were about to prevent from committing crime, and say that all over Ireland there should be one particular form of warrant, and that particular form of warrant should not be altered according to the whim, or according to the exigencies of the Government, or according to the political necessities which might happen to influence the Lord Lieutenant and those who surround him. If they looked at the proposed Schedule, they would find the warrant was based on the principles laid down by the Government. It did not even give time and place, for which so many hon. Members had contended; but was a plain, simple, straightforward document. He failed to see why the Lord Lieutenant should be empowered to alter it, just as his convenience or political ideas might suggest to him. The words of the warrant were— Whereas has been deemed by the Lord Lieutenant to he reasonably suspected of, this warrant under the said Act commands the said to he arrested in any part of Ireland and detained during the continuance of the Act unless discharged by order of the Lord Lieutenant or Privy Council. That was a very plain statement of fact, without giving either time or place. Therefore, he thought the Government should be content with that strict and legal form of warrant and not depart from the spirit of the law which, in this country, and nominally in Ireland, was maintained and preserved in the interests of peace and order, and in the interest of justice. To object to this Schedule was to object to what was perfectly legal and only right; but to ask that the Lord Lieutenant should be intrusted with power to alter the form of warrant was to demand something which the Committee had no ground for granting. Therefore, he hoped until some better case was made out by the Law Officers of the Crown for Ireland, or the Chief Secretary, that the Committee would insist upon the Amendment being carried to a division, in order to show that Her Majesty's Government was not acting in the direction of protection; but that it was endeavouring to muddle everything connected with Ireland, and to place it within the personal and arbitrary power of a single individual.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

pointed out to the Committee that power to the Lord Lieutenant to frame, from time to time, warrants in any shape had never, as he believed, been before conceded by Parliament. It was very novel that in a ease like the present the Committee should be engaged in removing the Constitutional safeguards of citizens. Now, there could be no difficulty for the Law Officers of the Crown in drawing up a form of warrant to be scheduled with the Bill. That was a subject which, as the Chief Secretary had already told them, had engaged his attention for some time past. Secondly, the difficulty of the case could not be new to the Law Officers of the Crown for Ireland; and it would be a gross reflection upon their competency to say it would take them three hours to draw up a form of warrant to meet all the eases under the Bill. Therefore, there could be no valid ground for refusing this on the pretext that there was not sufficient time to frame such warrant, and there must be some other excuse for not putting the form of warrant into the Bill. No one could know what form might from time to time be adopted, nor what motives, what incitement, nor what idea of necessity influenced the Lord Lieutenant in this matter. They could not trust to the idea of necessity which would exist in the mind of the Lord Lieutenant, and he submitted it was only a reasonable course to put the form of warrant in the Schedule of the Bill. The Solicitor General for Ireland was well-known to be capable and competent to draft a form of warrant in half-an-hour; and if he would not do it there must be some reason, not necessarily weak or corrupt, which the Committee ought to be allowed to canvass.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, the request to have the warrant drawn up and inserted in the Schedule was in accordance with the precedent of the Westmeath Act, in the Schedule of which, as hon. Members were aware, the warrant was embodied. That warrant named the person, residence, and crime imputed; and, in addition, it gave the authority under which the arrest was made. Above all, it gave the name of the prison in which the person was to be confined. To this latter information he attached the greatest importance.

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

It is already stated in what prison the person would be confined.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

thanked the hon. and learned Gentleman for satisfying him upon that point, and thought, as they were so far agreed, he should introduce some form of warrant into the Schedule, for the framing of which, in as short a time as possible, he should be happy to lend his assistance.

MR. BIGGAR

observed that, where information could be conveniently be given in Acts of Parliament, it was better that it should be given, rather than that the matter should be left to chance and future arrangement. He was at a loss to understand why the Government should not draw up a warrant and schedule it with the Bill.

MR. CALLAN

said, if a warrant similar in form to that specified in the Westmeath Act wore scheduled with the Bill it would show that the warrant should be made out, giving time and place. He could not see why the Government were so persistent in declining to frame a warrant.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 114; Noes 39: Majority 75. — (Div. List, No. 58.)

MR. GRAY

said, the words of the Amendment he was about to move had been taken literally from the Suspension of Habeas Corpus Act, 1822. He was unable to say why they had been omitted in the Acts passed since that time; but he submitted that words in every sense similar should be included in the Act now before the Committee. Since the passing of the Act to which he had referred, many things had occurred which could be construed as involving the ancient rights and privileges of Parliament; and it might be said that, inasmuch as so many of these rights had disappeared, it made very little difference to Parliament whether one more of its ancient rights and privileges was taken away or not. He believed there were many hon. Members sitting on that side of the House who attached very little importance to the proposal he was about to submit to the Committee; in fact, some of them thought so strongly upon the subject that he had some hesitation in proposing his Amendment. Were he one of the Members of the Land League, against which this Bill was aimed, he would not do so. But as he did not belong to that organization, he did not see why, as a Member of the House, he should take a step for the preservation of its ancient privileges. It was only during the sitting of Parliament that Members could be protected from imprisonment under ordinary process of law, which could not take place except permission of the House was previously granted for their arrest. He was not at all sanguine that, in the present temper of hon. Members, they would attach any particular importance to their ancient rights and privileges; nevertheless, he desired to bring before the Committee the fact that, in every suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act down to 1822, the wording of his Amendment was inserted. He had taken it, without any change whatever, from a former Act, and thought it incumbent on the Government to show why it had been omitted from the pre-sent Bill. At the same time, if no sufficient reason was forthcoming, he contended that the proposed clause should be inserted in the Bill, in order to protect Members of the highest Court of the Realm in the execution of their duties. If the Amendment was not adopted, any Member of Parliament resident in Ireland, during two Sessions, could be arrested and imprisoned. The Government might urge them to trust to the Chief Secretary to discharge his duty with a due sense of his responsibility, and not to imprison any of his brother Members on suspicion; and if hon. Members thought that that was a sufficient guarantee, they would, of course, vote against the Amendment; but the Bill involved an abrogation of the ancient rights of Members of Parliament, which should not be adopted without careful consideration, He should propose the Amendment; and he trusted that, if it was to be rejected, some of the authorities in the House on Constitutional liberty and precedents would give their reasons for the violation of an ancient and honour- able precedent, which ought not to be deviated from without good cause being shown. He did not say that the individual Member who offended should be considered, but the honour of the House itself; and the proper procedure would be, in such a case as the imprisonment of one of its Members, to obtain the sanction of the House. That was the feeling of the House in times past, and that should still be the feeling. It was due to Members themselves, and to their constituents, that Members should have the same protection as they had had in the past. He objected to his liberty being in the hands oven of one for whom he had respect, as he had for the Chief Secretary. It was possible that many of his brother Members might oppose the Amendment from a feeling that they should take the risk of whatever might be imposed on the constituencies; but he held that they should endeavour to preserve their representative rights; for they were not there in their private capacity, but to perform public duties. He would conclude by moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

Amendment proposed, In page 2, line 18, after the word "law," to insert, as a new sub-section, the words, "Provided always, and he it enacted, That nothing in this Act shall he construed to extend to invalidate the ancient rights and privileges of Parliament, or to the imprisoning or detaining of any Member of either House of Parliament, during the sitting of such Parliament, until the matter of which he stands suspected be first communicated to the House of which he is a Member, and the consent of the said House obtained for his commitment or detention."— (Mr.Gray.)

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

MR. THOROLD ROGERS

said, he had put very early on the Paper a similar Amendment; but the hon. Member who had just spoken had trumped his card. He did not wish to embarrass the Government in any way; but he believed there was not a Member of that side of the House who was not pained at being obliged to curtail the liberties of some of their fellow-subjects. It had been argued that it was not the part of a Liberal Government to curtail liberty; but while they would not curtail liberty they would curtail licence. The reason why he proposed to move a similar Amendment was that he found that there was in every such Act of Parliament for limiting the liberties of the Irish people a clause in the terms of the proposed Amendment. It was inserted in every Act from 1800 to 1805; and again in 1822. It was certainly left out of the Act of 1833; but that Act was for the establishment of martial law, and did not require it. The clause was omitted also from the Act of 1848; but how that was he did not know. That Bill was introduced on July 22, 1848, and passed, with only one division, in one Sitting. It passed through the House of Lords, with only one division, at a single Sitting, and it received the Royal Assent on the 25th of July. Now, as to the privilege of Parliament contained in that clause, he believed it was pretty well known that the privilege of Parliament did not extend to treason, felony, or breach of the peace— the offences which, he presumed, were most likely to come under the new Act. Treason was one of the greatest crimes that could be committed against the whole of society; and no persons suffered more from such a crime than the class for whom certain Members had been loudly talking as their advocates. The Act did not propose to protect people who had been guilty of such a crime; but it seemed to him to be in the highest degree desirable — apart from the question as to whether hon. Members were likely to be arrested under the Act — that Parliament should know the cause of the arrest of one of its Members. Furthermore, he deemed it highly desirable that Parliament itself should pronounce on the sufficiency of the case upon which such hon. Member was held responsible for the crime. parliament had never refused to surrender a Member who was guilty of offence against the laws of the country; but it was expedient, first, that the arrest should be communicated to Parliament, and then Parliament should be invited to pronounce judgment; and he ventured to think that it would be very valuable for the discipline of the House if Members were brought very much more within the judgment of the House. For these reasons he supported the Amendment.

MR. O'DONNELL

did not feel much enthusiasm on behalf of the Amendment; for, as the Committee had refused to grant to the families of suspects arrested in Ireland any opportunity of knowing why their liberty was interfered with, therefore he did not know why what had been refused to wives and families should be granted to Members of Parliament. Of course, the ties which united Members to one another were very strong; but it would be too much, perhaps, to say that they wore stronger than the ties between a man and his wife and children. Whatever might be his attachment to the House of Commons, he should require more than the eloquence of Members of the Government to bring him to that point of view He thought it was quite probable that the omission of the usual guarantee to Members of Parliament had been quite intentional; and the policy, which began with the opening of Members' letters, would be continued by taking hold of their persons. He was of opinion that Members ought to be quite ready to run the risks of Ministerial wrath for a few months, while the Government were in a position to inflict it upon them; and he, therefore, did not feel called upon to support the Amendment. At the same time, he thought that, in any case, the privileges of Members who had shown no great love for the privileges of Parliament should be guarded; and if it were expedient, he should be prepared to move an addition to the Amendment, exempting from the operation of the Act the Members of the Liberal Party, who cared so little about the privileges of Parliament.

MR. O'SULLIVAN

desired no concession or privilege in which his countrymen could not share; and if he voted at all he should vote against the Amendment. If any disgrace attached to any Member who was arrested on suspicion, that disgrace would reflect more on the Government than on the Member; and he regretted that any concession had been asked for from that side of the House for exempting Members from arrest any more than their constituents.

MR. GLADSTONE

I cannot but express my sympathy with the spirit just expressed by the hon. Member for Limerick, who, I think, has shown very strong public spirit and personal courage in his unwillingness to accept anything in the nature of favour or privilege, or to enjoy advantages which cannot be enjoyed by the bulk of Her Majesty's subjects in Ireland. Not only is that very creditable to the feelings of the hon. Member, but it seems to me to indicate the principle upon which we ought to proceed in this matter. I shall carefully avoid arguing this point as if it were more than it is—an interesting point of Constitutional history and principle. I shall not discuss it on either side with reference to the possibility or impossibility of its having any practical bearing on the present juncture, for I think it ought to be argued simply as a Constitutional point. I look at the matter simply as it stands. There appears to be a presumption in favour of the accuracy of the recital of these Acts; but yet I am very much inclined to question it. What is the recital in the Amendment? Nothing in this Act shall apply to invalidate the ancient rights and privileges of Members of Parliament during the Sitting of Parliament as to the imprisonment or detaining of any Member of either House of Parliament during the Sitting of such Parliament. That appears to imply that there are some ancient rights and privileges of Parliament which extend to preventing the imprisonment or detaining of any Member of either House during the Session, whatever may be the cause of such imprisonment. Now, hero it is important to notice a most material and vital distinction. There is no such ancient right and privilege with respect to criminal offences. Whether that be too wide a word or not I do not know; but, at any rate, Chief Justice Black stone, after reciting that the privileges of Parliament do not extend to treason, felony, or breach of the peace, says a case of writing and publishing seditious libels has been resolved by both Houses of Parliament not to be entitled to privilege, and that Members of Parliament are liable for every indictable offence. In 1848 and in 1852 we find that the privilege of freedom from arrest was maintained by this House only in such cases as were not treason, felony, or breach of the peace; and it is a safe assertion, resting on the authority of Sir Erskine May, that the privilege of freedom from arrest has always been limited to civil cases, and has not been allowed to interfere with the administration of Criminal Law. That is the general principle of the Constitution; and I take leave to observe that the hon. Gentleman who has moved this Amendment has not approached the question from the right point of view. He has appeared to think that this clause would exempt him from the burden of proof, and that, because it appeared in other Acts, the burden of proof rested with those who proposed to omit it. Now, those Acts were Acts within a certain period; but other Acts have excluded the clause, and there is no reason in the world, if we look at the question on general principles, why I should not invert the argument of the hon. Gentleman. I do invert it; and I maintain that the whole burden of proof lies with him. This is an attempt to set up special privilege on behalf of Members of Parliament. The general principle does not extend to any but civil cases; for more than a score of years this clause has not been in the Acts passed within that period, and it therefore appears to mo that we have admitted a general principle which is adverse to such a special privilege. The whole course of our legislation, of late years, has been towards abridging the personal privilege of Members of Parliament. Such personal privileges have been at all times abridged, and justly so. They are regarded jealously by the general public opinion of the country, and it appears to me that it would require a very strong practical reason to warrant our inventing a new privilege, or setting up afresh any old privilege, the claim to which has been discontinued. This does not rest on the ancient and respectable foundation of an established privilege of Parliament. The privilege of Parliament touches no such subject-matter; but only amounts to this—that you have certain precedents by Acts in which the enactment might be justified. Now, let us look at the case of enactments. I do not know how far they go back; I do not think it is necessary for me to find any special argument on their behalf. It is only within recent times that Members of this House have learned to respect the general principles of liberty and justice in their dealings with one another. I do not claim that as a merit to ourselves individually; it is only a sign of the progress of popular and Constitutional principles; and the most free and familiar illustration of the proposition that can be given is the old practice when the seats of Members of Parliament were habitually and notoriously voted upon by the House, not according to the merits of the case, but purely and simply for Party purposes. When we consider the corruption and intimidation that were brought to bear on individual Members in olden times, especially by Governments, it might be excusable, if not warrantable, to take precautions against this particular method of proceeding, and against laying hands, through the medium of Acts for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, on Members of Parliament for the purpose of weakening the opposite Party. That is, to a great extent, conjectural; but I am not prepared to allow that any legitimate authority belongs to these precedents. They are limited to a time to which none of us, I believe —I do not think oven Conservative Members—would be disposed to refer —namely, the period between 1800 and 1822 which was distinctly a period of re-action. I do not think Gentlemen on that side of the House, any more than Gentlemen on this side, would be inclined to refer to that period as one from which we could draw precedents and claim authority for them. In progress of time, and in reference to, and in strict conformity with, what this House had done in other particulars, the practice has been dropped. We have the Act of 1818 for suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, from which the clause was omitted. It might be possible, perhaps, to establish a personal reason for that; but we have other cases—the Act of 1866 and the Act of 1871 —in neither of which was the clause inserted. So that the present practice and the practice since 1822 is against the insertion of the clause. I condemn it on its merits; and I also plead that the authority of the last 60 years, which for us is a great deal better than the preceding 20 years, is adverse to the clause. I may likewise observe that, though I conceive that the reasons I have cited are sufficient reasons for voting against the clause, very great inconvenience would arise from the practice. A Member of Parliament, though he could not be arrested without the leave of the House during the Session of Parliament, might be arrested during the Recess, and having been arrested during the Recess, and confined for the whole of the Recess, he would have to be released on the meeting of Parliament until the judgment of Parliament could be taken on the case. It does not seem to me that that would be a very satisfactory arrangement. But what is then to happen? The matter is then to be communicated to the House of which he is a Member, and the consent of the said House obtained for his commitment or detention. That is to say, on high special grounds, we are passing by the general system of our law and creating a high Executive responsibility; we are providing that in cases of Members of Parliament that responsibility is to be carried over to the two Houses of Parliament respectively. I appeal to hon. Members whether it is fit or becoming, or convenient, that this House should assume that responsibility and make itself the judge, in a particular case, of the reasonableness of a suspicion which might be entertained of a particular person. This is directly the reverse of our Constitutional arrangement. The Constitutional arrangement is— [An hon. MEMBER: Anything you like.] Anything I like! That is not my argument; and I should be obliged to the hon. Gentleman to use his own argument himself, and not put it upon me. The arrangement of our Constitution is this—Executive arrangements devolve on the Executive Government, and when that power has been abused this House exists as the great Constitutional inquest of the nation to which an appeal may be made, and a trial of the conduct of the Executive Government be obtained. But now we are proposing that in the ease of a brother Member the Executive responsibility shall be carried over to the Legislature, and that there shall be no appeal. That is entirely opposed to the spirit of the Constitution. I admit that great interest attaches to the question; but I hope the Committee will decline to accede to the Amendment.

MR. J. COWEN

said, he entirely agreed with the contention of the Prime Minister as far as it went. He thought that it was unfair in principle and inconvenient in practice to give Members of Parliament any privileges that their constituents did not enjoy; but the right hon. Gentleman had entirely overlooked the force of the contention of his hon. Friend the Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray). The Prime Minister held that a Member who was charged with treason or with treasonable practices should be arrested without the consent of the House, just as any ordinary citizen would be. With that contention he was in entire accord. It would be absurd to suppose that a Member of Parliament should be free from the responsibilities of any criminal act on his part; but that was not the point at issue. This Bill empowered the Lord Lieutenant and his Chief Secretary to arrest persons for other offences than high treason or treasonable practices. It also empowered them to arrest persons not on a charge, but on mere suspicion, and there lay the difference. What the hon. Member for Carlow objected to was giving the Irish authorities power to arrest a Member of Parliament on suspicion, throw him into prison for 18 months, and never bring a charge against him. If any of the Irish Members bad been guilty of treasonable practices, let the charge be preferred against them, and lot them be brought to trial at once. There was no desire on their part to shrink from the full responsibility of their actions. What they objected to, and objected to with reason, was that they should be placed in gaol for a year and a-half upon the whispered suspicion of a police spy. It was a fact known to many hon. Gentle-men in that House that the movements of the Irish Members were watched day and night. Detectives hung about their residences, followed them to the House of Commons, and were, at that moment, to be seen in the Lobby. That was not only wrong, but extremely offensive. What the Government out to do, if they believed those hon. Gentlemen to be guilty of any offence, was to arrest and try them, and thus free them from this surveillance. If they were not supposed to be guilty of any offence, they should not be subjected to the indignity of having policemen following at their heels. But the point he wished to put before the House was this—No one objected to a Member being accused of treason or treasonable practices. If the Government thought they had a case against him, they should arrest him and have him tried. What they objected to was that a Member of Parliament, or, indeed, anyone, should be arrested upon mere suspicion, and that suspicion based upon the doubtful and often perjured evidence of informers.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

could not regret that the present Amendment was before the Committee, espe- cially as it had been endorsed by so high an authority and so respected a student of Constitutional history as the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Thorold Rogers). He had not the good fortune to be politically in accordance with him; but opinions expressed by the hon. Member on such a question must not be likely to command the attention of the House. The matter, having been brought forward and supported by that hon. Member, ought not to be discussed in the hasty manner which the Prime Minister had suggested. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister said that the Amendment would confer, directly or indirectly, a now privilege upon Members of Parliament; but, as he (Lord Randolph Churchill) read it, it would do nothing of the kind. It said that nothing should bo construed to extend or invalidate the ancient rights and privileges of hon. Members. Those rights, as laid down by Blackstone, would not confer an immunity upon a Member who was guilty of a breach of the peace. He should be in the recollection of the Committee when he said that there had been arrests made by Courts of Justice within the last few years which had been communicated to Parliament. The late Mr. Whalley, a respected Member of that House, was arrested under a warrant and committed for contempt of Court. He understood that that Amendment only proposed to defend the ancient rights and privileges, and provided that unless a Member were arrested for treasonable practices or an indictable offence his arrest was to be communicated to Parliament. But it was quite possible that arrests might take place in Ireland which were only on suspicion of having committed one of these offences; and it was not unnatural that, under the present peculiar circumstances, a desire should exist that those arrests should be communicated to the House. The Prime Minister had taken the precedents of 1866, and more especially that of 1818. In the latter case the Member arrested might be supposed to have been connected with treasonable designs; but in 1866 there was nothing of the kind. Now, it was a curious coincidence, that in this Parliament there was an extraordinary state of things. A large number of Members wore connected with a body against which the action of the Government was directed. Under those circumstances, he was not sure that it was unreasonable that several hon. Members should wish to have some provision in the Pill that if a Member of that House and that organization were arrested, except for treasonable practices or an indictable offence, on suspicion, his arrest should be communicated to the House. The hon. Member for Carlow, in moving his Amendment, said that he had immense confidence in the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) had not that confidence in him. He himself was in the habit of going to Ireland, where he had a great number of friends whose society he valued; and he was not at all clear that the affection of the right hon. Gentleman was so great that he would not be inclined, under any circumstances, to suspect him of treasonable practices. Sometimes a banquet was given by the Constitutional Club in Dublin. Now, if he attended such a banquet, he should not hesitate to criticize, in as marked a manner as possible, the conduct of the Chief Secretary; and he should like to have something put into the Bill which would place beyond a doubt that, if arrested, the fact should be communicated to the House. The Government had already committed several acts of an arbitrary nature. Members of that House had been dealt with in an arbitrary way; and he was not sure that the same arbitrary proceedings which had been inaugurated by the Government in that House would not be extended to Ireland He would point out a curious coincidence with regard to the arrest of Mr. Davitt the other day. He had made speeches recently of an extremely violent character; he had no hesitation in saying that they wore seditious. He was not arrested until he had made a speech in which he directly attacked the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He thought, on the whole, that it was not unreasonable that arrests of hon. Members should be communicated to the House. ["Hear, hear!"from the Treasury Bench.] The Prime Minister assented to that. He was delighted that the suggested Amendment was to be accepted. The Amendment was an important one, as it raised a great Constitutional question. He was aware, however, that that was about the last question likely to be attended to in that House. He wished to point out the extraordinary departure from Con- stitutional practice which the Government had inaugurated. If the Amendment could be so modified as to make it acceptable to the Government, he, for one, would be glad to support it.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I think that the noble Lord could not have read the Amendment before the Committee. His whole speech was directed to the absolute necessity that existed of communicating to this House an arrest of one of its Members. This Amendment has nothing to do with that question. The question was whether antecedent consent of the House should be given to the arrest of a Member. That is totally and entirely a different thing. I could have saved the noble Lord some 25 minutes of his speech. There is a difference between antecedent consent and subsequent communication. Anyone acquainted with the elements of Parliamentary law and Constitutional principles must see that, in the very Act of 1848 which had been referred to, a clause was identical with the one in the present Bill. The arrest of Mr. Smith O'Brien under that Act was communicated to the House on the 8th of August. I can add nothing to the complete and conclusive argument of the Prime Minister on this question. The present Act is undoubtedly a strong one, which deprives every subject of the Queen in Ireland of the resort to Courts of Law against arrest upon suspicion. Why should the House of Commons reserve to its own Members an appeal to the Courts of Law, or to this House, against a similar proceeding? We conceive that it would not be wise or prudent so to do. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister has referred to the precedents, and in all cases since 1822 the words of the clause have stood in their present form as regards this matter. I am strongly of opinion that, in matters of this kind, Members of Parliament must take the law as it stands, and cannot claim any special privilege which is denied to others.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

I only rise to say that it appears to me that the Home Secretary must have been a little taken aback by the lively and able speech of my noble Friend (Lord Randolph Churchill). The noble Lord was only speaking for a quarter of an hour, and yet the right hon. Gentleman said that he could have saved him 25 minutes. It is obvious that the right hon. Gentleman was not quite alive to the argument of my noble Friend, because what I understood from my noble Friend was that he was not prepared to support this Amendment as it stood; but that the matter was not one to be so summarily dismissed, as he considered it had been by the speech of the Prime Minister; and, at all events, that it was desirable and right that we should call for some assurance that no arrest or detention of a Member of that House should be permitted without a formal communication being made to the House for the protection of Members of this House. We do not suspect that this Government, or, indeed, any Government of modern times, could distort and pervert the powers given to it for the purpose of preserving law and order for political purposes; but it is always desirable that, in matters of this kind, the slightest suspicion should be averted by proper legislation. I do not feel that we can have any doubt as to the vote to be given upon the Amendment. I think that the view which has been so tersely expressed by the hon. Member for the County of Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan) would find an echo with all—that there should not be protection given to Members of this House which was not to be extended to other persons.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I will just-mention that it is entirely within the understanding of the Government, and we are perfectly convinced that we cannot avoid the usual methods being taken of informing the House of the arrest of any of its Members. I am confirmed in that by what is stated by Sir Erskine May, in page 105, of his work on Parliamentary Law. He says there— Thus the House will not allow even the sanctuary of its walls to protect a Member from the process of the criminal law But in all cases in which Members are arrested on criminal charges, the House must he informed of the cause for which they are detained from their service in Parliament. I have since had an opportunity of consulting Sir Erskine May; and he says that, although it is contrary to our present practice to give special privileges to Members, and that the privilege of obtaining consent has existed in some Acts, yet there could be no doubt that in any kind of case for trial, as well as in the case of arrest on suspicion, the House must be informed of that arrest in some way or another, as they were informed of the arrest of one of its Members in 1848. I have another remark to make, which is of a personal nature. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) made an allusion to the arrest of Michael Davitt; and he left the impression, which, unless he believed it, he would not have conveyed—I am sure nobody else in this House would, and I do not think he would—that the reason of Davitt's arrest was that he had made certain remarks about myself.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

I did not say that. I said it was a curious coincidence.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

The Committee will understand what that means. I do not believe that most of the hon. Members who sit near the noble Lord believe it. I may say that, as I was the adviser of the Home Secretary in the matter of the arrest of Michael Davitt, the one argument which prevailed most strongly with me against his arrest was the fact that he had made that attack upon myself. He was arrested simply from a sense of public duty. I should not have thought it necessary for my character in the House to have made this reply to the insinuation of the noble Lord; but it was rendered necessary owing to the use that might have been made of it elsewhere.

MR. DILLON

said he did not rise to support the Amendment; but rather to make a personal statement. He was not quite ready to accept the extraordinary argument of the Home Secretary in answer to the speech of the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill), when he asked that an arrest of a Member should be communicated formally to Parliament in order that a debate might be raised. The difference lay between the arrest of a man on a charge and only on suspicion. He rose to make, as he had said, a personal remark, as the Home Secretary appeared to be in a good humour. He wished to say—he might say that he would personally appeal to him—that if he considered it necessary to set detectives to watch him, he would kindly exempt his friends from the same treatment. A gentleman had complained to him to-day that, in consequence of being seen talking with him (Mr. Dillon), he was followed to his house by a detective. One of the Scotland-yard detectives had already been stationed in Craven Street, to watch over his morals, he supposed.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he should not vote on the Amendment, his reason being that, as he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Land League, it would appear that he was voting on a matter in which he had a personal interest. With regard to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, he did not blame him for showing a certain amount of warmth in replying to the insinuation of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill). He agreed, however, with the noble Lord's remark thus far—that there was no better reason for the arrest of Michael Davitt than his having made an attack upon the right hon. Gentleman.

THE CHAIRMAN

I doubted very much whether it was in Order to permit reference to this matter at all; but I must now decline to allow the subject to be further discussed.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he was replying to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman; but as the Chairman had ruled his remarks out of Order, he should not proceed with them. He confessed he listened with a great deal of delight to the speech of the Prime Minister—to one of the highest intellectual treats the House was ever favoured with—and, whilst he was listening to the entrancing speech, he almost forgot that the right hon. Gentleman was reducing still further the space of time still left to the Committee before the introduction of the gagging Resolution.

THE CHAIRMAN

I do not see how this bears upon the Amendment before the Committee.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he had sufficiently indicated what he wished to say, therefore he would not go further into the matter. He would deal with the first statement of the Home Secretary that the House would be informed of the arrest under the Bill of a Member of Parliament. According to the Bill the Government would be bound to lay A list of all persons for the time being detained in prison under this Act, with a statement opposite each person's name of the prison in which he is detained for the time being, and of the ground stated for his arrest in the warrant under which he is detained" before "each House of Parliament within the first seven days of every month during which Parliament is sitting, He did not think, therefore, seeing that the arrest of a Member would have to be communicated in the ordinary way, that the Committee had anything to be thankful to the right hon. Gentleman for. There was a strain of fallacy running all through the speech of the Prime Minister. No doubt, the tendency of recent legislation and practice had been to diminish the personal privileges of Members of Parliament, which at one time had been considerable. In the good old times a predecessor of his, fearing arrest for debt on land, had been obliged to address his constituents from a boat on a lake, where he was secure from arrest. But whilst personal privileges had been abridged political privileges had been enlarged and increased. He had no confidence, however, in the Government, or, at any rate, not enough to believe that they might not in a moment of frenzy—and the new Rules and proceedings of the past few days had inclined him to believe that they were subject to moments of frenzy—take it into their heads that the best way to silence a Member was to place him within the walls of Mount-joy Prison. He considered the Government capable of anything—in its treatment of the Irish Members, at all events. There was no reason why the Irish Members should be imprisoned beyond this—that they had the extraordinary ill luck to differ from the political opinions of right hon. Gentlemen opposite. The Home Secretary had assented to the statement of the hon. Member for Car-low that the present Government could do no wrong, and that might be the fact; but he and others failed to see it, in consequence of natural dulness, no doubt. He and his hon. Friends and the people of Ireland were of opinion that the Government were nearly always doing wrong so far as the government of that country was concerned. They were in this extraordinary position—that while the Government believed they were incapable of error, the Irish Members, on the other hand, were quite convinced of their constant subjection to fits of error. [Cries of "Question!"] He hoped the Chairman would protect him from the unseemly interruptions which were con- stantly coming from hon. Members behind the Treasury Bench, and especially from some Members of the Legal Profession. He was observing, when interrupted, that it was the misfortune of the Irish Members to be at issue with the Members of the Government who thought they were always right, whilst the Irish Members believed them to be always wrong. What, then, would be easier for the Government than to arrest a Member of that Party on the imaginary ground of some offence embodied in the Bill? There was not an Irish Member against whom the Government could not get up a fictitious case with the means at their disposal under the provisions of this Bill. There was not one of them who had not said something or other on account of which the Government might "suspect" him, order his arrest, and stop his mouth. The noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) had expressed fears as to his safety in Dublin; but he had no need to fear arrest, although his speeches at the Constitutional Club would, no doubt, be of a character calculated to disturb the maintenance of law and order in Ireland. The speeches made there, as a general rule, had a tendency to incite to violence and the disturbance of law and order. But the noble Lord was an Englishman. [Cries of "Question!"] He would not be curtailed in his remarks by any of these interruptions from the opposite Benches. The noble Lord had the good fortune to be an Englishman, and a Member of an English political Party; and what in an Irish Member was "high treason," "treason-felony," or "treasonable practices," in him would be perfectly lawful. The right hon. Gentleman opposite shook his head; but he was prepared to argue that no Irish Member had over been guilty of a higher offence than the crime of differing from the politics of the Government. He was prepared to argue that a fortiori the Irish Members had always kept within Constitutional limits, and that the Government regarded as high treason the least difference of opinion from them on the part of the Irish Party. In the matter of precedents the case of the Government was rather unfortunate. The case of 1848 had been quoted, and why did the Government then refuse to exempt Members? It was because there were Members in the House who differed from the opinion of the Government, and they did not wish to give them the safeguard of exemption from the operation of the Act, because the case was exactly parallel to the present. He was quite convinced that the Government had far bettor reasons for refusing to exempt the Irish Members than those ethereal and intellectual reasons put forward by the Prime Minister. To listen to his speech one might have thought that he had been giving them a dialectical discourse on some metaphysical subject; but he had a far better reason for the course he was taking than those that appeared from his observations. He (Mr. O'Connor) did not shrink from making the assertion that the real reason was that the Government might be able to put political opponents into prison in order to close their months, He had said several times during the discussion of the Bill, and he would repeat it, that the measure was meant not so much to give them immediate powers as to give them a reserve power, which they might use as their political necessities or their friends of the hour might dictate. They wanted to reserve themselves the right at their discretion—or indiscretion—to put certain people in such a position that they could silence their voices at a moment's notice.

MAJOR NOLAN

said, there was a point which he did not think any other hon. Member had touched upon —namely, that the principle of the Amendment was adopted in the French Chamber of Deputies in 1871, and was found very serviceable, as, but for its establishment, many Members of the Chamber would have had to leave the country. The rule had been used several times in French history to protect Members who wore liable to be concerned in much greater troubles than ever arose in England or Ireland; and they had been found extremely valuable for protecting Deputies who were doing their duty to their constituents. That point seemed to add a great deal of weight to the proposal of the hon. Member for Carlow. If the rule was found necessary in such a highly-civilized country as Franco, surely it would be necessary here. It was quite possible that, a few years hence, when this Act had been renewed or another was passed following this precedent, it might be highly important that the Members of the minority should not be liable to be thrown into prison on suspicion without the leave of the House having in the first place been obtained. He did not shrink from putting the important part of the question prominently forward, and he thought some of his Friends had been wrong in saying they would not support the Amendment. It might be chivalrous for Members to say that they would share the dangers of their constituents; but, to his mind, it was of the highest importance for freedom of discussion to protect the liberties of Members. It was difficult enough for them to go on with the liberty they had. Although, in England, 99 out of every 100 of the people might think differently from an Irish Member, yet that Gentleman, when he went over to Ireland, found just the same proportion of his constituents of an exactly opposite way of thinking. It was absolutely necessary that the privileges of the Irish Members should be preserved, for they were a small minority opposed to a large majority—a majority backed up by the feeling of this great city and this great country. Hon. Members would not be doing right if they left the House and refused to vote on the Amendment. The Prime Minister had given them two or three reasons why the Amendment should not be accepted, and one was that the House should not assume Executive responsibility by making itself the judge of the reasonableness of a particular case of suspicion. He did not agree with the Prime Minister. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman knew more about it than he (Major Nolan) did, yet it seemed to him that every time they went into Committee, on a Railway Bill, for instance, they had to perform a certain amount of Executive work. If the House had to give a tacit assent to the rules to be prepared under the Pill, that would be Executive work to a certain extent. Every Legislative Assembly did Executive work in one way or other; and, even though the House might be trespassing upon the work of the Executive, he could not but think that the Amendment ought to be accepted. He urged the Government to accept the proposal, because if they did not it would show a desire on the part of the Government to drive the Irish Members from their own country. All the Irish Members ought to give up their own private views and vote for the Amendment, if only as a protest against the future action of the Government.

MR. R. POWER

trusted the Amendment would not be pressed to a division. Up to the present he had found it difficult to agree to the proposals of Her Majesty's Government; but in this case he was in favour of the clause as it stood. The Prime Minister had told them that personal privileges were more and more abridged every day, and that was perfectly true. In a short time there might be none at all. But he must say he could not see why a Member of Parliament, if he were suspected of having committed an offence, should have greater privileges than anyone else. The hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Rogers), who was a great authority on the Rules of the House, had told them that it was with the greatest pain that he voted for the Bill; but it was a singular fact that there was not one who had spoken on that (the Ministerial) side of the House who bad not said the same thing; and hon. Members in that part of the House must, by this, be suffering great agony. It was said that the measure was not of such a frightful character, and that, really, innocent persons would not suffer under it; but, to show the Committee its dangerous character, even the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock was afraid of it—really afraid to visit his relations in Ireland. He regretted that the noble Lord had not been frightened a little earlier in the debate, and then, perhaps, he would have voted with the Irish Members a little oftener. Of course, the hon. Member, when he moved the Amendment, had not this idea in his head; but it did seem to him (Mr. Power) that the proposal was rather cowardly. He could not resist that conclusion. It had often been said that a preacher in a pulpit was six feet above argument; and he maintained that if the Amendment were carried, and he went home to address his constituents, he would certainly be six feet above them. He would not go to them unless he were prepared to meet them on equal terms. He had not, and he would not, advise them to take any course that he himself was not prepared to take; and he had assured them that, through his advice, they could make no sacrifice that he was not prepared to make. He could assure the House that the leaders of the movement in Ireland were quite prepared to abide by the advice they had given to the people in Ireland, and that they required no Amendment of this kind to protect them from the results of their speeches or action.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

did not rise for the purpose of supporting the Amendment, nevertheless he thought it right to make just a word of remark upon the statement made by the Prime Minister in his recent speech, when he said that Members had no privileges that would prevent their arrest for indictable offences; but he had yet to learn that to be amenable to "reasonable suspicion" was an indictable offence. This was said to be a very fast age; but, really, they were going fast in the extreme if "reasonable suspicion" was to be treated as an indictable offence. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock had, in his speech, referred to the possibility of his own arrest, and that was treated by the occupants of the Treasury Bench as a chimerical idea; but he did not know why it should be so treated, because he knew a magistrate who had recently declared that he would arrest any man going about the country sowing ill-will between the people and the Government. Of course, the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock might sow ill-will between the people and the Government, and so might many hon. Members, and they would all be liable to arrest under the terms of the Act. But what was the use of their talking or pleading for the "ancient privileges of Parliament?" The Committee appeared to be in a giving vein, and, having given up so much of the "ancient privileges," it did not become hon. Members opposite to trifle about such a small matter as this Amendment. They might as well lot the last remnant of their privileges go as so much had gone already, and he would advise them to present themselves before the Prime Minister, and say—"Hail, great Csæesar! We, who are about to die, salute thee!"

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA

said, that if his hon. Friend went to a division he should support him; but, before doing so, he would tell the hon. Member that this safeguard, which he looked forward to, was of a very illusory character. [Cries of"Agreed!"] Would the Chair- man protect him from these interruptions? He would suggest that some Amendment should be brought in which would place it beyond the power of the present or any Government to arrest a Member of Parliament without some specific charge being laid against him on oath.

MR. FINIGAN

said, that when the Prime Minister was addressing the House this evening, he interrupted him —a proceeding for which he was somewhat sorry—with the statement that the Constitution was "what he liked." He was incorrect in that statement, and he would now tell the Committee what he really meant. What he meantwas, thatup to a certain point in this debate the Prime Minister and those around him had acted as though they were the real guardians of the Constitution, and thought they could make the Constitution what they liked. But, in justice to truth, he must specifically state that whatever Constitutional rights the Irish Members enjoyed in this debate were to be traced to the Constitutional action of the Leaders and Members of the Conservative Party. The Constitutional rights they enjoyed—

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is not speaking to the Amendment at all.

MR. FINIGAN

said, he thought he was endeavouring to answer a specious argument of the Prime Minister; but as the Chairman had ruled him out of Order, he would content himself with saying that he, as an Irish Member, did not require the sympathy of theoretical Whigs, nor the benefit of any historical considerations adduced by any supporters of Her Majesty's Government. He was cognizant of having broken no law, nor did he intend to break any; but he proposed to go to Ireland, and continue there in that course of Constitutional agitation and regeneration which was so highly com-mended by right hon. Gentlemen opposite when they wore out of Office; but all mention of which was absent from their political utterances to-day. It was the old play; they got fair play—

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member cannot go on unless he becomes relevant to the Question.

MR. FINIGAN

I neither want the sympathy of this House—

THE CHAIRMAN

Having already drawn the attention of the Committee to the continued irrelevancy of the speech, I must now rule that the hon. Member discontinue his speech.

DR. COMMINS

did not rise to support the Amendment. He could not help expressing surprise at the argument with which the Prime Minister opposed the Amendment. He had given them, the authority of Blacksstone to show that the arrest of a Member of Parliament might take place for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. The right hon. Gentleman forgot the very small incident accompanying Blackstone's remarks—namely, that he had first dealt with the abolition of prerogative arrests — the arrests by Royal authority, for which there was no remedy. He forgot that under the ordinary law arrest was but a preliminary step to trial; but under this Act arrest would not be a step towards trial, and, therefore, the elaborate and ingenious argument of the Prime Minister was beside the question, and of no avail. If hon. Members who formed the overwhelming majority on the Government side were willing to lay their privilege of speech at the feet of the Prime Minister, that was their look out; but the Irish Members were unwilling to be the means by which the liberties of England were to be sacrificed. The other reason for which he was opposed to the Amendment was, that it would give a false security, a sham, and a deluding protection, where there would be no real protection whatever against the arbitrary conduct of the Prime Minister and the Chief Sectary. The Bill left to the Government all the plenitude of their power, whithout remedy or restriction. Notwithstanding all this he certainly should prefer to trust his liberty to the Chief Secretary rather than to the majority of the House, after the temper they had displayed on the subject.

MR. LEAMY

appealed to the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) to withdraw the Amendment. He knew that his hon. Friend had been actuated by the best intentions in proposing it; but he believed that it was disliked by the Irish Members generally. He had not held himself entirely aloof from the land agitation; but he did not wish to have a shield thrown over his actions which was not enjoyed by others engaged in the movement.

MR. GRAY

wished to say a word by way of personal explanation. The hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Rogers) commenced his speech by saying that he (Mr. Gray) had, in some way, trumped the hon. Member's card, and that in doing so he had acted contrary to the Rules of the House. Now, the Notice he (Mr. Gray) had given of this Amendment was given without the slightest knowledge of the Proviso placed upon the Paper by the hon. Member. He knew nothing of the hon. Member's Notice until he saw it upon the Paper the next-day; and all he knew of the matter now was that his Notice took precedence of that of the hon. Member. Perhaps he might be allowed to say a word in reference to the appeal which the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had made to him. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that the burden of proof rested upon the proposer of the Amendment. Now, he did not think so, because the Acts of 1848 and 1866—

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Gentleman is now replying to a speech, and is not making an explanation. He is, therefore, out of Order.

MR. GRAY

Then I can only say, under the circumstances, that, notwithstanding the appeals which have been made to me, I shall feel it my duty to press the Amendment to a division.

MR. CALLAN

said, the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Rogers) shook his head when the hon. Member For Carlow (Mr. Gray) stated that he had not, intentionally at least, trumped the hon. Member's card, as it was only by a mere accident that the Notice of the hon. Member for Carlow came before that of the hon. Member for Southwark. He was sorry that the hon. Member for Southwark had such a bad habit of blowing his own trumpet.

Question put.

THE CHAIRMAN

declared that the "Noes" had it; but the decision being challenged—

THE CHAIRMAN

Will the hon. Members who have challenged my decision kindly rise in their places? I ask them to do so under one of the new Rules, Rule 16.

MR. GRAY

asked, if the division bell ought not, in the first instance, to be rung in the Lobby?

THE CHAIRMAN

The object of the Rule is to save the time which would be occupied in taking a division; and my interpretation of the Rule is, that it should be brought into operation before the ringing of the bell.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not presents.

THE CHAIRMAN

There are obviously 40 Members present. Will those hon. Members who have challenged my decision please to rise in their places?

Six Members rose accordingly.

THE CHAIRMAN

Then the "Noes" have it.

Amendment negatived.

MR. GRAY

moved to insert, at end of sub-section 2, words providing— That if any Member of either House of Parliament be arrested under this Act, the fact shall be immediately communicated to the House of which he is a Member, if Parliament be sitting at the time; and if Parliament be not sitting, then immediately after it re-assembles. He did not move this Amendment from any desire to take up the time of the Committee needlessly. He had drafted the Amendment in accordance with a suggestion which was made in the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), and he would leave it in the hands of the Committee without saying a word further upon it.

Amendment proposed, In page 2, line 18, at the end of sub-section 2, to insert the words," Provided, that if any Member of either House of Parliament be arrested under this Act, the fact shall be immediately communicated to the House of which he is a Member, if Parliament be sitting at the time; and if Parliament be not sitting, then immediately after it re-assembles."—(Mr.Gray.)

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

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I understand the Amendment to be moved in order to remove the possibility of a doubt. The hon. Member's Amendment provides that if any Member of either House of Parliament be arrested, the fact of his arrest shall be communicated at once to the House of which he is a Member, if Parliament be sitting at the time, and, if Parliament be not sitting, then immediately after it reassembles. I would suggest an alteration in the terms of the Amendment in this way—that the fact shall be com- municated to the House of which, he is a Member in the same manner as if he-had been arrested on a criminal charge. The only possible objection would then be removed, and the wording of the clause would be in conformity with the usage and long custom of Parliament, which has been to say that if a Member be accused or arrested on a criminal charge, the House shall be immediately informed. If a man is arrested tinder this measure, under reasonable suspicion, he would be placed in the same position as if he had been accused or arrested upon a criminal charge.

MR. GRAY

said, he would have no objection to the Amendment suggested by the right hon. Gentleman, if its only effect would be to put the matter in the usual form; but he should certainly object to any form of words which would suggest that an arrest on suspicion was an arrest on a criminal charge. Would the insertion of the words "in the usual form" meet the wishes of the right hon. Gentleman? That would avoid even a suggestion that there was anything criminal.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

It has invariably been "in like manner, as if he were arrested on a criminal charge."

MR. GRAY

It is not upon "a criminal charge," but only upon "a reasonable suspicion."

Amendment proposed to said proposed Amendment, to add the words "in like manner as if he were arrested oh a criminal harge?"—(Mr. W. E. Forster.)

Question proposed, "That those words be added to the said proposed Amendment."

MR. CALLAN

said, he had not been in the House when this question rose. He had, however, been a Member of the House for 13 years, and during that time he only recollected the case of one arrest of a Member of Parliament. Although he had not been as diligent as the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Rogers) in searching the Journals of the House, he was aware that there was any precedent in regard to the mode of announcing such an arrest to the House.

Question put, and agreed to.

Amendment, as amended, put, and agreed to.

MR. METGE

moved, as an Amendment, in page 2, line 18, at the end of sub-section (2), to add— Every warrant under this Act shall state the prison in which the person directed to be imprisoned by the warrant shall be detained, and no prisoner under the Act shall be removed from one prison to another until a warrant, directing such removal, shall have been made out and signed by, the Lord Lieutenant, and such warrant of removal shall state the prison in which the prisoner has been removed and in which he is detained. He thought the Amendment was one which would commend itself to the Chief Secretary and to all hon. Members who had any recollection of the case of Casey, which had been brought before the Committee in the course of the discussion of the Bill. He (Mr. Metge) was the first person who brought forward that case, and he thought it fully war ranted the Amendment he now moved. Casey was arrested under the Westmeath Act in 1870, and his case was brought before the House in 1874 by Mr. Blake and Mr. Butt, after the unfortunate man had suffered three years' penal servitude in solitary confinement. Mr. Roebuck, in speaking of the treatment to which Casey had been subjected, said, in that House, that it reminded him of the days when Irishmen were treated as wild beasts. The principal reason why the case was not brought under the notice of the House before 1874 was that he had been moved from prison to prison without any information being conveyed to anyone connected with him. His father, a paralyzed man, travelled over Ireland, from North to South and from East to West, in search of his son, Casey being the sole means of the father's support. At last, by a mere accident, he found the unfortunate man confined in some goal in the South of Ireland, and, after great delay, he succeeded in bringing the case before Parliament. But at that time it was found that this unhappy man was in such a dangerous state of ill-health that he never recovered. No charge whatever had ever been substantiated against him. He (Mr. Metge) relied upon this case as an ample justification for the Amendment, and he would not detain the Committee by citing further instances. If the Amendment were adopted, they would preclude all danger of a similar case ever occurring again. He only asked that the change of the prison, from time to time, should be marked on the warrant. These might appear to be trifling matters, and matters of mere detail; but they were matters of the highest importance to the accused and to his friends and relations. Every opportunity should be afforded them of tracing the whereabouts of the arrested person, so that they might be able, if necessary, to bring the case under the notice of the House, from whom, he was perfectly sure, it would receive full justice and an impartial consideration.

Amendment proposed, In page 2, line 18, at the end of sub-section (2), to add these words, "Every warrant under this Act shall state the prison in which the person directed to be imprisoned by the warrant shall he detained, and no prisoner under the Act shall be removed from one prison to another until a warrant, directing such removal, shall have been made out and signed by the Lord Lieutenant, and such warrant of removal shall state the prison to which the prisoner has been removed and in which he is detained."—(Mr. Metge.)

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

MR. DAWSON

hoped that this concession was so very much within the spirit of what the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had himself stated that it would not be opposed by the Government. He understood the right hon. Gentleman to say, in a previous part of the discussion of the Bill, that, as far as possible, the prisoners arrested under this measure would be confined in one prison. He also understood that there was to be a monthly Return laid before Parliament, giving a list of all persons for the time being detained in prison under the Act, with a statement opposite each prisoner's name of the prison in which he was detained, and of the ground stated for his arrest in the warrant under which he was detained. He thought, therefore, that the Chief Secretary might go one step further and accept this Amendment, which would be an assurance tending to satisfy the Irish Members that a repetition of Casey's case would not occur, and that it would not again be necessary for the friends and relatives of a prisoner to have to track him all over the country, or, as an alternative, that the unfortunate man should become completely forgotten by the Government and by the few insignificant persons who ever knew anything about him. He asked the right hon. Gentleman to give some assurance that if it was found necessary to remove a prisoner from one prison to another the fact of the removal should appear upon the warrant, so that there would be no difficulty in ascertaining the place of confinement of any particular individual. This would prevent the recurrence of such a terribly distressing case as that of Casey. If an understanding of this kind were come to with the Chief Secretary, it would not be necessary for his hon. Friend the Member for Meath (Mr. Metge) to press the Amendment further.

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

thought that, some time ago, he had satisfied the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) that a provision of this kind was entirely unnecessary. Under the Act, a person who was arrested on suspicion could only be detained in such prison as the Lord Lieutenant might direct. Under the Prisons Act, he could only be removed by an order, and the order must specify not only the prison from which he was removed, but the prison to which he was removed. The present Bill further provided that there should be a monthly list of persons detained under the Act furnished to Parliament, which should state the prison in which each person, for the time being, was detained; so that everything required by the hon. Member was already given, and all these facts would be made known.

MR. METGE

asked what Act the hon. and learned Gentleman referred to?

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

The Prisons Act, 1877.

THE CHAIRMAN

Does the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Metge) ask leave to withdraw the Amendment?

MR. METGE

If the Amendment would effect no change, what objection can there be to its insertion?

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

Be-cause the matter is already settled by law; and I apprehend that this Amendment is quite unnecessary, and it would only lead to confusion to re-enact what is already law.

MR. METGE

To tell the truth, I have very little respect for the law as it stands. ["Order!"] I only wished to explain my reasons for pressing the Amendment.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I may say this—that, in regard to Casey's case, I am very sorry for what is stated to have happened; but I know nothing personally of the facts. Such a thing could not occur to anybody arrested under this measure. My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. W. M. Johnson) is, I am perfectly sure, right in his statement that everything the hon. Member proposes by his Amendment is provided for by the Bill and by the Prisons Act of 1877. If the hon. Member can find out, between now and the Report, that my hon. and learned Friend is wrong, and will mention the matter, I will see that it is put right. It would be utterly opposed to all the practice of Parliament to put into an Act of Parliament a clause re-enacting what is already the law.

MR. METGE

After the undertaking which has been given by the right hon. Gentleman, I will withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. W. J. CORBET

moved, as an Amendment, in page 2, after sub-section (4), to insert the following words as a new sub-section:—"(5) 'Person' means adult male person." The effect of the Amendment was simply to provide that women and young persons— persons under age—should not be imprisoned. Hon. Members on the other side of the House could have very little idea of the deep interest which the ladies and women of Ireland took in political affairs. They were, most of them, Land Leaguers, and, certainly, all of them Home Rulers; and as such they might render themselves liable, as the Bill now stood, to be imprisoned under the Act, which would be most unfortunate for them, as the Bill, in providing for the arrest and imprisonment of persons on suspicion, did not provide for their liberation on bail. The Government, as it were, had thus thrown away the key of the gaol; and a woman once imprisoned would have very little chance of getting out again. Ho, therefore, hoped that Her Majesty's Government would agree to the Amendment.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member proposes to insert this Amendment after sub-section (4). The Committee is now upon sub-section (3), and it will, therefore, come after sub-section (3), and not sub-section (4).

Amendment proposed, In page 2, after sub-section (3), to add, as a new sub-section, the words "(4) 'Person' means adult male person."— (Mr. William Corbet.)

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

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I hope the hon. Member does not suppose that the Government contemplate the arrest of women. I do not think it at all probable that any women will be arrested under this Act; and I do not contemplate that any of the offences specified in the Bill are likely to be committed by them. But it must not be forgotten that when women do take part in an agitation, they form one of the great difficulties the constabulary have to contend with. It is very much to the credit of the constabulary that they feel this difficulty very greatly; and it has often occurred in cases where they have had to protect process-servers, and other cases in which there has been popular excitement, that the women have been put in front, under the impression that the constabulary would not like to fire upon them, or use any kind of violence towards them. There have, undoubtedly, been cases in which women have abused their privileges; and in some intsances the constabulary have been very badly treated, especially in cases where they have been engaged in protecting the serving of processes. I am. only mentioning this as an illustration of the difficulty which the constabulary have to contend with, owing to the active interference of women. We cannot suppose that women should be altogether free from arrest under this measure, if they bring themselves within the scope of it. We cannot, therefore, make an exception; but I should be extremely surprised to hear that it has been found necessary to arrest women.

MR. GRAY

would remind the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland that it was only the other day that a very little boy was arrested for intimidating a magistrate named Dunn by whistling. If the right hon. Gentleman would not assent to the insertion of the words "adult male person," would he assent to the modification which would protect infants from the operation of the Bill? In law an infant was not responsible for an act which adult males or female were responsible for. If he would limit the age to 10 he might convey a solace to hon. Members on that side of the House.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

wished to say one word in explanation. Did any hon. Member suppose for a moment that the Lord Lieutenant would sign a warrant for the arrest of a child 10 years old? Her Majesty's Government could not take the legal word "infant," because it would include young men of 19 or 20, by whom, he believed, many of the offences aimed at were committed.

COLONEL MAKINS

considered the suggestion to exempt infants one of the most childish over made, because a young man of 19 taken with a pistol in his band might, if it were adopted, plead that he was only an infant in arms.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

said, one object of his hon. Friend was to prevent children being taken up. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had asked if any hon. Member believed that the Lord Lieutenant would sign a warrant for the arrest of a child 10 years old, and then he protested that young men of 19 should not be exempted from the operation of the Bill. But he (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) wanted to know what would be done in the case of youths of from 14 to 18 years of age? Evidently there was some ago in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman at which it would be a shame to arrest a child, and one at which it would not. He could not help thinking that there would be laid before the Lord Lieutenant under this Act some very strong cases against women and children. The right hon. Gentleman had said, too—"Let us not omit women, because by this you hold out the temptation to have women put in the forefront of the battle." Why did he not say—"Let us not omit children, because they might then be put in the forefront of the battle?" The right hon. Gentleman was very candid about women. He would not admit them to the franchise, yet he was quite prepared to open the door of the Habeas Corpus Suspension to them. He contended that it was the very absurdity of legislation, when they were bringing in a Coercion Bill, to put women and children under the power of being arrested on suspi- cion of treason against the State. The Austrian Marshal Haynau was once mobbed in the streets of London because he had flogged women; and in the same capital they were about to pass an Act of Parliament under which women and children might be arrested, not on the charge of any crime, but upon suspicion only. Howsoever the Government might defend and palliate the arrest and imprisonment of men, he protested against subjecting women to police suspicion and imprisonment. There was a degradation in this which transcended the degradation suffered by men in similar cases; and he urged the Government to pause, and draw the line against including women in this political measure.

MR. DILLON

remarked, that the Chief Secretary for Ireland had told them that women had showed considerable bravery in facing the police. But the women referred to were taken in the act, red-handed, and therefore a Bill for arresting persons on mere suspicion was not required in their case. If the Chief Secretary did not intend to arrest women under this Act, why did he not accept the Amendment? They intended to press it to a division.

MR. O'SULLIVAN

wondered that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had expressed surprise at the proposed Amendment. But he could assure the Committee that within his own knowledge two boys of 13 and 14 were arrested in 1867, in his own town, under a similar Act, and kept in prison for three and four months. No charge was preferred against them; but they were taken up because their fathers and brothers were suspected, and, therefore, the boys were arrested as well.

MR. LABOUCHERE

said, the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Makins) had remarked that that was a very childish suggestion. It appeared to him (Mr. Labouchere) to be a ladylike Amendment. But, at the same time, he was not inclined to vote for it. Hon. Gentlemen opposite contended very well for the ladies of their country; but he thought the ladies of Ireland would be quite ready to share the dangers of the Act. In politics, what was sauce for the gander ought to be sauce for the goose.

DR. COMMINS

did not know whether the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) was aware that, according to the law of England, women were acquitted of even murder on the ground of coercion by their husbands. That principle had been put before the world by Constitutional writers, and by writers upon the theory of the law, as one of the fruits of the tender-heartedness of the law of England. That, however, seemed to be turned into stony-hearted-ness in dealing with Irish women. There was to be no privilege of coverture in Ireland under this Bill. If that was the humanity of the British law, he was afraid that the Irish people had not learned to appreciate it.

MR. FINIGAN

rose for the purpose of asking an English House of Commons to apply the same principle to women and children in Ireland which, with so much justice, they applied to women and children in England. Special attention, he reminded the Committee, had been given to questions relating to women and children under the Factory Acts, particular regard being had for those under 15 years of age. He thought hon. Members should be ready to extend that chivalrous feeling to Ireland which they demanded for England. The hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) deserved the approval of all Irishmen for his high estimate of the courage of Irish women; but he (Mr. Finigan) had yet to learn that people who called themselves English gentlemen were unchivalrous enough to attempt to do in Ireland what they dare not do in England. In not agreeing to the Amendment, they were acting in a spirit of prejudice, which warped and blinded their better judgment.

MR. DAWSON

(who spoke amid great interruption) said, when the privileges of Members of Parliament were under discussion, he had not thought it necessary to intervene between the Committee and a division. But, as an Irishman, he could not remain silent now, when the safety of the women of Ireland was at stake. When, on most likely unfounded suspicion, the gentlewomen of Ireland were to be dragged from their homes on the word of a spy, he could not, even in the teeth of the interruptions of hon. Members, be prevented from expressing his indignation, not as an Irishman, but as a man, against this disgraceful Act that the men of England were about to impose upon the women whose unsullied virtue was equalled by few and surpassed by none. Their virtue and liberty were at stake. Were they to be dragged from their homes by rude policemen, without the protection of their brothers and sons and husbands who would die for them? He ventured to say that if there were a manly heart and bosom in the House it would associate itself with the spirit of the Amendment. He spoke as a husband himself, and had no doubt he gave expression to the feelings of every husband in Ireland in saying that any man who came to lay hands upon his wife would do so over his dead body. They had never put so fatal a blot upon their character as Englishmen as hon. Members would now do by leaving women open to the procedure of the Bill; but he would tell them that if Irish women were to be taken away from their homes and their husband's protection, and given up to the rude soldier and policeman, they would leave a degrading stain upon themselves which all their efforts in Ireland, past or future, should never efface. MR. HEALY said, this was the first occasion on which the Chief Secretary appeared in the character of a lady-killer. Whatever grudge he might have against hon. Members on that side, surely he could have none against "their sisters, and their cousins, and their aunts." But the feeling displayed on that occasion was quite in keeping with the general character of the action of the Government. The Government assumed that as the men were taken away the Irish women would take their places. The proceedings of the Government, therefore, did not strike Irish Members as being in any way extraordinary. The Committee would bear in mind that although the Government refused to exclude women, under previous Acts they arrested children of tender years for singing ballads in the streets, and the resolution of the right hon. Gentleman to not exclude women and children from the operation of the present Bill was quite in keeping with the conduct of his Predecessors. The Government, remembering, probably, the courage and action of the women of Limerick of old, refused to exclude females from the Bill; and he congratulated them upon the "firm stand" they had made in defence of law and order in Ireland, which was, perhaps, in this case, the highest compliment that could be paid to the ladies of Ireland.

MR. O'DONNELL

should certainly have regretted if Her Majesty's Government had come to another conclusion than they had. It was quite in keeping with their whole policy to take away the protection of the law from women attempting to exercise their rights. He felt sure the women of Ireland would be proud to share the sufferings of their countrymen under the odious tyranny about to be inflicted on Ireland, and was in no way surprised to find a renegade Liberal Party borrowing from the Russian system.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, that the Government were now about to found their reputation on a Bill to arrest women and children upon suspicion. He desired to say that that constituted a real peril of many young women in Ireland, for he did not see how they could purchase the attention of the policeman when they were liable to be imprisoned for so doing.

MR. BIGGAR

did not think the Committee should accept the Amendment, for they all knew that the Bill was brought in entirely and purely for Party objects, and had no reference to alleged outrages or to real political grounds. For that reason, he thought that, seeing that women had no votes and no power to have their opinions represented politically, they should not be brought within the provisions of the Bill. If women committed offences they ought to be punished, if evidence could be given against them; but it was not pretended that women were so very dangerous to the nation that they should be arrested on bare suspicion of offence of which there was no evidence, and he thought the Committee ought certainly not to make it appear that women should be so punished. It was entirely a Party move on the part of the Government; but they could not allege that the political influence of women was so strong that the Government could improve their influence by persecuting the women of Ireland.

MR. LEAMY

observed that, although the Government had not shown themselves very friendly to Irish Members or to Irish liberty, he believed that they would not descend to the meanness of imprisoning women and children on sus- picion. It was perfectly certain that Irish women and Irish girls would not be deterred from taking the part they had for years taken along with Irishmen in any good cause because the Amendment was not assented to. He was convinced that when the story went to Ireland that the so-called Liberal Government had refused to accede to that simple Amendment, having placed the liberties of Irish men at the mercy of the Lord Lieutenant, it was not satisfied without exposing women and girls to the suspision of the informer and the spy. It would do more to strengthen the national aspirations of Irishmen, and to make them long for the time of their independence than anything else could.

MR. PARNELL

(who rose amid loud cries of "Divide!") considered the Amendment very reasonable, and pointed out to hon. Members who were in such a hurry for division that in this respect the Government did not compare very favourably with the last Government, which happened to be a Tory one. He could recollect that in the debates on the Army Discipline Bill, an Amendment providing that female camp-followers should not be shot was agreed to by a Conservative Government, and inserted on the Statute Book without opposition. Why could not the Liberal Government be as good as its Predecessors? Did the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary intend to put women and children in prison under the operation of the Act? During the American War there was a certain General, whom he would not name, who, by his conduct towards the women of New Orleans, gained for himself a very undesirable designation in addition to those which he had received at his baptism. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary did not intend, by his conduct to the women of Ireland under the provisions of that Act, to add any other prefix to his name than he had already gained.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is going altogether outside the Question.

MR. PARNELL

would bow with the greatest pleasure to the Chairman's decision; but he wished to ask the Government whether they really meant to go into the Division Lobby against the Amendment or not? If they did not mean to oppose the Amendment, why should they delay the time of the Committee by refusing their assent? [Mr. W. E. FORSTER assented.] The right hon. Gentleman said he did intend to vote against it. Then he thought it might he necessary to put the Bill in force against the women in Ireland. At least, then, they understood the ground upon which they stood, and they saw that the right hon. Gentleman expected that he might find himself in antagonism with a considerable section of the women of Ireland. It was true that many ladies had banded themselves into an association for the purpose of relieving evicted families, and of giving assistance to the families of prisoners under the operation of the Bill; but he should not have supposed that the Chief Secretary for Ireland would make the work of charity in which these ladies were engaged one of the offences for which persons were to be imprisoned in Ireland; otherwise, he he could not understand, for a moment, how women could possibly fall under the operation of the Act. They knew that the Bill had been practically brought in, to a great extent, under ideas and notions which had no existence. It was said that the Government desired to put down outrage in Ireland, and to put down agrarian offences; but could it be supposed for a moment that there were women in Ireland who would be engaged in agrarian offences? ["Hear, hear!"] Those who cried "Hear, hear!" showed that they were distinguished as much for their prejudice as for their want of argument. He hoped that they did not reason from the common experience of the women of the part of the country from which they came. The Committee knew, as a matter of fact, from the statistics, which had been placed on the Table by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, that no example of an agrarian crime committed by a woman existed. If, then, women had not engaged in agrarian offences, which were the foundation and pretext and excuse for the Bill, why should not women be exempted? If it was not the intention of the right hon. Gentleman to attack them obliquely, and to use the Bill for a purpose for which it was not intended, and for which he had professed and stated it was not intended, why should he hesitate to accept the Amendment? He repeated, that the conduct of the Government was not worthy. They said the Bill was in- tended to put down "dissolute ruffians." Were the women of Ireland "dissolute ruffians?" Perhaps it was useless arguing the matter with a majority who were insensible to reason, and appeared to be so deaf to the feelings of chivalry which, in times past, had been attributed to English gentlemen.

MR. MACDONALD

urged the Government to give effect to the Amendment, observing that the Chief Secretary for Ireland, when he introduced the Bill, said that it was intended for the "dissolute ruffians" and "village tyrants." He did not mention the fact that he also intended to bring women and children within its scope. He (Mr. Macdonald) firmly believed that unless it was intended that women should be part and parcel of those to whom the Bill was intended to apply, there would be no hesitation in fairly and clearly putting it in the Statute that women would be exempted. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had referred to one who was guilty of flogging women, but did not mention his name. He (Mr. Macdonald) had no hesitation in mentioning his name. He knew who it was; it was General Butler. He appealed to the Government to take that safeguard against the possibility of the daughters and sisters of Irishmen being placed at the mercy of spies or wretched policeman. He was no "Woman's rights" man whatever; he had always divided against it when he had the chance; but he would go into the Lobby with hon. Members opposite, to protect women in this matter; and he lamented that chivalry, if there was any in the Liberal Party, had disappeared, and they were ready to put even women under that infamous Act.

MR. DALY

(who rose amid great interruption) expressed himself determined not to be shouted down by hon. Members on the opposite side. It appeared to him that what they were discussing bordered on absurdity, because it was plain to all men of ordinary intelligence that women could have no participation in agrarian offences, save, perhaps, in resisting eviction, when she naturally would resist the police. The police were evidently anxious to bring women to punishment. The Act was introduced because intimidation was abroad, and it was necessary to suppress it; but the notion of women taking part in that offence was an absurdity. An agrarian crime might be firing at the person or into a house, or houghing cattle. But no man supposed that women could be reasonably suspected of participating in any of those things. The Coercion Bill had disenfranchised the whole Liberal Party in Ireland, and it would not leave a sympathetic or loyal man in the country. Imprisonment to a man was nothing but detention for a time, and, perhaps, the loss of health; but to Irishwomen the stigma of having been in prison was indelible. There was not an Irishman from one end of the land to the other who would not more resent that infliction upon their women, simple as it might seem to Englishmen, than if they had kept every Irishman in prison for years. He would like to know why it was that that question appeared of more importance to Irishmen than to Englishmen? The reason was that Irishmen appealed to the hearts and sentiments of their women; but Englishmen appealed to their heads with their boots on.

MR. METGE

said, he did not think that there would have been any debate upon the point at all; for he thought that, although Englishmen had taken away the Constitutional rights of Ireland, at least chivalry would be respected by English Gentlemen. [Laughter.] Hon. Members might laugh and jeer, and join in cowardly cheers, and try to hoot down the sentiments and feelings expressed by the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Daly); but although he (Mr. Metge) did not pretend to be a speaker, he would say what he had to say about the matter. What were they going to war against? Wore they going to war against Irishmen? If so, why not shoot them down like dogs?

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is not speaking to the Amendment.

MR. METGE

asked what the Government were going to war against? Was it against the women and children of Ireland? The people of Ireland well knew what style of warfare they might expect. He had no one connected with him belonging to the Land League; but every attempt to shout down the Land League would find an echo in Ireland, and Irishmen would now know what to expect. Was it necessary to for ever degrade the women of Ireland by placing them in such a position? Reason after reason had been given against the Amendment; but not a single man of the Liberal democratic mass had had the honour and spirit to say one good word for the females of Ireland, except the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Macdonald). He (Mr. Metge) cared little whether the Amendment was passed or not, for he would sooner seethe English Government degraded than not. It was not the first time they had been degraded when they touched questions of that kind.

MR. REDMOND

said, he could scarcely have believed that the Government would have opposed that Amendment. It was a strange commentary on the Government of his country by England that, in order to govern Ireland, they had to enact penal measures against the women. It was stated that the measure was directed exclusively against the perpetrators of outrages. Did the House mean to level such a calumny against the women as to say that they were perpetrators of the outrages? or that they had in the past incited, or would in the future incite, to agrarian outrage? If not, then the refusal to adopt the Amendment was nothing more than a gratuitous insult to the Irish women. There were things that the oppression of centuries could not deprive Ireland of, and amongst those relics of the past, the most precious was the fair name and the fair fame of the women of Ireland; and he protested, with all earnestness, against the miserable attempt on behalf of the Government to level such a black and unfounded calumny against the women of his country. He could not forgot how Englishmen had treated women in other parts of the world. He could not forget the history of Jamaica. ["Order!"]

MR. E. N. FOWLER

rose to Order, and asked whether the question of Jamaica had anything to do with the Question before the Committee?

THE CHAIRMAN

I did not hear what the hon. Gentleman said except the word Jamaica, and I did not know how he was going to apply it. I would, however, caution him to keep to the Amendment before the Committee; for Jamaica is a long distance from Ireland.

MR. REDMOND

bowed to the ruling of the right hon. Gentleman, and would only say that the precedent he was about to refer to was very appropriate. He was about to show that the Government of England had acted even worse to the women of Jamaica than they now proposed to act towards the women of Ireland. The true meaning of that Bill was clear to the world. It was not levelled against the perpetrators of outrage, but against every man and woman who had the courage to stand up and defend those who had interested themselves in the cause of national independence. ["Divide, divide!"] He had no intention of detaining the Committee; but if there wore one thing more than another that would induce him to continue his remarks it would be cries of that kind. It was said of the English Empire that it was one on which the sun never set. Was the Government of that Empire going to send forth to the world the statement that they wore afraid of the women of Ireland, and that, in order to suppress a movement such as then existed in Ireland, it was necessary to alienate the better feelings of the Irish nation, and to enact a measure such as that affecting the liberties of women and children. If he were inclined to drag the English Government through the mire he could not do it more effectually than by voting against the Amendment.

SIR PATRICK O'BRIEN

said, that no doubt the Committee would pardon him for making a few observations then, as he had not before spoken during the Committee stage of the Bill. He was disposed to make those few observations, no matter how unpopular they might make him out of the House. He would say that for many years of his life he had endeavoured, in his humble capacity, to support the Party who were then occupying the Ministerial Benches; but he did now concur with the hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the Committee, that he would blush for any Party in that House who could accept and admit a complete and entire necessity for including women under the terms of the Bill, and who could so far forget the principles of good government. ["Oh, oh!"] Perhaps hon. Gentlemen knew more about the Communists of Paris than they did of Irish women. He did think that it was the duty of any man who had been intrusted with the representation of any body of the Irish people to protest against the wording of the clause remaining so that there was a chance of an outrage being committed under that Act against the women of his country. The number of offenders of the female sex would be so infinitisimal, in all probability, that it was hardly necessary for women to be included in the scope of the Act. If the Amendment were not accepted, that Bill, which had been hitherto regarded with opprobrium, would become the subject of complete detestation in Ireland.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

said, that not a single voice had been raised from the Treasury Bench in favour of that proposal. He looked along that Bench, but he did not see the hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney) there, who had so long fought "The Ladies' Battle" in that House. All that they asked was that women should be exempt from the Bill; and, if necessary, be proceeded against by the ordinary law. When they considered that they had the ordinary law going on with the police force, magistrates, Judges, and gaols, it would be seen that they had all the means ready at hand for punishing any woman for any offence which she might have committed. Women ought not to be subjected to a power such as that of lodging in gaol on suspicion. Under the exceptional power asked for a person could be sent to gaol and given no opportunity of demanding a trial or of proving his innocence. If that deplorable necessity existed as regarded men, they surely ought not to add to the difficulty of the position by inflicting that strange and anomalous punishment on innocent women. He believed that the Government greatly under-rated the importance of that question. They would find themselves much mistaken if they thought that the outcry which had been raised in favour of the Amendment was a simply sentimental one. It was, in fact, a substantial demand, founded in justice on the part of the Irish Members; and, if not agreed to, the consequence would be that a stronger feeling would be roused in Ireland against the Government than had been roused hitherto by the harshest infliction of the harshest measures.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

thought that the right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench scarcely saw the important issues involved. It was their wish that the Bill should not create more animosity in Ireland than it had already done. He thought that the tragic comedians of the Treasury Bench had already sufficiently exasperated the people of Ireland, and for that reason he wished to give a few words of warning. If they did not intend to arrest women under that Bill, why not say so? He challenged the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to answer. Did he, or did he not, intend to arrest women under the Bill?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I began my remarks by saying that we did not expect to have to arrest them.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

was very glad to get so distinct an answer. Now they knew how they stood. The right hon. Gentleman had, he thought, almost exhausted the list of possible blunders. But during his administration he was also going to drag the people through the mire of the Criminal Law.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is now going beyond the Amendment.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

thought he was within the lines of illustration. What were the consequences of arrest under that Act? In the case of a man he would become endeared in the hearts of his countrymen as being another martyr to the English rule. But in the case of a woman it would be a serious loss and damage; she would be injured for life. Did anyone suppose that a woman could come out from prison with the same repute among her neighbours as before? It would mean absolute ruin to her. The right hon. Gentleman was not satisfied with waiting until a woman had committed an overt act, but reserved to himself the right to arrest any woman on suspicion under that ridiculous and criminal Bill which he had brought in. He had heard it argued that if they insisted upon the Amendment it might happen that a larger number would take part in the Land League movement. That number, in his opinion, could not be too large. He appealed once more to the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister to know whether he really had determined that the present Liberal Administration should be associated in the minds of the Irish people with everything that was criminal, cowardly, and infamous.

MR. GLADSTONE

Sir, the Members of Her Majesty's Government have listened with patience and calmness to the speeches which have occupied the last hour and a-half, and which have displayed a great deal of heat of language. I hope, however, that that heat of language will not in the slightest degree mislead the judgment of the Committee, or veil from its Members the real question before them. It may, however, be right, after so many speeches have been made, even at the risk of delaying the decision of the Committee for another minute, to repeat, in the fewest possible words, what the nature of the question before us is. We do not, on this occasion, propose to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act with any difference of form from that which has been pursued on other occasions, and on no former occasion have women been excluded from the operation of a Suspension Act. Were we to judge by what has been said by hon. Members opposite, one would think that we were making a new demand in respect of this matter. The question now before us is, whether this is a reasonable demand on the part of hon. Members opposite. It is our hope and wish that no women may come within the operation of this Bill. ["Oh, oh!"] The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) jeers at that remark—[Mr. BIGGAR: Hear, hear!]— and he is proud of jeering at it. That is another specimen of his state of mind and temper. I hope, however, that the little I have to say will not be affected in any degree by the contagion he would spread. The question before us is whether the present demand involved by this Amendment is a reasonable one. That question must be determined by considering whether there is a possibility that crimes of the kind contemplated by the Bill may be committed by women. [Cries of "Suspicion!"] I repeat, crimes of the kind contemplated by the Bill. Unfortunately, we know that, even in the range of ordinary crime, there are instances from time to time in which women are implicated not only in what is called crime, but in atrocious crime. It may be apprehended— nay, if women are excluded from the operation of this Bill, it may be much more apprehended—that women will be used for the purposes of crime. They may be misled by many motives which may render them, although criminal, much less so than they are in the case of ordinary crime; but they may be misled, and so may become the tools and instruments of others for the furtherance of their guilty purposes. I will not travel into other countries; but re- cent history exhibits very many remarkable examples in highly civilized countries, having many points of affinity with Ireland, in which women, acting under the influence of public excitement, have associated themselves with the most destructive crimes. I trust that this power, which I earnestly hope we may never be called upon to exercise, but which we feel it would be folly and even guilt to part with, may be granted to us.

MR. LALOR

asked if they were to understand from the Prime Minister that the Government of this country felt itself unable to govern Ireland unless it was endowed with the power of imprisoning on suspicion the women and children of that country? Were they to expect that when they came home, and for so long as that law was the law of the land, they would find their wives and children dogged by informers from morning to night under the suspicions of that abominable Act? If that be so, and he, for one, saw his wife and children dogged by spies, he should feel it his duty to teach them a mode of protecting themselves against the insults of any man, no matter who he might be.

MR. CALLAN

said, that when the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister rose to repeat to the Committee the question before it he had hopes that he was about gracefully to accede to the proposal that had been made. He wished to recall to the Committee the grounds stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland for the Bill when he introduced it. He well remembered the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman said—"We know the criminals, and we will strike terror into them." Was it the women that he intended to strike terror into? He must say that he had expected that, when the proposal came forward, many of the serried ranks opposite would have risen one after another to defend the rights of the women. He looked along the Treasury Bench for the Under Secretary of State for the Homo Department (Mr. Courtney). He had remained silent upon that matter. He looked for his successor below the Gangway, the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood); he had also remained silent. Prom the Conservative ranks a respectful hearing had been accorded to them; but that was not so with the red-hot Radicals, who remained true to the instincts of their great champion, Oliver Cromwell. He was surprised that no voice had been raised from among those hon. Members in favour of the exclusion of women from the operation of the Act.

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA

thought that no true Irish Representative would allow that clause to pass without protesting against its remaining in its present form. He believed, however, that the law which would empower the Government to lock up women on suspicion would not be acted upon. ["Oh, oh!"] He must beg to be allowed to express his opinion. He thought, notwithstanding that admission, that power would be held over the people in terrorem, and that unfortunate men would be kept in prison, not knowing whether vengeance would not be wreaked upon their families. Who would be accountable for the administration of law in the different localities? Were those representatives of authority men who were infallible and above reproach? If not, such men would be able to exercise terror over the families of a whole district. It was absurd to suppose that women would become mixed up to any great extent in agrarian outrage. On the other hand, they would act as a check upon those who might otherwise be engaged in those outrages. If women were included under the Act it would make the Act more odious than it already was. The question was, was it any good for the Government to insist on this and incur the odium of wishing for the power to imprison women on suspicion? He maintained that it was not. There was not one of them who was a more steadfast supporter of the Party opposite than the hon. Baronet the Member for King's County, yet that hon. Member (Sir Patrick O'Brien) had not hesitated to risk his popularity with the Liberal Party by supporting the Amendment. The hon. Baronet was too honest a man, and too patriotic, whilst a friend of the Government, not to warn them that the Bill would be one of the most odious measures ever passed for Ireland if, after the notice the Government had received from the Irish Members, it were carried in. its present shape. It was all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say that no such exemption as that proposed had been embodied in any previous Act. He could not verify this from his own knowledge; but, if it were so, it was probably because exception was not taken; for it must be remembered that such a state of opinion had never before existed in Ireland. The country was now alive and wide awake. When other Acts were passed there were not so many penny papers going all over the country every morning as there were now. He had sympathy with some of the objects of the Government; therefore, it was only with the desire that the feeling against the Government in Ireland should not be intensified that he urged them not to pass the Bill without this Amendment. His motive was altogether apart from any special sympathy with any class of disturbers. ["Divide, divide!"] Seeing the temper of the Committee, he did not expect that the Amendment would be carried; but he trusted the Government would consider it, and listen to the words of the hon. Member for King's County, who, although returned for an Irish constituency, was one of their most steadfast supporters.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 49; Noes 230: Majority 181.—(Div. List, No. 59.)

MR. DAWSON

rose to move an Amendment, of which he had given Notice, when—

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member's Amendment is for the purpose of exempting clergymen from the operation of this Bill; but as the Committee has decided not to limit the definition of the word "person," and as I have to decide that a clergyman is a person, the Amendment cannot be put.

MR. DAWSON

When I gave you the Amendment, Sir, I asked you most distinctly -whether it could be put, and you said it could.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member gave me the Amendment, and asked whether it could be put at the end of sub-section 3. I said an Amendment could be put in that place; but I had not considered the effect of the proposal when I indicated its proper place in the Bill. It is impossible for the Chairman, when numerous manuscript Amendments are handed in, at once to see their bearing on other portions of the Bill.

MR. DAWSON

I read the Amendment over to you.

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

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I hope the Committee will not consent to this Motion. We have nearly reached the end of the 2nd clause.

MR. PARNELL

hoped the Government would see the reasonableness of the proposal to report Progress. There was every reason to believe that they would be able to get through the rest of the Amendments on Monday, so that there wa3 really nothing to be gained by going on at that late hour. By now reporting Progress, hon. Members would have an opportunity of fairly putting their Amendments before the Committee.

MR. GRAY

said, as there was only one Amendment remaining in the clause, was he to understand from the Chief Secretary for Ireland that directly that Amendment was disposed of, Progress would be reported?

MR. E. N. FOWLER

hoped the Government would go on and get through the Bill in Committee that night. The Report should be taken on Monday.

MR. HEALY

said, that considering the way in which Irish Members had been listened to up to this—bearing in mind the interruptions to which they had been subjected at 8 o'clock, at 9 o'clock, at 10 o'clock—

THE CHAIRMAN

The Question is simply one of Progress.

MR. HEALY

thought he would be able to show the relevancy of his observations. If, at these hours, they had been unable to get the attention of the Committee, how much less were they likely to obtain it at half-past 1 in the morning? [Cries of "Divide, divide!"]

THE CHAIRMAN

Am I to understand that the hon. Member has con-eluded his observations?

MR. HEALY

said, he was waiting until he could got the attention of the Committee. If hon. Members persisted in interrupting him, that was another reason why they should insist on Progress being reported. He would ask his hon. Friends to go to a division, and if defeated, to go to another, then to another, and to keep on dividing.

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA

wished to know whether it was understood that Progress would be reported after the passing of the 2nd clause. If it were understood, he would ask his hon. Friend (Mr. Leamy) to withdraw his Motion for reporting Progress.

MR. CALLAN

would make an appeal to the Leader of the House (the Marquess of Hartington), who had just come in in a calmer mood than his Colleagues. Surely the Motion was a reasonable one at half-past 1 o'clock. If it were acceded to, he believed they would meet on Monday, at 4 o'clock, in a mood calculated to facilitate Business. In the present temper of the House it would only result in endless divisions if the Government insisted upon opposing the Motion.

MR. LEAMY

I would ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. LEAMY

said, he rose to move an-Amendment to the effect that no arrests should take place under the Bill between the hours of sunset and sunrise. [Laughter."] Hon. Members opposite evidently saw something ludicrous in the Amendment; but he trusted they would give him some attention, seeing that, to suit the convenience of the Committee, he had withdrawn his proposal for reporting Progress. He hoped the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be able to see his way to accepting the Amendment, the object of which was to prevent people from being taken out of their beds and arrested at night. The right hon. Gentleman had said that he knew the persons he intended to arrest, so that there would be no difficulty in carrying out the Act, if the Amendment were inserted.

Amendment proposed, At the end of the Clause, to add the words "No person shall be arrested under this Act between the hours of sunset and sunrise."— (Mr. Leamy.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there added.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

In considering this Amendment the Committee really must bear in mind the object of the Bill. Its object—its justification— is the prevention of offences which render life in parts of Ireland almost intolerable. It is believed by the Government, and a largo majority of the House, to be essential, in order to prevent these outrages, that power should be taken to arrest certain persons who may be reasonably suspected of committing them, or inciting to their commission. If the hon. Member's Amendment is accepted, in all probability it would be exceedingly difficult to catch hold of these persons; in fact, the Amendment seems to me to answer itself. It would be impossible for us to urge the acceptance of such a Bill as this, and then stultify ourselves by accepting an Amendment that would prevent us from putting its powers into operation.

MR. GRAY

asked the Committee to look at the position in which the Government had put them through the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. From that statement, coupled with his refusal to accept the previous Amendment, it was evident he meant to obtain power to drag women from their beds at night. [Laughter.] That seemed to commend itself to the Committee as a very admirable thing to do. If the right hon. Gentleman wished the arbitrary powers of the Bill to enable him to punish persons discovered in the commission of crime at night, he could quite understand his refusing the Amendment, because a great deal of the crime the Government wished to suppress was committed at night. But the Chief Secretary had not expressed himself anxious to catch persons red-handed. He had said—"Those criminals are known to the police," and he had asserted again and again that nothing would please him better than for them to run away. Well, if those people wore known to the police, as they were going about their business day and night, they could be arrested in the morning, the afternoon, or evening. The right hon. Gentleman said he was going to arrest for crimes already committed, and that was what he called prevention. He (Mr. Gray) was not going to discuss this question now; but surely there could be no necessity to drag people from their beds at night, invading domestic privacy; and surely the Committee would not allow that to be done, unless some better reason than had been advanced were given for it. Most of the persons who would be affected by the Bill were very poor; an entire family might live in one room, and, if the Bill passed in its present shape, the police would have power to go into that single room, in which father and mother, sister and brother were sleeping, and drag away the person they wanted. If the right hon. Gentleman could show that there were no reasonable means of apprehending these criminals, except under such a power as that now sought, the Committee would be justified in giving him the power. But he had not attempted to show anything of the kind. Did the right hon. Gentleman imagine that the persons he wished to arrest would hide in the mountains during the day time, and only come home at night if the Amendment were adopted? It was idle to suppose such a thing now-a-days. A hundred years ago it might have been done; but now there wore no hiding places; and he held it to be the duty of Irish Members to protect the domestic privacy of the poorer classes of Irishmen, which were just as dear to those persons as to the better classes of Englishmen, and probably more so. He would not enter into details; but it was a fact that Irishmen respected domestic privacy a great deal more than Englishmen did. Let each Member of the Committee consider the case as though it were his own. They might, perhaps, strike greater terror into the people if they gave the police power to go in the middle of the night and suddenly arrest a person in his house; but would they really gain anything by that—by intensifying the bitter feeling with which Government and Parliament would be regarded? It was not very much use discussing questions at this hour of the morning; but he would put it to the Government whether a slight concession of this kind would injure the Bill? It would certainly save them from some of the horrors which had been perpetrated in Ireland in former years under Acts of this sort.

MR. DILLON

said he would only say, in addition to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Carlow, that, as was well known all over Ireland, it was the custom of the police to arrest a man in the middle of the night. There was not the slightest reason for it; but it was done under the pretence of anticipated attempt at rescue. Only within the last month midnight arrests had taken place. Bitter complaints had reached the Irish Members that on the most trivial charges men had been arrested at night and taken before the magistrates. No doubt this mode of arrest greatly aggravated its dignity and suf- fering—the dragging of a person out of his bed, perhaps in the middle of an inclement night, to a police barrack. He believed that most of the arrests would be made under cover of night, and that they would be so made by the direction of the magistrates for the purpose of inflicting additional indignity and suffering on the men arrested. The only plea put forward by the Government against this Amendment, which was a perfectly serious one—and he was considering the case not of women, but of men whom he supposed would be mostly dealt with under the Bill—was that it might not be possible to catch the men in the day time. There was not a shadow of foundation for such a fear. As the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) had said, it was well known to every man in Ireland that there were no places now where men could fly to and remain in hiding during the day. There were plenty of police in the country—more than enough—to enforce the provisions of the Act, even if amended as proposed; and any man who desired to fly away would hide both night and day, and even then would be run down before he had been long in hiding by the trackers of the Government and the police. It was well known that the police highly valued the power of breaking into houses at night and dragging men out of their beds; and he, for one, protested against the indignity, and trusted his hon. Friend would go to a division on the Amendment.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

rose to offer, in connection with this Amendment, a suggestion which he thought would probably be accepted by both the Government and hon. Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House. The Amendment proposed that no arrests should take place between sunset and sunrise, and the modification he would suggest would be that men should not be arrested in their houses within those hours. The Government might fairly argue that persons who were engaged in the commission of crime were likely to be discovered in its commission during the night. There was some show of reason in that argument; but when these persons were at home they could not be engaged in the commission of the crimes suspected; and if this argument was found good in the case of a man, it was still better in the case of a woman. [Laughter.] He felt some difficulty in dealing with this subject at all, met, as they continually were in referring to it, by the delicate and virtuous laughter of hon. Gentlemen opposite. Nothing touching the virtue of women could be said by the Irish Members without eliciting the loud guffaw of gay Gentlemen opposite. This question was one that the Irish Members felt intensely, and they were determined to show their feeling by defending the rights of their countrywomen, as well as their countrymen, on the floor of this House. Was it an unreasonable thing to say—"We do not exempt men out-of-doors during these hours; but we say that those who are in their own houses amongst their own families cannot be engaged in the commission of the crime of outrage, and they ought to be exempted."

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

asked whether he was to understand that the Government objected to this proposed Amendment, simply that they might be free to arrest men, women, and children, and drag them out of their houses at night? The proposed alteration in the Amendment would not interfere with the arrest of persons engaged in the commission of outrage; but simply narrowed the question down to this— whether power should be given to the police to drag men, women, and children, out of their beds on suspicion. There was some reason in the objection—"Why should you tie our hands against the arrest of a marauder abroad in the dark for the purpose of committing crime?" In the face, however, of the reasonable suggestion just thrown out for the modification of the Amendment, no Member of the Government had risen. He felt it very hard to avoid speaking words which, he was sure, the Committee would not like to hear, because the Government had put it to them as nakedly as this—that the power they desired was that of breaking into a peasant's home and dragging a family out of their beds. ["Oh, oh!"and laughter.] There were many Members of the Committee whose indulgence and patience was praiseworthy; but the levity of others was disgraceful. When the subject of dragging women from their beds had been referred to, there had been a spirit exhibited by some hon. Members opposed to all delicacy. Some hon. Gentlemen might indulge in double entendre; but the Irish Members did not wish to share their laughter with them, which befitted another place in this City, and not the House of Commons. The Irish Members would defend the invasion of the privacy of their homes, and the insult sought to be put on the women of their country, and would not be deterred by the scoffing laughter of hon. Members, who could speak and think of women as they treated them. Would the Government accept the Amendment as it was now sought to frame it, or were they determined to drive the Irish Members into the belief that they wanted to break into the homes of the people and drag them out of bed. Those things had happened in Ireland, and not a century ago; they had happened within the past 12 years. He would tell the Government this—that if they wished to light the fire of civil war in Ireland, and if the Chief Secretary wished to aid and abet the Fenian conspiracy, they and he could not possibly take a course more calculated to inflame the breast of every Irishman worthy of the name of a man than that they were now adopting. When the news of this discussion reached Ireland, and it was told there that mocking laughter and jeering sneers— with what intent in the minds of those who scoffed he would not say—greeted the idea of women being dragged out of bed and put in prison—[A laugh.] He could take the measure of that laugh. They know the habits of the hon. Member who laughed.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. and learned Member for Meath is making personal remarks which are improper, and out of Order.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

resumed, amid cries of "Withdraw!" He withdrew nothing. He contended that it was perfectly Parliamentary—and until he was ruled out of Order, he would maintain it —to say that hon. Members on that side of the House knew the habits of hon. Gentlemen on the other side. Their own pure minds ought to suggest to hon. Members opposite a pure explanation. ["Question!"] He believed that he was speaking to the Question when he referred to the effect of the refusal of this Amendment in Ireland. If he knew anything of the people of Ireland, there could be nothing more mischievous, nothing more provocative of bad feel- ing, nothing more calculated to drive them into secret conspiracies than the want of a delicacy of common feeling in dealing with the homes of the people after they had retired to rest at night. He wanted to know if any Member of Her Majesty's Government who had not spoken on this subject would get up and address the Committee upon it. He wanted the Government to note how many Irish Members would follow them into the Lobby in this division. And why? Because he wished them to ask themselves whether they should legislate in a matter like this without the slightest regard to the voice of the Irish Members. Could the Committee imagine that they were travelling in the right road, when they could not induce half-a-dozen Irish Members to follow the Government into the Lobby? Was it not apparent that they were committing an error in the policy and principle upon which they were acting, when it was found that out of 103 Irish Members they could not got six to go into the Lobby with them? It was manifest that they were about to perpetrate an outrage upon the Irish people which even some of their own followers on the other side of the House condemned. He adhered to his own view, notwithstanding a temporary misconception on the part of some hon. Members. ["Question!"] This was one of the considerations—

MR. R. N. FOWLER

I rise to Order. I wish to ask you, Sir, if the hon. and learned Member is not repeating himself, and if he is not tiring the patience of the Committee? The questions he is calling attention to are altogether irrelevant, and they have been continually repeated by him.

THE CHAIRMAN

Certainly, the hon. and learned Member for Meath has repeated the same argument several times, and he must be aware that he is discussing the Question at great and unnecessary length.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

said, he had heard a speech delivered that night from the Treasury Bench which occupied 25 minutes. He promised that he would not occupy anything like that time. What he contended was, that the Government, in rejecting this Amendment, ought to have pointed out to them the evils and dangers before them in Ireland. The proof of this could easily be tested when they found that out of the entire number of Irish Representatives not half-a-dozen would follow them into the Lobby.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. and learned Member has repeated that argument for the fourth time.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

said, he would at once desist from repeating it, or in pressing it further in any shape upon the Government; and he would only address the Irish Members who were about to vote against the Government. He adjured them, by going into the Lobby and supporting this Amendment, to do their duty towards the people who sent them there, and to protect the interests, the honour, and, if necessary, the lives of their constituents.

MR. HEALY

remarked that they had heard from the Government that this was a Bill intended only to protect life and property, and not to punish suspected offenders with vindictiveness. What was the necessity, then, if they only wanted to arrest these persons, that they should select the dead hour of the night for executing the warrant. There were plenty of opportunities for effecting these arrests. The persons to be arrested were known to the police, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland boasted that he knew them himself. He would therefore ask the right hon. Gentleman, if he had those delicate and humane feelings, with which he had been so often credited, to accept the Amendment, and do something towards smoothing the path of the Bill.

Question put.

The Committee divided: —Ayes 35; Noes 172: Majority 137.—(Div. List, No. 60.)

Motion made, and Question put, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided: —Ayes 172; Noes 34: Majority 138.—(Div. List, No. 61.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again,"—[Mr. W. E. Forster.)

Motion agreed to.

Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.