HC Deb 02 May 1881 vol 260 cc1553-5
COLONEL WALROND (for Mr. LONG)

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If his attention has been called to the following observations made by Mr. Dillon at the Land League meeting on Tuesday last:— He (Mr. Dillon) would mention a case which occurred in his own county, Tipperary, the other day, but which has not appeared in the newspapers. It was a case in which forty police were brought to assist in putting a man out. They found the front door barricaded. The priest stood by and said he would not interfere, but thought it right to inform the police that the first blow they struck the door would result in five or six of them being shot by the men who were inside with loaded rifles. The police held a consultation, and then decided to return to Thurles; and, further, he (Mr. Dillon) said that— If thus sought on any large scale to carry out evictions, the people were prepared to offer resistance, and would do so; and he certainly should say that the next time a man was shot in Ireland for refusing to leave his house, possibly the verdict would be, if he was not very much mistaken, one of wilful murder, not against the policeman who may have shot him, but against Gladstone and Forster, under whose orders the police fired; and, whether he intends taking any steps thereon?

MR. SEXTON

, before the Chief Secretary answered the last Question, wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman, Whether he had read a full report of the speech of the hon. Member for Tipperary, and whether it did not appear from it that he stated that over 5,000, and probably even as many as 10,000, families were under process of eviction in Ireland, and that the Government would get one more chance of saying whether they intended to put a stop to this state of things; whether the hon. Member for Tipperary was not entitled to give the public warning of the desperate spirit excited amongst the Irish people by the unjust and cruel proceedings of numbers of Irish landlords who were turning helpless tenants out of their homes for non-payment of rent, after a period of severe distress, and were deliberately excluding them from the benefits of any rights sought to be vested in them by impending legislation; and, whether, in view of the tremendous peril involved in these proceedings, the hon. Member was not justified in the course he had adopted?

MR. T. O'CONNOR

asked, whether the attention of the Chief Secretary had been called to a New York telegram in The Daily News of that day, according to which the emigration in the first three months of this year had amounted to 105,000 persons, being nearly 25,000 more than in the same period last year?

MR. PARNELL

also wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman what was the object of the Government in suspending the Constitution in the City of Dublin?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

With regard to the second and third Questions, I must request that Notice be given of them. As to the Question of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), I have to say that the Government have proclaimed the County of the City of Dublin under the Protection of Person and Property Act because we thought it necessary to do so. In reply to the Question of the hon. Member for North Wilts (Mr. Long), I have only to say that the attention of the Government has been closely directed to the speech made by the hon. Member for Tipperary, and it was under the close attention of the Government before the Question of the hon. Member was placed on the Notice Paper. That is all the answer I can give.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

gave Notice that, on Thursday, he would ask the Chief Secretary, Whether the cause alleged for the suspension of the Constitution in the City of Dublin, which contains 250,000 inhabitants, was not the proceedings at the Sheriff's sale at the farm of Mr. John Butterly, at Howth; and whether at that sale all the animals put up for sale, with the exception of some pigs, were not disposed of; whether the sales did not realize the sum of £62, the full amount claimed by the landlord; whether the members of the Emergency Committee present were not all armed; and whether, when one of the number was accused of having displayed a revolver, Sub-Inspector Heard refused to remove him, on the ground that he could not interfere with him unless the revolver was presented at someone; whether any of the members of the Land League were armed; whether when the cow bought by the Emergency Committee reached its destination the crowd quietly dispersed; whether the whole transaction was not considered of so ridiculous a character as only to excite a smile; and whether a single assault was committed on the police or any other person engaged in the sale, either at the sale itself or during the procession of many hours' duration from Howth to Dublin?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I think I had better say at once that I could not answer that Question. I do not consider that it would be my duty to give the reason for which particular districts are prescribed.