MR. FOTTRELL, LATE SECRETARY TO THE LAND COMMISSION.

HC Deb 16 February 1882 vol 266 cc790-4

MR. GRAY

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland a Question of which he had given him private Notice—namely, Whether, in view of the statement he made to the House on the 10th instant with regard to Mr. George Fottrell, late Solicitor to the Land Commission—namely— I asked him if he had acted for the Land League, and he replied that he had been engaged in one transaction. If I had been informed that that transaction was the purchase by Messrs. Parnell and Egan and the Member for Longford of United Ireland, I should have made further inquiry before consenting to the appointment— he would, having regard to the gravity of that statement, read to the House Mr. Fottrell's letter of the 14th instant, addressed to himself?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

Sir, I am glad the hon. Member has asked the Question, as I intended to ask the House to let me correct a mistake into which I fell with regard to this matter. It was quite true that I stated substantially what is set forth in the hon. Member's Question; but the impression I intended to convey to the House was that the transaction in question was the purchase of the paper which afterwards became United Ireland. It appears that I was mistaken in the statement that the conversation to which I referred in my answer took place between myself and Mr. Fottrell. I will read to the House the letter to which the hon. Gentleman refers—

"8, North Great George's Street,

"Dublin, 14th February, 1882.

"Sir,—I beg to acknowledge receipt of a letter from your Secretary, dated 13th instant, in which he informs me that you admit the substantial accuracy of the report given in The Freeman's Journal of the 11th instant of a statement which you made on the preceding night in the House of Commons in reference to me. He further informs me that the question which you stated you put to me, and my reply to it, took place in a conversation between us before my appointment as Solicitor to the Land Commission. I desire to give a respectful but emphatic denial to your statement that any such conversation took place between us. I had no correspondence with you on the subject of my appointment, beyond my formal letter of application, dated 11th August, 1881, of which I now send you a copy. On the day following the date of the letter, I called at the Irish Office to see you; but you had gone over to the House of Commons, and I did not see you. Up to the date of my appointment I had. but two conversations with you, the first of which took place in May, 1881, when I called on you at the Irish Office, to obtain permission, as his friend and solicitor, to visit Mr. John Dillon, M.P., for a couple of hours each week during his confinement in Kilmainham, and the second of which occurred on the 23rd August, 1881, when, at your request, conveyed through Judge O'Hagan, I waited on you in Dublin Castle to learn that the Commissioners had appointed me their Solicitor, and that you had sanctioned the appointment. Neither on that nor any other occasion, before or after my appointment, did you ask me was I connected with the Land League; nor did I ever state to you that I 'had been employed in one transaction' by that body.

"If the matter rested here, I should not have felt called upon to notice your statement, because the accuracy or inaccuracy would have been comparatively unimportant; but, unfortunately, by the closing words of your remarks in the House of Commons, you have conveyed to the public—unintentionally, it may be—an insinuation that my alleged reply was not quite candid—in fact, in replying I told you the truth, but not the whole truth—that I kept back from you the nature of the transactions in which I had been engaged, and that, if I had not done so, your attitude in reference to my application would have been different. Permit me to say the insinuation, if such were intended, is wholly groundless. Although I neither had conversation nor correspondence with you on the subject of the business transaction in which my firm had been professionally engaged for Mr. Parnell and some of his friends, yet, on applying for the Solicitorship of the Land Commission, I took care to mention to Mr. Justice O'Hagan, and to Mr. John Naish, the Law Adviser of Dublin Castle, the fact that I had been engaged, and, moreover, the exact nature of the business in which I had acted. I mentioned it to Mr. Justice O'Hagan, as the Chief of the Commission, in whose hands the appointment was vested, and I mentioned it to Mr. Naish, as being your Law Adviser, and, as such, the person most likely to be consulted by you in reference to my professional character and position. As the statement by which you conveyed to the public a wrong impression of my action was made in the House of Commons, I feel I am entitled to ask you, as a matter of justice, to give the same publicity to my contradiction by reading it in your place in Parliament.—I have the honour to be your obedient servant,

"GEORGE FOTTRELL, JUN."

I may further state that I have been informed by Mr. Naish that he did tell me Mr. Fottrell had been engaged in a commercial transaction on behalf of the Land League. He says he does not remember that Mr. Fottrell told him what the nature of the transaction was, but that if Mr. Fottrell asserted that he did, he quite believed him.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

Would the right hon. Gentleman have any objection to add this document to the existing Correspondence on the subject, because, as I gather from that letter, Mr. Justice O'Hagan was aware of the matter before the appointment was made?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

That being the case, I think I must read part of a letter which I received from Mr. Justice O'Hagan on the 11th instant.

MR. CALLAN

Read the whole of it.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I am not obliged to read every word that occurs in the letter. Mr. Justice O'Hagan says— As to Mr. Fottrell's relations with the Land League as solicitor before his appointment, I was not aware of his having had any such relations until the appearance of Mr. Pigott's letter to Mr. Egan long subsequent to Mr. Fottrell's appointment. I then spoke to Mr. Fottrell on the subject, and he told me that be had acted for Mr. Parnell in the matter of the purchase of Mr. pigott's newspaper, and on no other occasion. I did not attach much importance to the fact of his having acted on this single occasion, as I conceive that any so- licitor might have done the same; and I have known solicitors of the utmost respectability and most moderate opinions who would not have thought of declining such a piece of business if offered to them.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

I must again ask if the right hon. Gentleman will add these to the Correspondence already published, because, as I understand it, Mr. Justice O'Hagan says one thing and Mr. Fottrell says another—

MR. W. E. FORSTER

There certainly seems to be some difference of opinion between them.

MR. CALLAN

I move that, in consequence of the difference of opinion which exists between Judge O'Hagan and Mr. Fottrell, the Correspondence be laid on the Table.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I am prepared to produce it if it is moved for.

MR. CALLAN

Then I beg to give Notice that to-morrow I will move for its production.

MR. GRAY

I am sorry to trouble the right hon. Gentleman with another Question, of which I have given him private Notice. It is, whether his attention has been called to a public letter of Mr. George Fottrell, dated 14th instant, in which he says, with reference to the fact that he was questioned by the members of the Land Commission as to the authorship of the articles published in The Freeman's Journal, and subsequently re-published in the now celebrated pamphlet— I assert that in asking me to divulge the name of the author of the articles which appeared in The Freeman you acted on the instructions of Mr. Forster. I am fully satisfied that of yourselves you never would have stooped to put such a question; and if confirmation of my view was needed, I had it in the pain which was depicted in your faces when you stated to me that you had no option but to put the question. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether that is a true statement so far as he was concerned; and, if so, whether the instructions were conveyed to the Land Commission verbally or in writing; and, if in writing, whether he will lay the whole Correspondence on the Table?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I do not think it is necessary to produce the whole Correspondence. What was done with regard to this particular matter was this. At the end of a private letter which I wrote to Judge O'Hagan I added these words— It is supposed by some persons that Mr. Fottrell wrote the pamphlet. Had you not better ask him whether this was not the case?