§ MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it was true that inconsiderate 1984 delay was being used in bringing on the trial at the Cork Assizes of the 80 or 90 persons charged at the instance of Connell, the original "Captain Moonlight," and now an informer, with various offences near Millstreet, in the county of Cork? He (Mr. Healy) had received a letter from the solicitor for the defence alleging that the police were arresting the principal witnesses for the defence under the Protection of Person and Property (Ireland) Act, because they could disprove the charges against the prisoners sustained by the evidence of the Government assassin, Connell.
§ MR. TREVELYANI am sorry that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland is not here, for this is the first I have heard of the matter; but, as the earlier part of the Question appears to be pressing, if the hon. Member will give me a copy of his information I will make inquiries.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that he had several times communicated with the Attorney General for Ireland on this point. The lives and liberties of nearly 100 of his countrymen were at stake. ["Order!"] If necessary he would conclude with a Motion. Men had been arrested over six months ago on the evidence of a man named Connell, a deserter from the Army, himself an assassin, as there were witnesses to prove him the murderer of Daniel Leary, the son of the President of the local branch of the Land League. Since then the men had been brought up at the Assizes, entailing an attendance of over 300 or 400 witnesses. The solicitor for the defence had informed him that of these the principal were being arrested day by day, and lodged in gaol one after another. This was the third example of such a proceeding. The first was the police assassination at Bodyke, and the second that at Ballyragget. What was the nature of the evidence? The Crown knew that Connell was himself an assassin, and, no doubt, the reason for the postponement of the trial was lest Connell might be condemned for Leary's murder in the county of Cork before alluded to. By such procedure the Government were allying themselves with traitors and informers, and they could not so retain the respect of mankind. This was the way the new Act-was to be worked. This was the un-fairest playing with loaded dice. This 1985 was how law and order were to be obtained in Ireland. Law and order! The people despised such law; and as for order, it was such order as was procured in Sardinia, or perhaps under the First Napoleon. The Government were only humbugging.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member is using language which is not Parliamentary.
§ MR. SPEAKERI have told the hon. Member that he is using language which is not Parliamentary.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he withdrew the expression. He did not use it in reference to the Attorney General for Ireland—he should be sorry to accuse the right hon. and learned Gentleman of any such conduct—but to the local Crown prosecutors, who were trained jury-packers. Why were not these men put upon their trial at once? Why were the witnesses in their favour got at and doctored by the police, sent home, or put into gaol, so that the accused might be unable to bring forward witnesses in their defence? What the Government were now doing in Cork was producing a rankling sore. Unless the Attorney General for Ireland sent peremptory orders at once to put these men on their trial the greatest injustice would be done. If the police knew that those they were now arresting were criminals, why did they not take them up months ago? Were not the 30 or 40 men that were in gaol enough to glut the vengeance of the Government? He moved the adjournment of the House.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Healy.)
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, he had to apologize to the House and the hon. Member for not having been in his place when this subject was brought forward. Not having expected any Question of the kind, he had left the House for a few minutes on private business. He could not quite understand the excitement of the hon. Member in this matter. As Attorney General for Ireland he was the director of prosecutions in Ireland, and he had directed the prosecution of these men at these Assizes; they would be prosecuted, and, for aught 1986 he knew, they might at that moment be on their trial. But he had no power, and would not undertake to interfere with the arrangement of the business of the Assizes, which must depend upon circumstances over which he had no control. If the circumstances of the case were such as to require specific directions from him, communication would be made to him, and directions given according to the exigencies of the occasion. He would ask the House, however, whether it was reasonable or proper, or even consistent with the administration of justice, that while a case was pending every officer connected with the administration of the law in Cork, and with the prosecution of this case, should be stigmatized and held up, as far as the hon. Member could do it, to public odium as corrupt?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, that was hardly so, since the hon. Member had himself stated in the House that he was saved by an accident from going before what he called a jury prepared to try him. As to the charge against the Crown Solicitor for Cork that he was a "trained jury packer," that was incredible. He had known him for most of his life, and he had not the least hesitation in vouching for his (the Crown Solicitor's) character to the House. For personal honour, private worth, and public capacity, there were but few men his equal, and no one whom he (the Attorney General for Ireland) knew to be his superior. Nor were the Crown Counsel at all open to impeachment. They were his personal friends; he had been often engaged with and against them in civil cases, and after an experience of nearly 30 years he could vouch for their honour as for his own. The hon. Member had referred to the informer Connell with every kind of abusive term that could be applied to him. He was not going to vindicate Connell; it was no business of his. On the contrary, he had directed his prosecution, and declined to do anything else. The man pleaded guilty to a barbarous outrage, in which he was accompanied by others. He recollected a time when an Irishman's blood would boil at the thought of such an outrage. These persons broke into a farmhouse, where a woman and her 1987 daughters were dragged out of bed, and one of the daughters was barbarously treated: to subject her to humiliation they tried to cut her hair off, while her mother and sister were trying to save her. He put it to the House whether, while this prosecution was pending, it was proper or decent to reflect in any way upon one of the witnesses? The value of his testimony would be estimated by the jury, and he deprecated any further discussion of the subject. It should be remembered that the reports of what was said in that House were not confined to the London Press. They were given at great length in the local papers, and probably all that was said on the subject that evening would be read to-morrow morning in Cork.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, he could not direct them to be tried at that time: it was then just possible that a more complete case might be made for the prosecution by further evidence being obtained. It should be recollected that in these cases the Crown had all the odds against it; and he, as Attorney General for Ireland, would have betrayed his duty if he put men upon trial on insufficient evidence, which he believed could be afterwards supplemented. He deprecated further discussion on the subject, and hoped the hon. Member would withdraw his Motion.
§ MR. NEWDEGATEremarked, that the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) seemed to have watched until the Attorney General for Ireland had left the House before he made this gross attack upon the judicial arrangements in Ireland. The hon. Member said that he had given the Attorney General for Ireland private Notice of his intention; but these private Notices mattered nothing to the House. The House had a right to expect that Notice should be given to itself, and within its walls, otherwise the House had a right to consider that an attempt had been made to take it by surprise, and to render the House an arena for libellous imputations upon which, under the present lamentably deficient order of proceeding, the House had no opportunity whatever of expressing an opinion. The practice of putting a Question, and then moving 1988 the adjournment of the House, before, as in this case, the Question could be answered, was altogether an abuse. No vote or division could be taken; no expression of the opinion of the House could be given upon topics thus started. There had been no more marked instance of the absurd position in which the House was placed by those practices than the present. He (Mr. Newdegate) begged emphatically to call the attention of the First Lord of the Treasury to this occurrence. Since the right hon. Gentleman had undertaken to reform the Procedure of the House, it was to be hoped that he would not overlook the present illustration of the absolute necessity for effective action.
§ MR. O'DONNELLurged that the gist of the Question of the hon. Member for Wexford had not been answered—namely, the charge that while the Government wore delaying the trial, the principal witnesses for the defence were being picked up and lodged in gaol.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, he had forgotten to answer it. So far from the charge being true, he had given express directions that sufficient notice of trial should be given them, and that the attendance of all the witnesses necessary for the defence should be provided for.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)I know nothing about that.
§ MR. O'DONNELLgathered that the Attorney General for Ireland was only an agent in the matter, which was most serious, as the people believed the arrests were made to defeat the defence of the prisoners; while some of those in gaol at the present moment were prepared to identify Connell, the informer, as the assassin of the young farmer Leary near Millstreet. They had those arrests of witnesses going on, and the trial of the accused men delayed, while the source and the spring of the Government case was as foul as it could possibly be—namely, that of an assassin and an expelled deserter. Yet the Attorney General for Ireland wondered at their complaining of such proceedings while the case was still pending. It was not the fault of the Irish. Members that the case was pending. He must say that 1989 when the Attorney General for Ireland believed he had cleared the character of the Crown Agents who superintended the trial of his hon. Friend (Mr. Healy) by stilting that, as a matter of fact, his hon. Friend was not tried by a packed jury, while, at the same time, he admitted there was no time to provide the packed jury, the right hon. and learned Gentleman failed to meet the point of his hon. Friend's objections. It was only by an accident that his hon. Friend was tried by an ordinary jury instead of a packed jury. He was confident that the Government would look into this matter, for nothing could be more detrimental to the cause of law and order than the toleration of the circumstances that surrounded this case.
§ MR. DALYsaid, that in the city of Cork a very strong distrust had been created in the minds of the people, owing to the way in which these trials were being conducted. Beyond all doubt, a great injury had been done by the conduct of the Crown prosecutions. He would remind the House that it was of the first importance that the men now standing at the bar of justice and accused of serious crimes should get a fair and impartial trial. The hon. Member proceeded to denounce the action of Crown prosecutors in a recent case, when——
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)rose on a point of Order, and reminded the Speaker that the hon. Member was quite irrelevant in his observations.
§ MR. DALY, continuing, said, he rose to address the House in the interests of law and order, and to show how the Crown prosecutors had conducted those cases. Many men of most reputable character in Cork were told to stand aside from the jury-box, simply because they were known to have Nationalist aspirations. As far as regarded the informer Connell, he would mention a most noticeable case concerning him. Connell was a man who was well known in his district as one of the persons referred to by the late Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and who was described as belonging to the gang of "midnight marauders and village ruffians" against whom the Protection of Person and Property Act was intended; yet the police knew him to be engaged in disseminating his pernicious doctrines 1990 in Millstreet, and they did not arrest him. He believed it to be true, and that it could be proved, that men had been arrested in Cork whose statements would be most damaging to the Crown informer. The manner in which those prosecutions were being conducted would, in his opinion, be the means of provoking angry feelings, and preventing the restoration of law and order. He sincerely hoped that the words of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) had induced the Attorney General for Ireland to warn his subordinates to have a little less zeal and more discretion in the conduct of those trials.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORalso referred to the present system of Crown prosecutions in Ireland, of which, as the rule, English Members knew less than they did of the condition of Egypt. The other day, in the Queen's County, there occurred a notable instance of the manner in which those trials were conducted. A terrible murder of an old man was committed, and the Crown proceeded to arrest a number of persons against whom they had not one single tittle of evidence. Nevertheless, they remanded them from Assizes to Assizes, until at last the Judge told the prosecution that he would stand that thing no longer, and that if the Crown could not proceed with the prosecution he would discharge the prisoners. Thereupon the Crown prosecutors produced a most infamous character, who deliberately swore, over and over again, that he was standing within a short distance of the scene of the murder, and saw the five accused men actually commit the crime. He also feigned ignorance of the reward that was offered for information; but it was conclusively proved that the witness had grossly perjured himself. That was not the only incident in the case, for the driver who discovered the body asserted that he was sought by the police to extend his evidence so as to convict the prisoners, and he was even promised by a Sub-Inspector of Police a sum of £1,000 if he would do so; but he refused, and the Crown failed to show that the men were guilty. That was the way in which guilt was sought to be brought home to those five persons. Under these circumstances, it was perfectly impossible that the people of Ireland should do otherwise than regard the law as their enemy.
§ MR. HEALY, in asking leave to withdraw his Motion, said, that he should not have intruded a pending case upon the attention of the House if the case were legitimately pending. He was determined, however, to watch these proceedings very carefully, if he was not arrested himself.
§ Question put, and negatived.