OFFENCES AGAINST THIS ACT.

HC Deb 15 June 1882 vol 270 cc1280-389

Clause 7 (Illegal meetings).

Amendment again proposed, In page 4, line 15, to leave out from the word "which," to the word "safety," in line 16, both inclusive, in order to insert the words "convened for an unlawful purpose, or with an intent to carry out a lawful object riotously and tumultuously."—(Mr. Labouchere.)

Question proposed, "That the words 'which he has reason to believe 'stand part of the Clause."

MR. LABOUCHERE

said, he entertained a hope that the Government would accept this reasonable Amendment. Should they not do so, he did not think it was necessary to expend a very long time in discussing the matter. The Prime Minister had said that if there were Members in that House who considered that evictions were crimes—and there certainly were persons in that House who considered evictions to be crimes—the proper time for bringing forward a provision for putting a stop to such evictions would be during the Committee on this Bill. He confessed that ho entertained a hope that before long they would come to some clause which would, at any rate, justify some action in that direction on the part of the Committee. In regard to this clause, the Chief Secretary for Ireland had stated that the Bill would give no fresh powers to the Lord Lieutenant, and that the Lord Lieutenant at present could proclaim any meeting; but it was a very serious question whether the Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, or whether the Executive in England, should have a right to intervene in a legally constituted public meeting. The Lord Lieutenant had assumed that right; but it was very doubtful whether he himself, and the police who acted in consequence of a proclamation of that kind, would not be liable to an action. But, be that as it might, he contended that the Bill itself made a distinction. According to this Bill, not only might the Lord Lieutenant proclaim a meeting which he had reason to think dangerous to the safety of the public, but he might punish, under the provisions of the Bill, anyone who attended that meeting. Now, that was a power which he did not possess at present, and it seemed to him a fair and reasonable thing that when anyone was arrested and brought before a magistrate for attending a public meeting, he should have the right to raise the question whether the meeting was convened for an unlawful purpose, or for the purpose of carrying out a lawful object riotously and tumultuously. That was the simple object of his Amendment.

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

said, he gathered from the expressions made use of by the hon. Member that he intended to persevere with this Amendment. Personally, he thought the Amendment unnecessary, because it sought to limit the power the Lord Lieutenant at present had by law. He objected very much to the clause as it stood in the Bill, and he should have been prepared to vote for an Amendment upon it in regard to the punishment; but he objected to the proposal of his hon. Friend, on the ground of the restriction it placed on the power of the Lord Lieutenant. He certainly thought that the power possessed by the Lord Lieutenant in reference to the prohibition of public meetings at the present moment was sufficient; but as the Amendment restricted that power he was unable to support it.

MR. MARUM

said, the law as to public meetings was the same both in England and Ireland, and it had been recently held by English Judges in the case of the Salvation Army riots at Weston-super-Mare that if a meeting held for a lawful purpose were interfered with by other persons, it was for the Government to prevent that interference. In the case in question, certain persons attended a meeting of the Salvation Army, and met another army in the same town. There was a free fight, and they overpowered the constables. The matter was brought before the local magistrates, who issued a circular in the nature of a proclamation, prohibiting another meeting of the Salvation Army in consequence of the previous fight which had taken place, anticipating that a similar occurrence might happen again. The question was submitted to a Superior Court whether, under the circumstances of the case, the magistrates were justified in issuing that prohibition, and Mr. Justice Field and Mr. Justice Cave gave a lucid Judgment, in which they held the magistrates were not justified under the circumstances in the action they took, but that it was the duty of the Executive to have a sufficient force in the town to preserve the peace, and that the fact of a large procession going through the town drawing together a considerable number of persons, if its object was peaceable, had a legal right to hold that meeting. The Judges, therefore, quashed the conviction; and he gathered that the law of England, in consequence of that decision, was that a lawful meeting could be held for a lawful purpose, and that if it were so interfered with by any other persons it was the duty of the Government to prevent the interference. In his opinion, it was an extremely doubtful matter whether, in Ireland, the Lord Lieutenant, or the Executive, were justified in the proclamations they had issued hitherto; and there was no wonder, under these circumstances, that it had been thought necessary to bring forward a specific clause to enable the Lord Lieutenant to prohibit public as well as private meetings. It seemed to have been forgotten that under the previous sections of this Bill very large powers had been conferred. Any person who took part in an unlawful assembly was liable to the penalties of the Act; and not only that, but any person, by act or words spoken, would fall within the provisions of the 4th section, so that an influence of a very potent character would be exercised upon any person who desired to attend a public meeting. If a man went to a meeting quite innocently, and it turned out to be an unlawful one, or if words were spoken or acts done of a certain character, he would have rendered himself liable to very serious penalties. These were matters that should be taken into consideration when they had to consider that the Lord Lieutenant, of his own caprice, without any control, was to be able to stop any public meeting in Ireland. Yesterday, in discussing the question, it seemed to have been forgotten that they had already passed the 4th and 5th sections of the Bill, and that they would be in full force and effect. He asked why it was necessary that the arbitrary powers conferred by this clause should be vested in the Lord Lieutenant? He knew that they must bow to the inevitable, and that the section would pass, and his observations were hardly directed against a refusal of this power, because, as he said, it was inevitable that it would be given. But the object of his Amendment was to restrict the powers of the Lord Lieutenant. The hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) had very properly brought forward the fact that under the section— The Lord Lieutenant may from time to time, by order in writing to be published in the prescribed manner, prohibit any meeting which be has reason to believe to be dangerous to the public peace or the public safety. In the decision he (Mr. Marum) had alluded to at the commencement of his observations—namely, the Weston-super-Mare case—it was distinctly laid down by the Judges that although in the opinion of the magistrates the public safety and the public peace were in danger, nevertheless the magistrates were not authorized to issue a proclamation prohibiting a contemplated meeting, so that they might prevent similar riots. It was, therefore, established that an apprehension in regard to the public safety, or of the commission of a breach of the peace, was not sufficient in Common Law to authorize the issue of a proclamation of this kind. He did not know whether it was intended by the words "public safety" to include anything beyond the public peace. The section said "the public peace or the public safety;" but it was not questioned whether public safety meant anything more than public peace. His remarks on the present Amendment would render unnecessary any lengthened observations on the next Amendment which stood in his name, which was to the effect that no proclamation should take effect except on a sworn information in writing.

MR. P. MARTIN

said, that in considering the Amendment they ought to have regard to what the exact state of the law was. At the present moment, under the existing law, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was, as had been stated by the Attorney General, empowered to prohibit a meeting; but he (Mr. P. Martin) submitted that under the existing law, if the Lord Lieutenant prohibited a meeting, it was competent for any person who had attended that meeting, if indicted in a Court of Justice, to question the legality of the proclamation issued by the Lord Lieutenant. No doubt, it was the duty of every subject of the Queen, when he came to the meeting and found such a proclamation had been issued, to leave the meeting at once; but he was still at liberty to question, if prosecuted, the legality of the proclamation. The learned Attorney General for England (Sir Henry James) might recollect that in the celebrated case of the prosecution against Mr. O'Connell the legality of what was known as the celebrated proclamation of Clontarf had been strongly questioned. The Act of 1833 had been referred to by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. The framers of the Act of 1833 knew that the law was as he (Mr. P. Martin) had stated it; and on referring to the 2nd section of that Act, it would be found that when, for the first time, power was given to the Lord Lieutenant, by Statute, to make this proclamation, it was prescribed that persons attending a proclaimed meeting should be guilty of a statutable misdemeanour, and indictable at Common Law only after notice given and knowledge. It was only in that way, even under the Act of 1833, stringent as that Act was, that punishment was inflicted upon any person who was present at a meeting which had been proclaimed by the Lord Lieutenant. What was proposed to be done by this Bill, if it passed into an Act, was totally and entirely different. What was stated in this section was that— The Lord Lieutenant may from time to time, by order in writing to be published in the prescribed manner, prohibit any meeting which he has reason to believe to be dangerous to the public peace or the public safety. Therefore, it would be incompetent for anyone to question anything except the fact that the meeting was proclaimed, and that it took place. The section went on to say that— Any person who is present at a meeting prohibited in pursuance of this Act shall be guilty of an offence against this Act. Under that clause, the Lord Lieutenant had power to prohibit a meeting that was perfectly legal and justifiable; but a person attending it would be liable to six months' imprisonment. It would apply even to a meeting that took place in a vestry of a chapel in Ireland. Suppose such a meeting was called for 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and the Lord Lieutenant proclaimed it at 10 minutes past 4, any person who was present at the meeting, whether he knew of the proclamation or not, was at once, under this section, if it were passed into law, made guilty of an offence punishable by imprisonment with hard labour. There was nothing in the section to provide that a guilty knowledge should be brought home to the accused. Therefore, the clause did two things—it did away with the protection which existed under the present law of a right to question the ground on which the proclamation was issued; and it went further, and enabled a person to be convicted of an offence, for which the penalty was six months' imprisonment with hard labour, although at the time he attended the meeting ho might not have been aware of the existence of such proclamation. The Act of 1833 was extremely stringent, but it contained no provision as stringent as this. Under the Act of 1833 a person present at a proclaimed meeting must first be requested to leave, and it was only after refusing to leave that he was liable to be indicted at Common Law for a misdemeanour. They all knew that the Act of 1833 was an Act which had always been looked upon as the most unjust and tyrannical measure which had ever been placed on the Statute Book, and so unjust and tyrannical that the Parliament which passed it had to modify it the very next year. But even in that Act the injustice which might be inflicted under the operation of the present clause could not have been committed.

THE CHAIRMAN

wished to point out to the hon. and learned Member that he was speaking against the entire clause, upon which there were a number of Amendments, and that he was altogether departing from the Amendment now before the Committee.

MR. P. MARTIN

said, he was afraid the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair had not understood the drift of his argument. Perhaps he had been enlarging a little unnecessarily; but he was illustrating the evil effect of allowing the present words to remain without amendment in the Bill, and desired to show that if the clause was to remain without the Amendment in its present state, it would be contrary to all precedent, and not be in accordance even with the Act of 1833.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, there were various Amendments upon the Paper, which would come on for discussion in regular order; but the hon. and learned Member was at present discussing the whole clause.

MR. P. MARTIN

said, he did not intend to do so, and if he had transgressed he regretted it. The object of the Amendment, he conceived, was to safeguard the clause, by making it necessary, in case of prosecution, that the Executive should be bound to prove that the meeting was in fact what was recognized in law as an illegal meeting. To show the necessity for some such protection for persons who might be innocent, he had considered it desirable to show what would be the practical working of the clause in its present form, unamended, and the evil effects of permitting the mere belief of the Lord Lieutenant, even though it could be shown that belief was unreasonable and ill-founded to subject any persons who attended to liability to six months. It was in aid of the view ho desired to present that he had alluded to the Act of 1833, which, as he had stated, did not make the fact of attendance criminal until notice had been given to the persons present at the meeting; and he had then been going on to illustrate that the punishment, even after guilty knowledge was established, was simply by indictment under the Common Law, with the protection of a jury. No doubt there was considerable difficulty in discussing an Amendment of this character when there were a number of other Amendments upon it.

MR. DILLWYN

said, he ventured to express an earnest hope that the Government would listen to the very moderate proposal of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). The hon. and learned Member who had just spoken showed that the clause placed great additional power in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant. They were now giving powers of a most arbitrary character, together with a summary penalty upon people who attended public meetings. The Act of 1833 did not give such powers, and he confessed that he did not like to leave it absolutely to the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant upon a penal question of this sort. He thought there ought to be a definition, and a hard line drawn, as to what was to constitute an illegal meeting, and that it ought not to be left to the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant. He, therefore, appealed to Her Majesty's Government to modify the clause in the direction of the proposal of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). He did not like the Bill at all, and he certainly did not like this clause; but, at the same time, he thought this clause would be made much more acceptable, and much more workable, and much more efficient if the feelings and traditions of the Supporters of Her Majesty's Government on that side of the House were studied by agreeing to a modification of it. Therefore, even now, at the last hour, he would venture to hope that Her Majesty's Government would reconsider the clause, and accede to the very moderate demand his hon. Friend (Mr. Labouchere) had made.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, it appeared to him that if Her Majesty's Government on their responsibility had announced that the Irish Executive considered the clause to be necessary, it was hardly worth while to entertain Amendments such as that proposed by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). What would be the effect of the proposal now made? The hon. Member proposed that the Lord Lieutenant, who could now prohibit meetings at discretion, should not be able to do so unless he was in a position to prove that they would be dangerous to public safety. ["No, no!"] He had before him the Amendment, which proposed to leave out the words— Which he has reason to believe to be dangerous to the public peace or the public safety, in order to insert the words— Convened for an unlawful purpose, or with an intent to carry out a lawful object riotously and tumultuously. It seemed to him that that would make it a matter of the greatest difficulty to stop the meetings which, in the opinion of the Government, were dangerous to the public safety. It must be borne in mind that meetings were not always ostensibly and openly convened for the purpose they were designed to carry out. A meeting was not unfrequently ostensibly convened for a comparatively harmless object; but, in the opinion of the Government, it might not be safe, in the interest of the security of the State, that an excited meeting in a particular locality should take place at all. Her Majesty's Government, stated on the authority of the Lord Lieutenant, that he and those who advised him attached the greatest importance to this clause. The clause itself, he would fairly admit, was a matter for argument, and whether a Bill of this kind should be passed at all was undoubtedly a fair matter for difference of opinion. His own opinion was that it was most desirable to pass a Bill upon these lines; but, of course, hon. Members below the Gangway held a different opinion, approaching the question as they did from an entirely different standpoint. But he trusted that those who wished—as he understood the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) to wish—the Bill to be passed into law would not lend their countenance and support to an Amendment which could have no other effect than to render the clause practically unworkable and useless. Under those circumstances, he trusted that the Committee would not accept any Amendment of this kind.

MR. STOREY

said, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. J. Lowther) asserted that the effect of adopting this Amendment would be to make the clause practically useless for all purposes in Ireland. What he wished to point out to the right hon. Member was this. If the clause were modified according to the wish of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), the present power of the Lord Lieutenant would still be retained in its entirety. What the hon. Member for Northampton wished to do was this—he wanted to draw a clear definition between meetings convened for an unlawful purpose, and meetings convened with an intent to carry out a lawful object riotously and tumultuously, and a class of other meetings which might take place in Ireland, and which had taken place in Ireland. He might give an illustration, which ought to come home to the Treasury Bench. There was a meeting in Hyde Park in favour of Reform in 1866. That was a meeting which the Government of the day prohibited; but it was a meeting which nevertheless was held, and it was held in defiance of the action of the Government, the leaders of the Reform movement stating their intention of contesting the legality of the prohibition. Would the late Chief Secretary for Ireland say that, in regard to such meetings as that, the legality of which might be freely asserted, it was reasonable to pro- vide that every person who attended them was to be liable to six months' imprisonment with hard labour. The proposition of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) was one which he thought the Government might reasonably accept. If there was a meeting for an unlawful purpose, or a meeting with an intent to carry out a lawful object riotously and tumultuously, then let them take the power to prohibit it, and also the power to send a man who attended it to gaol for six months. He did not mean to say, personally, that he agreed even with that. He thought there ought to be a further limitation—namely, in the case of meetings which might have ended in tumult, but which might not have been called for the purpose of tumult. He thought it would be very unfair to send men to gaol for attending a meeting of that kind. He had listened to the statement of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, when he suggested to the Committee that they might fairly trust the Irish Executive Government; but the right hon. Gentleman was unable to tell them that the Government which might succeed the present one might not act very differently from the manner in which the present Government would act. He should like to call the attention of the Chief Secretary for Ireland to the words of his Predecessor, the right hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), who said that there were two grounds on which a meeting ought to be dispersed—one was danger to individuals attending them, and the other was that, directly or indirectly, they might be the occasion of an excitement that would probably lead to a breach of the peace. Now, he had sat upon the Bench in the North of England, and he understood what it was to have a meeting prohibited, because it was calculated to lead to a breach of the peace; but he was prepared to say that no public meeting had been held in a time of excitement in the North of England, or in any part of England, which could not have been prohibited, according to the elastic definition of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster)—namely, a meeting which led, either directly or indirectly, to excitement which might end in a breach of the peace. He would ask what wore all their public meetings if they were worthy of the name of public meetings at all, and were to have any influence upon public affairs? All their meetings were full of excitement; they were unable to make any effect upon Parliament until a time of excitement came, and it was the same in Ireland, and yet, according to a Liberal Ministry, and to a late Liberal Chief Secretary for Ireland, they ought to prohibit meetings upon such a ground as this; but he had never understood the late Chief Secretary for Ireland to say that he would hold for a moment that if a man attended such a meeting as that, even if it were prohibited, he ought to be liable to six months' imprisonment, and be deprived of the right of contesting the prohibition of the meeting. Under these circumstances, he pressed upon the Government, though probably he and his Friends who entertained the same view were almost helpless in the matter, that they should reconsider their decision with regard to this Amendment. No doubt those who supported it were few in number; but, nevertheless, they pressed upon the Government, having regard to their own declarations in past days, and to the danger which might possibly arise if the clause passed in its present form, that they should accept some modification in the clause as it stood at present.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he thought it would be far better to negative the clause altogether than to make it perfectly nugatory and useless, as would be the effect of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). It was altogether beside the mark to say that such a clause as this was not wanted in England. They all knew that perfectly well. Nor would it apply to such meetings as that which was presided over the other day in Hyde Park by the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen). Everybody knew that the feeling of the community in England was on the side of the law, and, therefore, meetings might be held without danger in this country which would be altogether unsafe under the present condition of Ireland. It was upon that ground that meetings had been prohibited within the last two years in Ireland, and upon that ground alone. He complained that the same arguments were urged over and over again. The opinion of the Government was that the powers which wore taken in the year 1833 were necessary at the present day. He fully understood that hon. Members opposite were not of that opinion; but the Government did not obviously share that view, or they would never have introduced the present Bill.

MR. SEXTON

said, there was a definition of prohibition in the Act of 1833.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, the definition of prohibition was that public notice should be given, and a similar definition was given in this clause—namely, that it should be a meeting which the Lord Lieutenant had reason to believe "to be dangerous to the public peace or the public safety." There was quite as much necessity to take such powers as there were in the year 1833. The Irish Executive were of opinion that the powers were necessary, and that they should not be confined to meetings convened for an unlawful purpose; but it was not likely that meetings would be made public which were convened for an unlawful purpose, or with an intent to carry out a lawful object riotously or tumultuously, and, therefore, the Government could not accept the words of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). There might be many meetings held which it was desirable to prohibit altogether outside the terms of the hon. Member's Amendment. No doubt such a ground would be the ordinary ground for magisterial intervention in England; but the Government had never pretended or claimed that they desired to deal with such cases in Ireland. They ashed for exceptional powers hero to deal with an exceptional danger. It was highly probable that meetings might be convened for an unlawful purpose at which the language used might be of such an inflammatory character as to lead to evil results; and they felt that it ought to be within the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant, who was the person responsible for the public safety in Ireland, to prohibit such a meeting. He wished hon. Members opposite to understand clearly that, in the view of the Government, it was perfectly idle to expect that they could depart from the principle they had laid down in this clause, or accept Amendments which would, in point of fact, entirely defeat the object of the Bill.

MR. CALLAN

said, he thought the Home Secretary had misled the Committee as to what the practical effect of adopting the Amendment would be. The right hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to think that if the Amendment were adopted the offence which the clause dealt with would have to be brought under the purview of a jury. Now, the Amendment only struck out the words— Which he has reason to believe to be dangerous to the public peace and the public safety; and it provided that the Lord Lieutenant might prohibit any meeting— Convened for an unlawful purpose, or with an intent to carry out a lawful object riotously and tumultuously; and it provided that any person who was present at such a meeting so prohibited should be guilty of an offence under the Act. Therefore, the adoption of the Amendment would not place any offence against the Act under the purview of a jury.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I never said that it would.

MR. CALLAN

said, he had not asserted that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had said so, because if he had said so in expressed terms he would have intentionally misled the Committee; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman had done so unintentionally, because he had pointed out that no jury would find a person guilty; and, therefore, he had led the Committee to believe that if they accepted the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) they would place the matter under the purview of a jury. According to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), the Lord Lieutenant would be able to prohibit any meeting convened for an unlawful purpose, or with an intent to carry out a lawful object riotously and tumultuously. And how was that intent to be ascertained? Had they not their Clifford Lloyds, and their County Inspectors Smiths, and their Sub-Inspectors to swear informations that they believed such meetings were convened for an unlawful purpose, and with intent to carry out illegal objects, and in that case the Lord Lieutenant would have full power to prohibit them. Anyone attending such a meeting would come under the Act, and would be taken away from the protecting influence of a jury. It was perfectly clear that if the Committee adopted the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) the Lord Lieutenant would still have full power to suppress any meeting called for an unlawful purpose, or to carry out any unlawful object riotously and tumultuously. They had 300 police officials in Ireland—Sub-Inspectors who would be prepared to swear to any intent that might suit the purpose of the Government. The Home Secretary said that if they adopted the Amendment it would defeat the object the Government had in inserting this clause. He could only gather that that object was to suppress all public meetings in Ireland for the next three years, and to place them completely and entirely at the mercy of the Castle officials; and, under these circumstances, he should certainly vote for the Amendment.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had just told the Committee that certain liberties of speech and action on the part of Her Majesty's subjects could be tolerated in this country, because the feeling here was on the side of the law. Why was the feeling here on the side of the law? It was for a very simple reason—because the law was on the side of the people, because the law was tender of public rights, and because the law was a safeguard of public liberty. Therefore, the feeling in England was, to a very great degree, on the side of the law. If the same treatment were extended to Ireland it would be soon seen that the feelings of the people there would be on the side of the law; but the law in Ireland had been, and was every day being made, the enemy of liberty, the enemy of public right, the enemy of freedom of speech, and of freedom of action—aye, and of freedom of thought, if the law could reach that. Under these circumstances, was it wonderful if the feeling of the people of Ireland was not altogether on the side of the law? If they treated the people of England to the same law that they gave to the Irish people, they would refuse to submit to it; and they would then see whether the feeling of the English people would be on the side of the law. Let them treat the people of England to the Protection of Person and Property Acts; lot them treat the people of England to a measure like this; let them treat the people of England to any one of the five coercion measures which had been brought forward since the date of the Act of Union, and then they would see if the feeling of the people of England would be on the side of the law. The feeling of the people of Ireland was what the law of England had made it. It had made it incumbent on every high-spirited man in Ireland to have no feeling on the side of the law, except in so far as the law might be in accord with justice and morality.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the hon. Member was getting very general in his remarks. He ought to recollect that there was a particular Amendment before the Committee.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, he would not contest the ruling of the right hon. Gentleman; but he had been replying to words which had fallen from the Home Secretary, and he thought the Irish Members ought to be free to reply to arguments such as those which had been brought forward on the part of the Government.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he had allowed the hon. Member a considerable amount of latitude; but he was now going into a general disquisition, which was not covered by the Amendment.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, that the hon. Members who represented Irish constituencies were under great difficulties, and, of course, they had to submit; but he had been pleading for his own people, and his own country, and the liberties of Irishmen. He hoped he would be excused if he had in any degree, even by an eighth of an inch, gone too far, or occupied half a minute too much of the time of the Committee in replying to the arguments addressed to the Committee by the Home Secretary, and which he had considered to be very important, and calculated to have some effect upon the feeling of the House. Unfortunately, the people of Ireland were placed at the mercy of the Lord Lieutenant in these matters; but the Lord Lieutenant himself was very little more than a name in these cases. The Lord Lieutenant sat in Dublin Castle, and could not personally investigate these districts, or be aware of what was going on in them, or what was likely to go on. He was bound to act upon information supplied to him by men who were notoriously the enemies of Ireland, and the enemies of Irish liberty and of Irish rights—by men convicted at the present moment even under the newly-made Act of Parliament—the Landlord and Tenant Act, which had just been passed—convicted by the decisions of the Sub-Commissioners of having been the robbers of the Irish people for generations; and it was to be upon information supplied by such men that the Lord Lieutenant was to act. Could any man doubt what the result would be under such circumstances? Did anyone not know that the landlords of Ireland hated and detested public meetings for any purpose whatever? If these men could have their own way, there would be a wholesale prohibition of public agitation, or of any public meeting for the assertion of public rights, from one end of the country to the other. It might be said, as a counter argument, that if such had been the will of the landlords there would have been no public meetings. Ho granted that this power had not been carried out to its utmost limit; but this was a new measure to enable them to carry it out to any limit they chose. Public meetings in Ireland had hitherto been regarded as safeguards, not only of the rights, but of the liberties of the people, and also as affording protection for the peace of the country. He believed that if public meetings could have been held in Ireland during the past two years, there would have been a far better state of things there than now existed. While public meetings were free there was very little crime in Ireland; but since they had been suppressed crime had increased. Under this system of terrorism and oppression crime was bound to grow up and flourish, and it was his firm conviction in regard to this measure that it would not tend to the repression of crime. There could be no doubt that there would be a strong feeling of irritation in the minds of the people when they found themselves shut out from every legitimate mode of agitation. It had been some sort of consolation to the people of Ireland, when they believed that they had grievances to ventilate, to know that the public platforms were open to them, and that they could give public expression to their feelings; it was a satisfaction to them to find that men were able to denounce the injustice which was practised upon them, and to plead for their rights and their liberties. Many a man who went to a meeting of that kind went homo with a feeling that there was still in Ireland someone who could speak for them and protect their interests by making a claim for justice and a protest against oppression. But what would happen now? Nothing of the kind could occur. The Irish tenant would have to brood over his grievance in secret. He would have to consult with a few men as desperate as himself; and, maddened by the injustice of being shut from every opportunity of public complaint, and thrown upon his own desperate resources for the vindication of his rights and redress of his wrongs, he would resort to acts that were illegal. He regretted to see the Home Secretary come down there and, in the English House of Commons, ask for the destruction of every fragment of Irish liberty. Where were the great Members of the Liberal Party who in former days had pleaded for liberty? Why did they not come there now and plead for the liberty of the subject in Ireland? Was the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster ashamed to show his face and to speak before the English nation in support of these tyrannical measures? Why was not even the Prime Minister himself present? The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) was committed to this Bill; but he loft the work of arguing in favour of tyranny and oppression to other hands than his own.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he must point out to the hon. Member that he had never once spoken on the subject of the Amendment, but had been discussing the entire clause, He had not at all referred to the Amendment before the Committee.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

Well, then, Mr. Playfair, I will say no more.

MR. LEAMY

said, the rejection by the Government of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) showed conclusively that their object was to stifle free speech in Ireland for the next three years. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Homo Secretary said it was desirable that the Lord Lieutenant should be able to put down meetings at which he reasonably believed speeches might be made of an inflammatory character calculated to excite the public to a breach of the peace, so that a meeting was to be put down, not because it was held for an illegal object, not on account of hostile influence that might be at work for bringing about a breach of the peace, not because it was unlawful or illegal, but simply because the Lord Lieutenant, or anybody thinking for him—for they knew very well the Lord Lieutenant must act on the information of others—believed that at that meeting certain speeches would be delivered which were objectionable. It was evident that the clause was introduced in order to strike at free speech. The Lord Lieutenant, under the present law, had power practically to put down every meeting in Ireland, and he therefore failed to see why the Government should ask for these extraordinary powers. The mere fact of the Lord Lieutenant forbidding a meeting was to constitute every man attending it a criminal in the eye of the law, and liable to six months' imprisonment with hard labour. Suppose a meeting was called in Ireland for a perfectly legitimate object, such as reform of the Land Laws, or an extension of the suffrage—which was very much wanted in Ireland—the Lord Lieutenant would have power to put down such a meeting as that, so that any man at present deprived of a vote who attended it should, for supporting his claim for an extension of the suffrage, be liable to be sent for six months to gaol, and condemned to herd with thieves of the worst character and description, as if he had been guilty of some crime against morality. It was very well to point out that before the Lord Lieutenant could act upon this belief, he must receive information from someone, probably someone living in the locality in which the meeting was to be held, and they all knew that the people who would furnish information of that character to the Castle were men utterly opposed to the popular view that was taken in Ireland of public affairs—men who thought that reform had gone far enough in Ireland, who would like to see no further reform in any direction, and who would easily allow themselves to be persuaded into the belief that a breach of the peace was contemplated, which might be prejudicial to the public safety. Ho did not like the words "public safety;" he thought they had rather an anomalous sound. He remembered, within the last seven or eight months, public meetings being held in the City which he represented (Waterford), and he was aware that a deliberate attempt was made to endeavour to get that meeting proclaimed. Information was sworn before the magistrate that if the meeting was held it would lead to a breach of the peace on that occasion. The information so sworn was not taken notice of by the authorities, because, happily, the magistrate, and even the police in Waterford, were on the best possible terms with the people; and they knew from long experience that on the occasion of ordinary popular demonstrations they could firmly trust to the people themselves. The result was that large public demonstrations had never been attended with anything tending to a breach of the peace. Nevertheless, this information was sworn, and, no doubt, the gentlemen who sought to have the meeting prohibited had persuaded themselves that it ought to be stopped. It was not stopped; and how were they to know that informations, not a bit more justified, might lead to the stoppage of other meetings in different parts of Ireland? He felt perfectly convinced that the circumstances under which meetings had been proclaimed during the time the late Chief Secretary was in Office—during the last 12 months—were equally questionable; and if this power now sought to be introduced under the present clause had been in the hands of the right hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), there would not have been a single public meeting held in Ireland during the last two years. He thought the Government would have acted in a more straightforward manner if they had said that for the next two or three years there should be no public meeting in Ireland. He thought they might reasonably accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), if they only designed to put down illegal meetings, or to put down meetings which, in their opinion or judgment, were summoned with an evil intent, or with an intention of carrying out a lawful object in some way that might be considered tumultously and riotously. That would be a sufficiently extensive power to place in their hands; but they appeared to want the power of taking away every vestige of liberty in Ireland. The moment this Bill passed, he thought it would be the duty of the Irish people to call as many meetings as possible, in order to ascertain if it were intended to allow any meeting whatever to be held. By that means they would soon expose the hands of the Government, and see whether these great powers were to be entrusted to the Lord Lieutenant, simply because he was a Member of the Liberal Party, and was supposed to profess Liberal opinions. He confessed that he himself would rather trust to an Irishman. What guarantee had they for the presumption that any new Lord Lieutenant would be a man of Liberal views, and what guarantee had they for supposing that Lord Spencer would remain long in his present Office? He might very soon become disgusted with the position he was called upon to occupy, and some desperate man might be sent over, who would put a stop to every meeting, no matter how legitimate was the object for which it was called.

MR. GIBSON

said, this particular Amendment was really an Amendment that would kill the clause; it was not at all an Amendment to the clause; but, if carried, it would take the life and principle out of it. He did not apply that general criticism to all the Amendments which had been put on the Paper, but only to this particular Amendment. What was it? It was one which asked the Committee to say that it was right only to entrust the power to the Lord Lieutenant to put down meetings that were convened for a certain purpose and with a specific intent. Anyone must see at a glance that that would practically put the Lord Lieutenant at the mercy of the notice that would be issued convening the meeting, and the convener of the meeting would simply have to take care not to convene it for the particular purpose mentioned in the Amendment. Such a proposition would obviously destroy the clause. He would not say that that was the object of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), but he rather thought it was. The Government obviously would not ask for a power like the present unless they were satisfied, on mature consideration, that there was no alternative which would enable them to act without it. Yesterday a letter from the Viceroy had been read, from which it appeared that he had every desire to look at this matter from the fairest and most reasonable standpoint. He believed that if the Viceroy were entrusted with the power named in the Bill it would not be used secretly, and he hoped that it would be left to him to consider whether the meetings were likely to disturb the public peace or the public safety; and, further, that wise and rational counsel would be brought to bear upon the matter. For his own part, ho would regret that any Act of Parliament should interfere with the expression of legitimate public opinion; and he ventured to think that neither in England nor in Ireland would any man who understood the condition of the country wish to see any section of an Act applied to check legitimate discussion or fair criticism of abuses. But Ireland at present was in a most critical and dangerous political position; and the Committee would understand that with regard to many parts of the country meetings of certain kinds, held upon certain conditions, might unquestionably be dangerous to the public peace and public safety. Therefore, he did not think it unreasonable that the very difficult and responsible power given by the section should be vested in the head of the Irish Administration. It was, of course, very easy for hon. Members below the Gangway to talk of the tyrannical exercise of an arbitrary discretion; but they lived in a country where the tyrannical exercise of discretion was impossible. One had only to look at the Question Paper to see that nothing great or small could be done without its being brought before the House of Commons; and, therefore, with regard to the power of the clause, whether it were exercised by the present able and capable Nobleman at the head of the Irish Administration, or the Viceroy who succeeded him, he felt sure it would be exercised under conditions that would place it within the reach of the fullest public discussion and examination.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

said, that although the right hon. and learned Gentleman had professed himself desirous of preserving the right of public meeting, he was about to vote for a clause which, if it were passed without Amendment, would make it absolutely impossible to hold any popular meeting in Ireland during the next three years. Suppose a meeting got up for the most legitimate purpose, and that it was known that the opinions which some people were likely to express there would be distasteful to other persons who might attend the meeting, the Viceroy in that case would say—"This is a meeting which is likely to disturb the peace, and it cannot be held." A person wishing to stop a meeting would only have to say that he was going to oppose, and that there would be a riot, and the Viceroy would consider himself bound to suppress it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department said this power was as much needed now as it was in the year 1833. He (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) did not admit that; but if it were true, what a censure did the words of the right hon. Gentleman pass upon a Government that, after the 50 years of coercion which had elapsed, now brought in another Coercion Bill for the purpose of governing Ireland! He did not think that the policy of the English Government with regard to Ireland had ever been more sternly condemned than by the words of the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

DR. COMMINS

said, they had been told it was not the intention of the Government to interfere in any way with the right of public meeting, or with the free expression of public opinion in Ireland; the sentiment had been repeated so often that he thought the Committee were almost tired of it. But notwithstanding this, when any Amendment was introduced with the object of safeguarding that expression of opinion, it was opposed in the strongest possible way, not only by the Government, but by hon. Members on the Opposition Benches. Another of the stock arguments which were bandied from one side of the House to the other had just been made use of by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson). He confessed he was surprised to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman say that the Government desired the power in the clause; that it was necessary, and that, therefore, the clause should be passed. Why, that argument might be applied to every conceivable law which the Government wished to introduce; but, besides that, it constituted a comprehensive support of tyranny—it was in itself a most illogical and unconstitu- tional argument. It was inconsistent with the liberties of that House to try to influence the vote of any Member of it by saying he must pass the clause because the Government thought they ought to have absolute power. He protested against that argument.

MR. GIBSON

said, he objected to that being represented as his argument. He had said that the House and the country were thoroughly acquainted with the state of affairs in Ireland; and therefore he thought it not unreasonable, with these facts before them, that the Government should ask for these additional powers.

DR. COMMINS

said, he was only carrying the argument of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to its logical end in saying that because the Government thought they required this power, therefore it ought to be granted. If that were not the conclusion which the right hon. and learned Gentleman wished to be drawn, his argument had no meaning whatever. The argument had been put forward on both sides of the House ad nauseam; it was a stock argument introduced against any modification of this most objectionable clause which Irish Members wished to amend. But he was glad to hear that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin disclaimed any desire to carry it to its legitimate conclusion. Another of the arguments of the right hon. and learned Gentleman was that he himself, and everyone in the House who had spoken against the Amendments put forward by Irish Members, and against this one in particular, desired nothing more than that there should be free expression of public opinion in Ireland. If that were the case, he would only say that hon. and right hon. and learned Gentlemen had taken a very strange way of showing the sincerity of their desire. Why, the clause entirely prevented the expression of any public opinion in Ireland whatever. The clause made no provision for weighing and testing the opinion expressed, by the ordinary rules of law, as to whether or no it constituted an offence; but the expression of public opinion was made an offence beforehand, and if the clause remained without Amendment it would give power to the Lord Lieutenant, not only to declare a meeting illegal, but to make it an offence for anybody to be present as a listener. That amounted to an extension of the law which no ukase, law, or decree issued in foreign countries could parallel. The Government said that all they wanted was the power to convict without a jury, because, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department had said in the course of the present discussion, it was of no use to send cases before juries who would not convict. That, undoubtedly, was the right hon. and learned Gentleman's argument, and it constituted the raison d'être of the clause. But the clause not only took away trial by jury—it took away trial by evidence. Trial by jury might, perhaps, be dispensed with if an adequate tribunal were substituted for it; but it was impossible that any reasonable assent could be given to a trial without evidence. The latest effort of coercive rule in Ireland rendered some amount of reasonable suspicion necessary; but this clause dispensed even with that, and by it a sentence of six months' imprisonment with hard labour could be inflicted without there being a suspicion of guilt against anybody. The mere attendance at a meeting prohibited beforehand on suspicion would be a crime of itself, even if the person so attending had no knowledge that the meeting had been prohibited. But it was said it was only proposed to prohibit meetings under circumstances that made it a proper thing to do so; to which he replied—"Let those circumstances be defined in the Act." That the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton proposed to do, and the definition supplied by him appeared to be quite sufficient to arm the hands of the Irish Executive in doing what was right. Surely they needed no power to prohibit a meeting held for an illegal purpose. That power the Amendment left untouched, and the Home Secretary, moreover, said—"If such a purpose is openly expressed in the notice calling the meeting, then we should not need this power; we could deal with a case of that kind under the powers we have." Well, even if other powers were necessary for that purpose, let them be given. If it could be shown that under cover of a Constitutional purpose there was an intention to incite to crime, then the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton gave power to the Lord Lieutenant to suppress any such meeting. That being so, he asked, what more power was required by the Irish Executive? There was no meeting which ought to be suppressed that did not come within the two categories in the Amendment before the Committee; and if something must be done in order to prevent the peace being disturbed, or illegality being done at any public meeting, he contended that the clause as it was proposed to be amended was ample for the purpose. In case of the prohibition of a perfectly harmless meeting, without the Amendment there would be no evidence to show what it was that induced the belief in the mind of the Lord Lieutenant that the meeting was likely to be dangerous to the public peace or the public safety, nor any means of afterwards tracing the person who might have misled the Lord Lieutenant with regard to the meeting. It had been pointed out that the Lord Lieutenant would never act propria motu; and, therefore, if information were given to him that a public meeting ought to be suppressed, and in consequence of that information he were to subject persons to penalties who were not liable at all, there would be no means of finding out who were the real disturbers of the public peace by misleading the Lord Lieutenant. The clause, without amendment, would give facilities to the spy and the informer, and to persons wishing to interfere with the legitimate expression of public opinion, who would be enabled to effect their nefarious purposes with impunity, for there would be no means of bringing them to justice. "But," said the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin, "you have the power of preventing such abuses, because you can always put questions in the House of Commons with regard to any abuse of power in Ireland." Now, he did not think any person who had regarded the course of events in that country would deny that there had been a great abuse of power on the part of somebody; but ho should like to know of any person who had been brought to justice for that abuse of power in consequence of the questions that had been asked. He was unable to recollect a single instance of the kind; and, therefore, he concluded that the protection on which the right hon. and learned Gentleman relied was perfectly useless. He cordially supported the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton, because he considered there ought to be some safeguards to protect the people, not against abuse on the part of the Lord Lieutenant, for he did not believe he would abuse his powers intentionally; but against the action of those in whom he would have to trust, and for whom Irish Members had no feeling of confidence—the persons who would be able to put the Lord Lieutenant in motion, so to speak, and utilize his great powers for the purposes of private malice and private partizanship, or for purposes equally to be deplored, and which had already too many facilities for their attainment in Ireland. If the clause was to be worked by the Lord Lieutenant, there must soon be a situation vacant at the Castle; he would be obliged to have a chief prophet, and the opposition of himself and his Colleagues to the clause might be modified if it were known who was to be elevated to that irresponsible post.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he differed from the hon. Member for Roscommon (Dr. Commins) on one important point. The hon. Gentleman had told them that the questions put to the Government with regard to Irish abuses had not borne any fruit during the last two years. He confessed there was great difficulty in getting redress of grievances by means of questions and Motions; but he had always felt that if the practice were persevered in beneficial results must follow. Indeed, they knew that substantial advantages had accrued already from the questions asked and the speeches made in denunciation of the Government policy towards Ireland during the last 12 months. The results up to the present time were that they had got rid of a Chief Secretary and a Lord Lieutenant, and he held that a very substantial benefit had been derived from the pressure brought to bear on the Government and on public opinion in Ireland. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had referred to a large meeting which was held in Hyde Park in 1866. Now, he thought the parallel drawn by the right hon. and learned Gentleman should have been carried farther. The people in Ireland would not complain if fault were found by the Lord Lieutenant with a meeting at which real outrage took place; but, as far as he could remember, no prosecution followed the meeting in Hyde Park, although the railings were torn down, and the meeting had been prohibited. He challenged the right hon. and learned Gentleman to say that outrage had taken place at any meeting held in Ireland. It was notorious that the meetings held there had been of the most peaceable character. The Government should speak frankly and say they would only allow meetings to take place when the promoters engaged that no fault should be found with their policy. That was the real meaning of the clause; and the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) simply provided that some specific offence should be expected to take place before a meeting was prohibited, and before the parties attending that meeting as spectators should become criminally liable for so doing. On the question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill," he should probably be able to give the Committee reasons why persons should not be prosecuted criminally on account of things of which they were ignorant. The right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) had scarcely stated the case fairly when he said that the Amendment before the Committee proposed that persons should only be liable to prosecution for attending a meeting if it were held for an unlawful object. With submission to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that was not so. The Amendment required that a specified offence should be charged before the Lord Lieutenant should use his power of prohibition; whereas the clause allowed him to say that he found fault with a meeting because it was likely to lead to disturbance. The Irish Executive was, of course, responsible to the House of Commons for the use made of the information at their disposal; and, therefore, before they put down a meeting, or prosecuted anyone criminally for attending it, they ought to be satisfied that some substantial offence was intended before the powers of this clause were put in motion.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 67; Noes 38: Majority 29.—(Div. List, No. 138.)

MR. MARUM,

in moving in line 15, after the word "believe," to insert "grounded upon information in writing and on oath," said, this Amendment was not opposed to the principle of the clause. He regarded it as a very important Amendment, and a very substantial one, not being simply an Amendment in form. The object of it was to secure that if meetings were prohibited by the Lord Lieutenant as dangerous, the belief of the Lord Lieutenant as to their danger must be grounded upon information in writing or upon oath. He desired to prevent liberty of speech being curtailed, except upon sworn information. It was the ordinary rule of evidence that the property or liberty of the subject should not be taken away or interfered with, except on sworn evidence; and when so enormous a power was about to be conceded to the Lord Lieutenant, it should be safeguarded by not being left to the personal view of an individual. They all knew the high personal character of the present Lord Lieutenant, who was exceedingly and deservedly popular and well known in Ireland; but, in addition to the personal character of the Lord Lieutenant, there ought to be sworn information as to the circumstances which required a meeting to be prohibited. It should not be left to the caprice of a single individual. He thought that that was not an unreasonable proposal. It ought not to be within the uncontrolled discretion of the Executive to curtail any man's liberty and privileges; and, in his opinion, the Amendment would exercise some check upon the authorities, by providing that the information as to the danger likely to result from a meeting should be given on oath. If the Amendment were accepted, he thought they would be able to go on rapidly with the remaining parts of the Bill. He and his Colleagues would do all in their power to expedite it. [Cries of "No!"from the Irish Members.] What he meant was that they would not do anything of a dilatory character to prolong the discussion. He must say that, to a certain extent, he looked upon the Bill as inevitable. No doubt, they all wished to have the provisions of the Bill properly discussed; but they would not obstruct if they were met in a conciliatory spirit as regarded the Amendments they might feel it their duty to propose.

Amendment proposed, In page 4, line 15, after the word "believe," to insert the words "grounded upon information in writing and on oath."—(Mr. Marum.)

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

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he would be glad if he could meet the views of the hon. and learned Member, who always showed a reasonable spirit; but the fact was that this very same question had been discussed at considerable length on the 1st clause of the Bill as to whether the Lord Lieutenant should exercise his discretion in regard to suspending trial by jury. The question then considered was, whether the Lord Lieutenant should act upon his own responsibility, or whether it was necessary he should have sworn information from other persons? The Government argued upon that clause that full responsibility in the matter must be left to the Lord Lieutenant, and that there should be no one else upon whom the responsibility could be thrown. It was quite plain that a dangerous meeting might be suddenly called, and that very little notice that it was going to be held might be given. Under such circumstances, there might not be sufficient time to get the sworn information to which the Amendment pointed; and, therefore, he was bound to say that the ground on which he declined to accept the Amendment was the same ground on which he had declined to accept a similar Amendment on the 1st clause.

MR. SEXTON

said, he did not know whether his hon. and learned Friend felt much honoured by the compliment which had been paid to him by the right hon. and learned Gentleman in regard to the reasonable spirit which had actuated him. He hoped his hon. and learned Friend had well considered the somewhat ardent disposition he seemed to possess to expedite the passage of the Bill. It did not seem that any desire to expedite the Bill by exercising forbearance on the part of the Irish Members would be met in a corresponding spirit by Her Majesty's Government. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary said, in answer to the Amendment, that the responsibility must remain with the Lord Lieutenant. It was needless to point out that the responsibility would equally remain with the Lord Lieutenant, whether he acted upon sworn information or upon hearsay evidence, or some mere whisper, or some vague letter. In any case the belief of the Lord Lieutenant would be the supreme factor. The Amendment allowed the Lord Lieutenant full and free play over every description of public meeting whatever. It did not propose to limit the criminal responsibility of holding an improper meeting even in the case of an ignorant person who, by misadventure, might be present at such a meeting. It left this grievous blow at the rights of the subject untouched. It only sought to accomplish one single object—namely, that the Lord Lieutenant, before declaring a meeting unlawful, and exposing an innocent person to be imprisoned for six months with hard labour, should act upon sworn information. They were told by the Home Secretary that a meeting might be called suddenly, and that the Lord Lieutenant might not have time to get sworn information. Upon that point he would challenge the right hon. and learned Gentleman to sustain or verify his argument by any reference to past facts connected with Ireland. Was it a fact that these meetings were convened with haste? Was it not well known that there was always a week or a fortnight's notice of them in advance? The notices were distributed freely in the locality, and there was ample time to prepare evidence, because in Ireland the police were ubiquitous. They consisted of a large force distributed very skilfully all over the country, and nothing could take place in the humblest hamlet or the remotest nook without their knowledge. As soon as it was decided to hold a meeting the police knew when and where it was to be held, and what was the object of it. Under these circumstances, with an intelligent force pervading the whole of Ireland, and exercising a vigilant surveillance over the whole public proceedings of the country, he could not see why it should not be necessary to have a sworn information. The police, in every case, could furnish such information, and could state the grounds they had for apprehending a breach of the peace. A meeting could be prohibited for two causes—one that a breach of the peace was apprehended at the meeting itself, and another that danger was apprehended to some person who resided in the district, Those were the two grounds which would justify the Lord Lieutenant in proceeding to take action, and it would be perfectly easy for sworn information to be got, and to transmit it to Dublin Castle. If sworn information were required, two advantages would follow. One would be that the Lord Lieutenant, before prohibiting a meeting, would have before him evidence on the subject in regular form. At present the Government avoided the point, by arguing that sworn information would evade the responsibility of the Lord Lieutenant. In this objection they were acting with an ignorance remarkable in persons of their experience and ingenuity. The only effect of requiring the Lord Lieutenant to act upon sworn information would be to assure the people of Ireland that the Lord Lieutenant, before he used this drastic power, had evidence before him—that he was not prohibiting a public meeting upon the mere whisper of the informer, or the tattle of the spy, but upon a tangible statement placed before him in regular form on the sanction of an oath. The second advantage would be that if the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant was subsequently questioned, it would be open to the Irish Representatives to require the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to lay upon the Table the sworn information upon which His Excellency had acted, or, at any rate, to call upon him to do so, leaving the onus of a refusal upon the right hon. Gentleman himself. Whenever the rights of the subject were affected, or the liberties of the people abrogated, it was not only a matter of extreme importance, but of right, that there should be in the official archives a record of the reasons which had led to such an interference with liberty. That was his only reason for supporting this demand for sworn information. He had listened until he was sick of hearing of the Government acting upon their own responsibility. It was an empty and misleading phrase. In this matter the Government had no responsibility whatever. Responsibility meant liability to answer, and responsibility ceased when the Government refused to answer. It was in order to give the materials for enabling them to answer that he called upon them to act only on sworn information.

MR. DILLWYN

said, he must confess that he looked upon the Amendment as a very important one, and he still entertained hopes that the Government might be induced to agree to it. The Home Secretary said it was not necessary, in matters of this kind, for the Lord Lieutenant to have sworn information, because he did not require it in cases where he suspended trial by jury. That sounded very well; but, at the same time, it must be remembered that when they suspended trial by jury they substituted another tribunal, which they considered to be quite as satisfactory. But here it was not the case of substituting one tribunal for another, but the case of constituting a new crime; and he certainly thought that before they constituted a new crime the Lord Lieutenant ought to be satisfied by sworn information before he proceeded to take action. He (Mr. Dillwyn) was, therefore, of opinion that this was a most important Amendment, and that it ought to be adopted. In the one case they substituted a new tribunal, and in the other they constituted a new crime. Everyone who recognized the importance of this distinction would, he was satisfied, support the Amendment.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he wished to call the attention of the Committee to another point in the reply of the Home Secretary, where the right hon. and learned Gentleman directed attention to the 1st clause of the Bill. Under that clause, persons who were to be put on their trial before the Special Commission constituted by the Bill must, in the first instance, have been committed for trial upon sworn evidence. First of all, a sworn information must have been laid before a magistrate, and must have been brought under the knowledge of the Attorney General, who, on reading it, would have directed a prosecution; but, in the case to which the Amendment applied, there would be no evidence of any information having been given at all. The Lord Lieutenant might, of his own mere motion, without any information at all from anybody, prohibit a meeting; and he thought it was in the interests of the Lord Lieutenant himself that the Amendment should be accepted, because, in that case, the Lord Lieutenant might be able to say—"I had no opinion whatever as to the desirability of holding this meeting; but I have been reading a statement that something unlawful is likely to take place at it, and, therefore, it is my duty to prohibit it." To supply the Lord Lieutenant with evidence of some kind would be satisfactory to this extent—that it would raise a reasonable suspicion in his mind that some disorder might take place; and, in the next place, he would be able to offer some tangible and reasonable excuse for prohibiting a public meeting. As the matter now stood, the Lord Lieutenant could offer no excuse at all, further than that someone thought it was undesirable to hold the meeting. If the Lord Lieutenant had, in writing, on sworn information, the grounds on which he founded his decision, it would be a perfect answer to any complaint made against him or the Government for suppressing a meeting; but there would be no answer at all if there was an entire absence of any writing, or of any information on oath. In such a case the responsibility would be entirely thrown upon the Lord Lieutenant, and he would have no means of defending himself. If the Lord Lieutenant had the safeguard provided by the Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kilkenny (Mr. Marum); if it was proposed to censure him for having prohibited a public meeting, he would be able to fall back upon the information upon which he had acted; which he would be unable to do if he acted upon hearsay evidence alone, because the person upon whose testimony the Lord Lieutenant acted would inevitably, in the event of a question being raised as to the wisdom of the discretion exercised, dispute what it was alleged he had actually said. Therefore, in the interest of the Lord Lieutenant himself, it would be much better to agree to the present Amendment; and it was also desirable, because it was not impossible that there might be sworn evidence of a dishonest character, in which case it would be the duty of the Irish Representatives to expose the transaction, and to call upon the Government to dismiss the person by whom it had been given. But, as the case now stood, there were no means of tracing who the informer was, or of testing the value of his information, or of finding out whether a meeting had been improperly prohibited. He regretted that the Government should steadfastly decline to be influenced by argument or reason; but, at the same time, it was the duty of the Irish Mem- bers to press these considerations upon their attention.

MR. O'KELLY

said, he did not know whether the Government still refused to accept the Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kilkenny (Mr. Marum). Whenever there was a reasonable ground for interfering with a meeting, no doubt the Lord Lieutenant would receive abundant information to enable him to act. It would be in the power of the police to supply ample sworn information. It might put the Government to a small amount of additional trouble; but in a most important matter of this kind, where the liberties of the people were at stake, the Government ought not to hesitate taking trouble when it became necessary in order to base their action upon reasonable cause. If the Government acted as they would be able to act under the clause as it stood, the rights of public meeting would be at the mercy of any malicious person in Ireland; and they would see occurring, very frequently, what had already occurred in the past—namely, that some malicious person in a district would supply the Lord Lieutenant with information, which had no solid foundation whatever, and thereby deprive the people of the district of the right to hold a public meeting. He thought these were powers which the Government ought to exercise with the utmost discretion, and that they ought to surround their exercise with every possible guarantee for the liberty of the subject. If they accepted this Amendment, some slight guarantee would still remain for the right of public meeting. There would also be this further advantage—that there would be some ground available for the House by which it might be able to pass a judgment upon the action of the Lord Lieutenant. It was most important, he thought, that hon. Members should be able to challenge the action of the Irish Executive. The Irish Executive was a centralized Body, and it acted from motives which the public had great difficulty in understanding. It was desirable that the Members from Ireland should be able to challenge the Representatives of the Executive in that House to defend the action they deemed it expedient to take. If the Amendment were adopted, there would be a record on which to go, by which they would be able to pin the Government to a responsibility for everything they did.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 41; Noes 59: Majority 18.—(Div. List, No. 139.)

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, in the absence of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), he begged to move the Amendment next upon the Paper. It would be evident to the Committee that the words "dangerous to the public safety" might be applied to anything that the Government found to disagree with their own views. The meaning of the Amendment was, therefore, obvious, and ho trusted the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary would be able to agree to it.

Amendment proposed, in page 4, line 16, to leave out the words "or the public safety."—(Mr. T. P. O'Connor.)

Question proposed, "That the words 'or the public safety' stand part of the Clause."

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he had already stated that he had followed the language of the Act of 1833. The words "public peace or the public safety" indicated what it was that the clause was intended to protect, and to omit them would be to take away the very ground on which the clause rested.

MR. HEALY

said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to think there was no material difference between the state of the country at the present time, and the state of the country 50 years ago, and his argument practically amounted to this—that what was good for Ireland then was good now. It was quite clear that the clause would enable the Lord Lieutenant to stop any meeting he pleased, and he was unable to see why the clause did not end at "meeting" in line 15. To his mind, there was no reason whatever for the remaining words of the clause, and the argument that they were included in this Bill because they were in the Act of 1893 was inadmissible. Irish Members desired a statement as to the character of the meetings which the Government wished to prohibit, because he did not attach much importance to the words of qualification at the end of the clause. If he called a meeting to advocate the cutting down of rents 25 per cent, and told the tenants not to pay without that reduction, would that be considered an illegal meeting? Meetings of the kind were announced by placards, and anyone drawing up the announcement would take care to frame it so as to make it as peaceable as possible. If he intended to do an illegal act ho would use no words in the placard tending to discover to the Executive the real character of the meeting. It would, therefore, be left to the opinion of the magistrates. Now, the meetings held in Ireland were generally for the purpose of considering the rent question, and hence the importance of a statement on the part of the Government. Again, the Government might have a Bill before Parliament to deal with the Land Question, for instance, and a meeting might be called to consider it. Was that the kind of meeting the Government wished to prevent? Did the Government mean that the magistrates in various parts of Ireland were to be intrusted with the grave power of suppressing public meetings? He would not then enter upon a discussion of the character of the Resident Magistrates; but he said that the men who had to do with the suppression of crime in Ireland wore the last men in the world to be intrusted with the powers of the clause, because it was very well known that if a man was in a position in which he was intrusted with the maintenance of peace and order of a district, he would be likely to strain a point in what he believed to be the interest of peace and order. He would consider that the main thing was the maintenance of peace and order, and that the interest of the subject was of very little importance as compared with it. It was very easy to understand a Resident Magistrate putting down a public meeting on the mere assumption that the public peace might be disturbed if it took place. He would not say that in this matter the Lord Lieutenant's check did not amount to something, but he did say that, as the Resident Magistrates were the persons from whom the Executive Government were bound to get their information, unless some statement were made as to the kind of meetings aimed at, the power in the clause was too wide to give to any individual. Again, it was not clear whether it was intended to put down indoor as well as outdoor meetings, and he asked, if it was not the intention of the Government to suppress indoor meetings, that this should be stated in the Bill. He believed there wore not more than half-a-dozen towns in Ireland in which buildings existed suitable for a meeting of 500 persons. Of course, the urban population had, comparatively speaking, not the same interest in the rent question as the rural population; and although he could understand the Government taking power to prevent meetings in rural districts, he could not see why they should be at so much trouble to prevent meetings in the cities of Dublin, Cork, or Belfast, for instance. Ho thought some consideration was due to the arguments advanced in favour of the Amendment, which he trusted the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary to the Home Department would see his way to adopt.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, it was difficult to define the character of the meetings over which this power was to be exercised. The hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) had put the case of a meeting being called for the purpose of adversely criticizing a Bill to deal with the Irish Land Question, which the Government of the day might have before Parliament, and ho had asked whether such a meeting would come within the meaning of the clause? He should say certainly it would not. With regard to the use of the words proposed to be omitted, from the hon. Member's own point of view, if he believed the power of the clause would be abused, it was really immaterial whether the words were left out or not. But Her Majesty's Government did believe that these words would be binding on the conscience of the Lord Lieutenant. Probably the hon. Member thought that the Lord Lieutenant, ex-officio, had no conscience; but the Government had proceeded on the opposite assumption, and believed he would be bound by the directions contained in the Act, and that ho would not stop any meeting, however adverse it might be to himself or the Government, unless he were convinced that the meeting would be injurious to the public peace or the public safety. That was the reason why these words were put into the clause; and as, from the hon. Member's point of view, it was said they were of no use at all, he would suggest that the opposition to them should be withdrawn. With regard to the question as to whether the Act would apply to indoor meetings, he should say that it would so apply. It would be found in the Act of 1833 that power was given to the magistrates to enter any house, room, or other place where they had information that meetings were to be held; and the object of the Government would not be fulfilled if indoor meetings of an inflammatory kind were allowed on occasions and under circumstances likely to lead to the use of language calculated to be injurious to the public safety, because although the meeting might be of little interest in the urban district in which it was held, the report of it would be sent far and wide in the country. These were the views of Her Majesty's Government; and, although he could not hope to persuade hon Members opposite to adopt them, he had felt it his duty to state the grounds on which the Government proposed this clause of the Bill. That being so, he trusted he should not be considered to act unreasonably in declining to accept an Amendment which was inconsistent with the intention of the Government. The words "or public safety" were meant as an instruction to the Lord Lieutenant that he should read by their light the information which he might receive from the Resident Magistrates. For his own part, he believed that this object would be fulfilled, and that the Lord Lieutenant would act strictly in accordance with what he understood to be the intention of the Government.

MR. SEXTON

said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had informed the Committee that Irish Members in that part of the House were desirous that the words "public peace" should be left out of the clause as well as the words "public safety." But that was not so; the proposal was simply to leave out the words "or public safety." They all understood the meaning of the former words, but felt that in speaking of "public safety" they were entering upon the region of the vague and the mysterious. It appeared to him to be perfectly consistent with the Government intentions that this phrase, which dated from the worst period in the French Revolution, should be omitted from the clause. The right hon. and learned Gentleman desired the Com- mittee to remember that the liberties of the people of Ireland were protected by the conscience of the Lord Lieutenant. He (Mr. Sexton) would point out that in a calculation of this kind the Lord Lieutenant's conscience was an unknown quantity, and whatever might be the estimate placed upon it by the Secretary to the Home Department, he, for one, objected to the conscience of any man being the arbiter of the liberties of Irishmen; and he invited hon. Members to consider how the English people would act and think if it were proposed to confide their liberties to the conscience of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. The hon. Member for Wexford had put a very pertinent question when he asked why the phrase "public safety," taken from the Act of 1833, was considered good enough to suit the present day? The two periods were perfectly distinct in their characteristics, and he had already pointed out that the country, in the year 1833, was in a state of insurrectionary movement, or rather in a state of inchoate civil war. The measures which it might have been well to apply to the state of things then existing were quite inadequate or inapplicable to the present. Moreover, it could not be too often pointed out that persons who attended public meetings were not under the Act of 1833, as a matter of course, thrown into gaol at the will of the Lord Lieutenant. They had an opportunity of questioning the decision of the Lord Lieutenant—they held their meetings, and after that they had the right to go before a jury. These were things which constituted a remarkable difference between the Act of 1833 and the Bill now before the Committee, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman could not be said to have touched his case until he had shown why it was reasonable that the Constitutional right of trial by jury should be left untouched in 1833, and abolished in 1882. No matter on what important point Irish Members sought to amend this Bill, their efforts were unavailing. Their object had been simply to define the powers of the Lord Lieutenant, so that the people might know under what circumstances they would come under the lash of that power; they had endeavoured to define the conditions on which the Lord Lieutenant should interfere, and to obtain some idea of the kind of information on which he would act; but on each of these points they had been met by the right hon. and learned Gentleman with a distinct refusal. The proposal that the Lord Lieutenant should prohibit public meetings when the public peace was endangered had been admitted by his hon. Friends to be reasonable and intelligible; but this expression, "public safety," was vague and indefinite in the extreme. The present clause would extend the powers of the Lord Lieutenant, which now almost amounted to omnipotence, in a sense that would require him to be acquainted, not only with the past and present, but with the future. He contended that the Amendment was a most reasonable one, and that so long as the Government could exercise their power of preventing the disturbance of the public peace, which was a very well understood thing, it was unnecessary to give them powers, under the phrase of "public safety," which would allow them to suppress all political discussions, and prevent criticism on the Party in power.

MR. CHARLES RUSSELL

said, he thought that the Amendment would not at all interfere with the object which the Government professed to have in introducing this clause into the Bill. Either the public safety was the same thing as the public peace, or it was not. If it were not so, then he thought the Government should inform the Committee what meaning they attached to the phrase, because he assumed that when the Bill passed into law they would have some definite idea of its meaning in their mind. As far as he could understand from his right hon. and learned Friend's defence of the phrase "public safety," some such language was to be found in the Act of 1833. But that was not a very apt precedent. The Act of 1833 was a very severe one; it was brought in when Lord Wellesley was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and two years afterwards it was obliged to be admitted that it was a total failure, inasmuch as, notwithstanding the extensive powers which it gave to the Executive, it was safer to disobey than to obey the law. Unless his right hon. and learned Friend was prepared to state the meaning which he attached to the words "public safety," it seemed to him not unreasonable that the Amendment should be accepted.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, he did not think the words were of great importance one way or another. They seemed to him to be superfluous, and it was difficult to understand why the Government were so firm in insisting upon them. The clause said— The Lord Lieutenant may, from time to time, by order in writing, to be published in the prescribed manner, prohibit any meeting which he has reason to believe to be dangerous to the public peace or the public safety. Now, he would like to know how a thing could be dangerous to the public safety without being dangerous to the public peace. He could not see anything in the words which the Amendment sought to strike out but mere surplusage. He could imagine an occurrence which would endanger the public safety without laying individuals or a number of persons open to the charge of having imperilled the public peace. An earthquake, for instance, might imperil the public safety very much; but he did not see how anybody in Ireland could be held accountable for the occurrence of an earthquake, even under this Act. What, then, was the use of the words? Was it not sufficient for all purposes of the Government that the Lord Lieutenant should have power to suppress meetings which he believed to be dangerous to the public peace? There was no need for him to go beyond that, nor, turning his eyes to the distant future, to form fantastic notions of possible events which might occur years hence when politics and laws had undergone very material alterations. If that were so, there was no need for the retention of these paltry words in the clause. It was a noticeable fact that whenever Irish Members on those Benches, or hon. Members opposite, proposed to leave out any words, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary to the Home Department rose at once and declared that the words in question constituted, so to speak, the gem or pearl of the measure, and that without them the rest of the Bill would be useless. That was the case with regard to the words "public safety." He never knew an individual who set such an extraordinary value on every atom of his work as did the Home Secretary, who told them the Bill would be mangled if these words were left out. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary was a bold legislator; but it seemed to require a great amount of hardihood to make such a contention in the face of facts.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, the hon. Member having described the words "public safety" as being paltry and little, one would have supposed he would be content to let them alone. But, for his part, he regarded them as words of importance which should be retained in the clause. The hon. Member had complained that the Government never accepted the suggestions of himself and his Friends. But he would point out that, in making those suggestions, hon. Members opposite were, so to speak, trying "to pick the plums out of the pudding;" and, under those circumstances, it was not to be wondered at that he was rather anxious to retain them. Hon. Members opposite had an aptitude to discover the exact words which, by their omission or insertion, would neutralize every section of the Bill. It had been said that the condition of Ireland in 1833 was much worse than at the present time. He wished he could think it was so. Ho believed the condition of Ireland was quite as bad as it was in 1833, and that it was even more liable to inflammation by dangerous language. It was this that the Government desired to guard against. As regarded the first part of the clause, it was only intended to confirm and sanction what had been done and what was being done. With regard to the second part it was intended only to give a more summary and complete power of stopping public meetings. It must, therefore, not be supposed that now for the first time the stoppage of public meetings was suggested. As he had before pointed out, he could not hope that hon. Members opposite would agree with the view of the Government; but he had felt it his duty to state, as clearly as possible, what were the intentions of the Government, and what was the meaning of the words in question. Notwithstanding it had been said that the Lord Lieutenant would not be restrained by these words, but would stop every meeting, Her Majesty's Government believed that the Lord Lieutenant would consider himself strictly bound by them. Her Majesty's Government had deliberately included these words in the Bill, and they regarded them as proper directions to the Lord Lieutenant, that, in the exercise of his power to prohibit public meetings, he should consider what was dangerous to the public peace or the public safety.

MR. GIVAN

said, he differed from many hon. Members opposite, and he also took a different view to the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had spoken last. The Amendment was certainly a very dangerous and bitter plum for the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary. One could understand what was dangerous to the public peace, but no human being could understand what the words "public safety" might be construed to mean. At the present time small meetings were being held in his own county, to protest against most iniquitous proceedings that had been taken on behalf of the landlords. The landlords were suing their tenants by writ, in order to obtain their arrears of rent before the Arrears Bill was passed. These meetings might, under this clause, be construed to be dangerous to the public safety of a certain class. He would ask the Home Secretary whether a meeting called to protest against iniquitous proceedings of this kind were to be suppressed because, in the opinion of a magistrate representing the Lord Lieutenant, they were meetings to protest against the exercise of a just right on the part of the landlords? As the words now stood—namely, "public peace or public safety"—the Lord Lieutenant might be induced to believe that even a meeting convened by tenant farmers for legitimate or legal purposes might be dangerous to the safety of a particular interest, and, therefore, ought to be suppressed. Several months ago a meeting was held in the town of Saintfield to review the proceedings of the Commissioners. The police attended, in the belief that it was intended to denounce the action of the Commissioners; but it turned out that the meeting was held for the purpose of acknowledging the benefit the Prime Minister had conferred on Ireland by the passing of the Land Act. This was one of the most dangerous powers that could be given to any Government; but as he believed every reasonable power ought to be given to the Lord Lieutenant for the suppression of crime, he would offer no opposition to His Excellency having power to suppress meetings dangerous to the public peace. He, however, thought that the words "public safety" would be liable to misconstruction.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Givan) had made a discovery rather late in the day. The hon. and learned Gentleman had spoken of some meetings just hold in the North of Ireland; but ho must be perfectly aware that the landlords were only exercising their legal rights, although they were making a very unjust and wicked use of their legal rights. His hon. and learned Friend must very well know that in protesting against the exercise of legal rights by landlords he was violating the 4th clause of the Act, which he (Mr. Givan) and many of his Friends supported. If such meetings as those the tenants of Monaghan hold to protest against iniquities on the part of landlords were to be put down by this Act, the hon. Gentleman himself would have a very heavy responsibility on his own shoulders. The words "public safety" had a most important bearing; they entirely enlarged, and not merely enlarged, but altered, the scope and even the purpose of the clause. What was the meaning of the words? Public safety in practice meant the status quo; public safety bore such a meaning in the minds of those who controlled and influenced and upheld the status quo. The right hon, and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary was justified in objecting to that definition of public safety, because it was by breaking down the status quo in a country on the Continent of Europe that the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his Colleagues secured their present positions. He took it that, as a general rule, the public safety and the status quo were, in the eye of the existing Government, convertible terms. The Home Secretary and his Colleagues Lad based their Bill on the disturbed state of Ireland—on the crimes and outrages prevailing there. But the public safety was not required to include every outrage and crime committed in Ireland. Every crime and outrage committed in Ireland was a crime and outrage against the public peace. What, then, did the Home Secretary mean by keeping in the clause the words "public safety?" He meant to retain for the Lord Lieutenant the right to put down any meeting which did not suit the Vice-Regal or Party purposes of the Lord Lieutenant for the time being. If the Government wanted to put down crime and outrage, the words "public peace" were quite sufficient for their purpose; but if they wanted to interfere with the right of public meeting, if they wanted to stifle the expression of free political opinion, they required the words "public safety;" these words were required if the Government wished to have the expression of political opinion dependent upon their will and pleasure. The Home Secretary had used a new argument in favour of the Bill, for ho said these words would be binding on the conscience of the Lord Lieutenant. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had read of various forms of conscience in the course of his political reading. The late Lord Beaconsfield once spoke of an historic conscience; but now a new kind of conscience had been unfolded—the Vice-Regal conscience. The Vice-Royalty was a pale and shadowy reflex of Royalty, and he supposed the Vice-Regal conscience would be a shadowy reflex of the honest conscience which ought to allow a free expression of opinion. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary knew what he was doing by keeping in these words. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had given the right hon. and learned Gentleman credit all through for knowing exactly what he meant in this Bill. The right hon. and learned Gentleman wanted to maketheBill as autocratic as he could; he did not much mind stopping crime and outrage, but wanted to put down, wherever he could, honest expression of opinion which might be inconvenient to the English Government.

MR. DILLWYN

said, one of the objections he had to the Bill was that new crime and now power should be disposed of by generalities. The hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell) and the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Givan) had challenged the Home Secretary to give a definition of public safety, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman had not yet done so. Were the words to be absolutely undefined? Were they to be construed to mean anything? He listened very attentively to the speech of the Home Secretary, but it gave him no satisfaction. He trusted they might, even yet, receive some satisfactory definition of the words.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)

said, it must be obvious to everybody that the Bill was not introduced for the purpose of re-enacting any existing laws. It was a Bill which was brought in to meet a special state of circumstances—a state of circumstances which every Member of the community, and particularly every Irishman, must view with the greatest regret, no matter what their opinion might be as to the remedy proposed. The Bill was intended to meet a temporary emergency, and the Bill would be temporary in its character. It proposed restrictions upon personal liberty, and this clause was one which pointed in that direction. Necessity, however, justified the interference which this clause would introduce. No one regretted more than he did the certainty, which did appear to him, that this was an absolutely necessary clause. The words proposed to be omitted were very important, and he would tell the Committee why. A meeting that was calculated to interfere with the public peace was one which the authorities should have power to put down. The words "public safety" appeared to be as important as the words "public peace." It should not be forgotten that many of the meetings which had been prohibited, and which in the interest of good government and order must necessarily be prohibited, were meetings not calculated to promote that which lawyers would call a breach of the peace. Everybody who knew anything about the state of Ireland knew that many meetings had been held, and many others had been prohibited, the intention of which was not to produce any immediate breach of the peace, and as to which meetings no conscientious man in the position of the Lord Lieutenant could certify that, in his opinion, the intention was to create a breach of the peace. As a matter of fact, the meetings were intended to promote a no less dangerous form of crime—for crime it would be when this Bill passed—he referred to "Boycotting." Numbers of meetings had been called for that purpose, and it was an opinion very prevalently held that, in order to meet the present existing state of facts, it was absolutely necessary to give the Government power to deal with these meetings. The meetings were held to denounce certain individuals, and to recommend that the denunciation should be enforced by the sanction of social exclusion. Everybody knew that a denunciation of a person acquired immense force from the attendance of a large number of people at the meeting; and it was in order to grapple with the general practice of "Boycotting"—widely extended and largely diffused—it was in order to prevent public meetings for that purpose he had described amongst others, that this clause was imperatively necessary. A good deal had been said as to the vagueness of the clause, and as to the danger of intrusting the power the clause provided to the Lord Lieutenant or to anyone. There was, of course, a certain amount of risk; but hon. Members ought to see that the interposition of the Lord Lieutenant was an interposition in favour of the liberty of the subject, and not against it. The clause was not designed to prohibit all meetings. If a meeting was prohibited the prohibition must be left to some authority. That authority could not be a legal tribunal, because it was impossible, in the first instance, to say what the character of the meeting would be. The prohibition must be left to the discretion of some person, and that discretion must be regulated, not by vague statement, but by legal principles, which must be clearly defined His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Givan) had given instances of meetings, which meetings he thought would be prohibited under these words of the clause. It appeared to him (the Solicitor General for Ireland) that the words of the Bill were carefully chosen so as to prevent any interference with Constitutional liberty, and that the cases which his hon. and learned Friend had referred to were cases of meetings which would have been considered, under the Act of 1833, calculated to interfere with the due administration of the law. They were not meetings which could be thought to be dangerous to the public peace or the public safety. As he had said, the discretion must be left somewhere; and he thought that the guide which was afforded by this section, and the responsibility which the powers imposed upon the present Lord Lieutenant, or upon any Gentleman who might succeed him in his high and responsible position, would be a sufficient guarantee that the extensive powers of the Bill would not be used unless the Lord Lieutenant saw it was absolutely necessary for the public peace or public safety that they should be used. Whilst in Ireland many meetings had been prohibited, meetings which were of a perfectly Constitutional character had never been prohibited.

MR. LALOR

said, he thought the Government were guilty of want of candour in withholding from the Committee the true meaning of the clause. Up to the present the Government had not had the courage to arrest the members of the Ladies' Land League and cast them into gaol as "suspects." They had not the courage to say that the meetings of the Ladies' League were calculated to provoke a breach of the peace; but he had no doubt that, under this clause, the Lord Lieutenant would hold the meetings were dangerous to the public safety.

MR. GILL

said, it was a very curious thing that, notwithstanding the appeals of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell) and other hon. Members, no Member of the Government, up to the present, had given any definition whatever of the words "public safety." The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland had mentioned "Boycotting," and that was the only thing that ho could bring forward. He (Mr. Gill) considered that that expression, "public safety," was exceedingly vague and misleading. For instance, ho did not see why, under this Act, the Lord Lieutenant should not prohibit meetings which might be called to consider the maladministration of the Land Act. It might certainly be illegal to hold meetings to condemn the Land Act itself; but he did not see why meetings should he illegal if they were simply called to condemn the administration of that Act. But the Lord Lieutenant, with the political conscience that had been attributed to him, might see a danger to the public safety even in a meeting called to condemn the administration of the Land Act. There were very many meetings which might be prevented in a similar way. The Attorney General for Ireland had said that the administration of this Act would be quite different from anything that might bring these meetings before a Court of Justice. The Government had stopped, by refusing an Amendment to this Bill, anything which could make the administration resemble a Court of Jus- tice; they had refused to assent to the proposition that the reasons for prohibiting meetings should be sent up to the Lord Lieutenant in writing and upon oath. They had already refused to admit this Amendment, which was considered a great safeguard in the administration of this clause. The things that might be held to imperil the public safety would be so numerous, according to the conscience of the person who might administer this clause, that they should certainly be defined. For instance, if the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland had a proper political conscience, similar to that of the Prime Minister or the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and many others—if there were meetings called to interfere with Free Trade, they might be prevented in Ireland. If the conscience of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was similar to that of many hon. Gentlemen sitting on this side of the House, he might prohibit meetings called in favour of Free Trade; in fact, there was no kind of meeting, politically speaking, that might not be prevented by the great latitude given by the words "public safety." Would the Home Secretary consent to put in the word "and," instead of "or," so that the clause would read "public peace and public safety?" That would give a certain amount of protection to free political opinion in Ireland.

MR. W. HOLMS

said, he trusted the Committee would not agree to the proposal of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), that they should allow meetings to be held endangering the public safety. They might safely trust the Lord Lieutenant to say whether meetings, if held, would be antagonistic to the public safety. It was true that there was nothing which the English people held more dear than liberty of speech and the liberty of the Press; but he thought the Committee might fairly trust to the Lord Lieutenant in this matter.

MR. LEAMY

said, the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down thought they—that was the English Members—might safely trust the Lord Lieutenant in Ireland to decide whether a proposed meeting was likely to be dangerous to the public safety. He would like to know whether the hon. Member would be prepared to stand up in this House and say that, under any circumstances, be was prepared to trust any man in England to decide whether a proposed meeting was likely to endanger the public safety? The hon. Member told them how jealous the English people were of the freedom of speech and of the right of public meeting, and, at the same time, he refused to support an Amendment which was only calculated, ever so slightly, to preserve to Ireland some vestige of freedom of speech. This Amendment was not open to the charge that it was one calculated to kill the clause. The Irish Members supported the Amendment only because they believed the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Givan) had aptly described "public safety" when he said the words conferred on the Lord Lieutenant a dubious and unlimited power. The Solicitor General for Ireland said the words had been carefully selected, so that this power should not interfere with Constitutional liberty. The hon. and learned Gentleman forgot that, at the opening of his speech, he said that this clause was one which tended to the restriction of the right of public meeting. He (Mr. Leamy) did not know what difference there was between Constitutional and public liberty.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)

remarked, that he said that it interfered as little as possible with public liberty.

MR. LEAMY

said, that, of course, he would accept the explanation of the hon. and learned Gentleman, but he would like to put this question to the Committee. They all had before their minds the great agitation of the last two or three years; and he would like to ask any man on the Liberal Benches whether, if the Lord Lieutenant had had power, when the Tories were in Office, to put down any meeting which he believed would be likely to be dangerous to the public safety, that agitation would not have been put down by the simple exercise of such power? He was not now going to make any charge against the Tories; but he was perfectly certain that the majority of the Irish Conservatives believed that the land agitation was hostile to the public safety, quite independently of any interest which was likely to be assailed by that agitation. He believed that the majority of Conservatives, not merely in Ireland, but in England, were firmly convinced that the land agitation was at any time during the three years—certainly when it assumed any large proportions at all—hostile to the public safety. Therefore, if this Bill had been law, a Conservative Lord Lieutenant would have put these meetings down, and would have put an end to that agitation which had assisted the present Government to pass their Land Bill, and which was encouraged by the present Government so long as it served their purposes, but which they were inclined to put down now because they thought that they could do without it. It was for these reasons that he and his hon. Friends objected to these words. Any great agitation spreading over the country—any agitation which brought large masses of the people within its ranks, and which had for its object a great reform—might, in the opinion of the Government of the day, be dangerous to the public safety. And what had they to do? They would simply have to request the Lord Lieutenant to stop every meeting of such agitation, and, if called to account, they would simply point to this clause in the Act of Parliament in justification of their action. If their action were to be called into question in the House of Commons, the Chief Secretary would say, as he said to-day— If I am asked any question with reference to the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant, I shall answer the question in the most general terms. Of course, if they gave this power to the Lord Lieutenant it was impossible for them to call his action into question. They were told, when the last Coercion Bill was going through the House, they might bring every case of arrest before the House, and they might, if they chose, discuss every arrest. When, however, they did bring cases of arrest before the House, what answer did the late Chief Secretary give them? He got up in his place and said he acted under an Act of Parliament which this House had passed; he exercised a reasonable suspicion under the Act, and that was all he had to do. If a meeting was prohibited in Ireland, and they asked a question of the Chief Secretary, what would he say? He would say that this House, after mature deliberation and by a large majority, gave to the Lord Lieutenant these exceptional powers, and that when they gave these exceptional powers they must have expected them to be exer- cised. Yes, and the Lord Lieutenant would exercise them with a vengeance! It was plain that the object of the Liberal Party was to put down proper agitation in Ireland; but he had no doubt that they would be sorry for the step they were now taking.

SIR HARRY VERNEY

said, the great object of the Bill was to bring peace to Ireland, and he was astonished that the Irish Members did not unite with the Government in passing a measure which would assuredly conduce to the welfare of their country. For 55 years he had had in his employment between 50 and 60 Irishmen, who came every year for the hay harvest, and they had behaved remarkably well. For 55 years he had never had a complaint to make against any one of those Irish people; and at this moment there was in his house one family, some of whose members had come annually there for 85 years. It was painful to him, who had been associated with Irish people all his life, to find hon. Gentlemen opposite strenuously opposing a measure whose only object was to bring peace and tranquillity to their country, and to promote the investment of capital in that country. The lack of such investment was a matter from which Ireland greatly suffered, and anything which interfered with the public peace or public safety drove away capital. England would not invest capital in Ireland, unless the public peace there was assured, and the object of this Bill was to assure it. The opposition to this Bill was doing great injury abroad to the Irish cause, and if hon. Gentlemen opposite would only unite with the Government in passing this Act, they would find the opinion of Europe was with them. In former days he heard, over and over again, complaints made in foreign countries against the English government of Ireland; but now foreigners were beginning to find that no complaint was to be made against the conduct of the English in Ireland. They were beginning to learn that the English estates in Ireland were perfectly well managed.

THE CHAIRMAN

I am afraid I must call the hon. Baronet's attention to the fact that he is going beyond the subject.

SIR HARRY VERNEY

said, he was sorry if he, one of the oldest Members of the House, had for a moment trans- gressed. If he had done so, his only excuse could be that he had been carried away by his desire to influence, as much as he could, the welfare of Ireland. He appealed to hon. Gentlemen opposite to unite with the Government in restoring peace and tranquillity to Ireland, which was a most beautiful country, inhabited by a people full of humour, and having many good and attaching qualities. The ruffians who brought disgrace on it were not Irishmen, but Irish-Americans.

MR. O'DONNELL

assured the hon. and gallant Baronet who had just addressed the Committee, that the Irish Members fully recognized the warmth of the sympathies which he had expressed with regard to their country—and, indeed, if there was any chance of the hon. and gallant Baronet being appointed to carry out the provisions of this Bill—[Sir HARRY VERNEY: I would have great pleasure.]—many of their objections would vanish. All ho could do, in response to the hon. and gallant Baronet's appeal, was to assure him that if any English Government brought in a Bill for England anything akin to the atrocious character of this Bill, the Irish Members would be happy to unite with the hon. and gallant Baronet against it. They, however, had to deal in this matter with personages very different from the hon. and gallant Baronet; they had to deal with the regular supporters of Her Majesty's Government in Ireland, such as the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland and the hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. W. Holms), the latter of whom, with a love of liberty worthy of Wallace, had declared that he would have no objection to leave the liberties of an entire country at the disposal of one man.

MR. W. HOLMS

said, he drew a distinction between liberty and license,

MR. O'DONNELL

Very well. The worthy countryman of Wallace would leave it to a single person to distinguish between liberty and license. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland stated that it was the object of the Government, in opposing this Amendment, to restrict public liberty in Ireland as little as possible. He would like to know if it was the object of the Government to restrict public liberty in Ireland as much as possible? What better form of words could they have used than the form of words which existed in their unamended clause? The Lord Lieutenant was to have power to prohibit any meeting which he believed to be prejudicial to public safety, and the Committee were allowed no definition of what the Lord Lieutenant might consider to be prejudicial to the public safety. The formula of "public safety" was a very common one to autocrats and to Jacobins. Whether to an Irish individual tyrant, or to a committee of savage repression such as was found in the French Revolution, public safety was a common formula under which could be committed any deed of crime and terrorism. The hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. W. Holms) ingenuously chose to assume that the Irish Members were pleading for permission to hold meetings dangerous to the public safety in Ireland. The Irish Members were pleading for liberty to hold public meetings in Ireland which should not be summarily prevented at the caprice, which might be prompted by malevolence or mere ignorance, of any man who might be sent over to fill the post of Lord Lieutenant. This quibble of "public safety" received a very sufficient answer before the English Courts only a couple of days ago. There was a religious movement in England operating by great assemblies and processions, and a number of magistrates took it upon themselves to stop the gatherings of the Salvation Army on the plea of public safety; on the plea that if the meetings were permitted to be held tumults and disorder might be the consequence. Justices Field and Cave, however, pointed out that assemblies whose object was not in itself unlawful could not become unlawful or dangerous to the public safety simply because some person or persons might threaten to impede and obstruct the meetings and bring about tumults and brawls. On what ground could the Lord Lieutenant forbid a public meeting in Ireland on the plea of danger to public safety? Would he apprehend that some riot would take place at the meeting? It would be the duty of the Lord Lieutenant in that case to protect a lawful meeting against the rioters. The hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. W. Holms) said there was nothing of which Englishmen were more jealous than the right of public meeting. Emphatically he (Mr. O'Donnell) stated that it was only with regard to public meetings in England, and with regard to the liberties of Englishmen, that the English people were jealous. There was no exercise of tyrannical power in Ireland by the Lord Lieutenant which would not be supported by the English political Party to which that Lord Lieutenant belonged; and if, on the plea of public safety, the Lord Lieutenant sought, in the most brutal manner, to suppress lawful meetings in Ireland, his conduct would be treated with the same calm indifference by English public opinion which English public opinion showed when, on the plea of greater economy, English officials in India starved prisoners by hundreds in their gaols. Such a thing as sympathy with a race outside England, apart, of course, from political considerations and Party exigencies, existed only amongst a very small minority of the English people. If the Lord Lieutenant, when the clause was passed unamended, were to suppress, on the plea of public safety, every meeting called, no matter for what purpose, and if the Irish Members complained in that House of the suppression, the only answer they would receive from the Chief Secretary of the day, or from one or other Irish Officials in the House, would be that the Lord Lieutenant suppressed the meetings because, in his opinion, they were dangerous to the public safety, and the enthusiastic plaudits of the Government Party of the day would support any declaration of that description. In refusing to propose any limitation, in refusing to grant any definition which would enable the people to understand what was meant by the words "public safety," the Government simply gave a further indication of its intention to hand Ireland over to an uncontrolled and uncontrollable despotism. He did not know whether the liberators of Bulgaria had consulted any of the Turkish Pashas in this matter; but he could imagine no clause which was more worthy of Turkish domination than the present. There was no Bashi-Bazouk ever let loose in Bulgaria who did not make out that he laid waste the province out of his regard for public safety. He (Mr. O'Donnell) did not agree entirely with his hon. Friend the Member for Waterford in his denunciation of this Bill. This clause, allowing the Lord Lieutenant to suppress meetings dangerous to the public safety, would, he was sure, only be exercised in Ireland in a number of cases in which "public safety" was, in the view of the Government, a phrase interchangeable with the phrase "safety of a Ministerial policy and Party."

MR. MACLIVER

said, it was a great pity that Irish Members would persist in misrepresenting the feelings of hon. Gentlemen on the Liberal side of the House. Whatever might be said by Irish Members as to the right of public meeting, that right was held by Liberal Members more strongly, and more firmly, and more consistently, than it ever could be held by Irish Members. Irish Members ought to remember that the clause now before the Committee was one which was demanded by the condition of Ireland. It was folly to compare the condition of Ireland with the condition of England, and to say that the same law with regard to public meeting should be observed in Ireland as was now observed in England. It was also unfair to Members on the Liberal side of the House to say that they would have no disposition to impose on any other part of the United Kingdom except Ireland the conditions with regard to public meetings that it was proposed to impose by this clause. Liberal Members would not shrink from imposing restrictions upon the right of public meetings upon any part of the Kingdom where it was shown the state of affairs was the same as in Ireland. It was also an entire misrepresentation to say that this clause and this Bill were designed to curtail the liberty of the subject in Ireland. They were intended to put down crime in Ireland, and any meetings which, in the opinion of the Lord Lieutenant, were calculated to promote crime, should be suppressed in the forcible and straightforward manner suggested by the Bill. Much as he would deprecate anything that would restrict public liberty and public meeting, ho supported this clause.

MR. REDMOND

said, the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had said this clause was demanded by the condition of Ireland. The Committee must remember they were not now discussing the whole of the Bill, but one particular clause of the Bill. The effect of this particular clause was to enlarge the powers which were already possessed by the Lord Lieutenant and by the magistrates in Ireland for curtailing, in certain cases, the right of public meeting. The hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Macliver), when ho laid down the proposition that this clause was demanded by the condition of Ireland, should have supported his proposition by facts. The right of public meeting in Ireland was not to-day, even under the ordinary law, an absolute right. Upon information sworn by an individual, a magistrate might interfere with the right of public meeting, and the Lord Lieutenant had the power already, under the ordinary law, to interfere with meetings which might be called for the purpose of disturbing the public peace. That was a power which was now exercised by the Lord Lieutenant in very many cases. During the last two or three years it had been exercised in such a way as to lead the people to believe that the power was much too large, and, therefore, it was proper that the further enlargement of the power which was now demanded should be justified, not by general terms such as the hon. Member (Mr. Macliver) had employed, but by specific facts. Could the hon. Gentleman do that which the Government had not done— that was, prove that the powers which were already possessed in Ireland by the Crown were not sufficient to put down illegal meetings? Could the hon. Gentleman deny that meetings called for the purpose of interfering, or meetings calculated to interfere, with the public peace in Ireland, had been suppressed under the ordinary law administered by the Lord Lieutenant? If he could not deny that, upon what ground did he justify the present proposal to very largely increase the powers which, in the present state of things in Ireland, had been proved to be sufficient for their purpose? They were told that this proposal was not designed or intended to curtail public liberty in Ireland. They had not to consider what was intended by this provision, but what this provision might be capable of doing if it were carried out. The intention of the present Lord Lieutenant and of the present Chief Secretary might be very good. It was very easy to assert that these Officials had nothing but the best intentions; but he could not help remembering that the late Chief Secre- tary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster) went to Ireland amidst the universal acknowledgment of Members on both sides of the House that his intentions were very good. The Irish knew how long the right hon. Gentleman's good intentions lasted. How long were the good intentions of Lord Spencer and the present Chief Secretary to last? It came to this, that the Committee were asked to place the power in the hands of a single individual to put down every form of public meeting in Ireland. To bring this power into operation it was not necessary there should be any evidence whatever either of illegal intent on the part of those who called the meeting, or who were about to hold the meeting, or that in the opinion of responsible persons in the locality the meeting was likely to interfere with the public safety. If an Amendment had been adopted making it necessary that before this power should be brought into play sworn information should be lodged in regard to the meetings, very much of his objection to the clause might have been removed. He objected to the clause as it now stood, because it placed an absolute power in the Lord Lieutenant, and because he refused to give absolute discretion over the liberties of a whole nation, no matter how trustworthy he might appear to be, and no matter how high-minded he might be. These were the considerations which made it necessary for him and his hon. Friends to protest against this clause. He could not help saying that he listened with feelings of very great impatience to the protestations of hon. Members on the Liberal side of the House of their desire to preserve liberty in Ireland. They told the Committee it was their desire to preserve the liberty of the subject in Ireland, and in the same breath they supported a proposal which left it at the discretion of a single man to put down every form of public meeting if he chose. The good intentions of the present Lord Lieutenant and the present Chief Secretary might not last long; but suppose those good intentions did last, how long were the present Government and the present men who ruled Ireland to continue in Office? No one could tell, and he was convinced that the hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Macliver) would hesitate before he placed such sweeping powers as were conferred by this Bill in the hands of a Tory Government. He begged the Committee to remember what the present powers of the law were in Ireland, and he asked them whether a tittle of evidence had been adduced to show that those powers had proved inefficient in the past? Unless that had been proved, he contended there was no justification for the proposal—a proposal which not only placed the right of public meeting in the hands of an individual, but which increased that penalty which might be imposed upon men who, as the law stood at present, might perhaps attend a meeting without knowing it had been proclaimed, and without knowing it was illegal in any shape or form. They were told they ought not to prolong the discussion upon every point of the Bill; but the contention was that in a Bill so drastic as this every step that the Government took along the path of coercion must be justified by facts and figures, and with regard to this proposal they had not attempted, in any shape or form, to justify their demand. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) cited, in palliation, he (Mr. Redmond) supposed, of the want of evidence, that in cases like these the facts were known to the country. Well, but the facts with regard to the suppression of public meetings in Ireland, the facts with regard to the failure of the powers of the law to cope with the illegal meetings in Ireland were not known to the country, and were not known to this House. There had not been any failure on the part of the ordinary law to cope with the illegal meetings in Ireland, and he challenged the Government to prove that in any individual case the present powers possessed by the Government had not been sufficient for their purpose.

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out to the hon. Member that he is now arguing against the whole clause, and not upon the immediate Amendment before us.

MR. REDMOND

said, that the Amendment before them was to leave out the words "public safety," and that was an Amendment which, to his mind, could be supported by the strongest arguments. He considered that the public safety under this Bill must in reality mean the same thing as the public peace. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland told them that meetings called for the "Boycotting" of individuals, though, perhaps, no violence might take place at those meetings, and the public peace might not be broken, could not be interfered with by this Bill unless the words "public safety" were included. He (Mr. Redmond) denied that altogether. When this Bill passed, an attempt at "Boycotting" an individual would become an offence under the Act, and any meeting called to promote the "Boycotting" of any person would be a meeting called to break the public peace, and also to interfere with public safety. Every meeting called for that purpose during the last two years had been suppressed by the powers the Lord Lieutenant already possessed. Surely that was a matter which ought to engage the very serious attention of this Committee. The scope of this clause, and the intention of the Bill, were to deal with crime in Ireland—with secret crime and secret organization. The effect of interfering in any way with public meeting would undoubtedly be to promote crime and to increase the strength of secret organization. The Government said they desired to strike at secret power; and they went about suppressing public meetings. He trusted that not only upon this point, not only with reference to this particular Amendment, but that upon the whole clause, his hon. Friends would give a persistent and determined opposition.

MR. T. A. DICKSON

said, the retention of the words "public safety" was not worth the time the Committee had already spent upon it. Surely, when the Lord Lieutenant possessed such extensive powers as to prohibit any meeting which he had reason to believe would be dangerous to the public peace, he had ample power, and he (Mr. T. A. Dickson) had no doubt that the Law Officers would be able to make the words "public peace" elastic enough to cover any difficulty. He was surprised that the Government should insist upon retaining the words "public safety" when they had already in the clause the words "public peace." He hoped the Government would agree to omit the words "public safety" on the ground that they were really unnecessary.

MR. HEALY

noticed that not a single Member of the Government had as yet risen to support the retention of these words. Two or three hon. Members on the Government side rose to maintain the Government in reference to the clause as a whole; but in reference to a restricted portion of it—namely, the desirability of maintaining public safety, the Government, even amongst their own supporters, had not had a single friend. Was not that a remarkable fact? The hon. and gallant Baronet, whose words they were always happy to hear when ho spoke in sympathy with them—whose words, he might say, came upon them like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land—had not a word to say as to the extended powers which would be given to the Government in regard to public safety under the Bill. He would point out, especially to Members like the hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Macliver), that they rather misunderstood the position of the Irish Members in reference to this matter. It had been said that if the condition of England were analogous to the condition of Ireland, hon. Members would have no hesitation in supporting the Government in bringing in a Bill for the former country; but that, he would point out, was supposing a fallacy, because it supposed that hon. Gentlemen and the Government knew as much about Ireland as they knew about England. The hon. Member to whom he was particularly referring knew nothing at ail about Ireland, except what he read out of the English newspapers; and those journals, it should be remenbered, got their information from a few Orange editors connected with the Irish Press. He was astonished that there were still Members to be found to get up in this House and repeat this time-worn fallacy; and he maintained that Gentlemen opposite, who at present formed Her Majesty's Ministry and their supporters, were as incompetent to legislate for Ireland as they were to legislate for Madagascar. He should like to make the position of the Irish Party, with regard to this Amendment, clear. Of course, they did not hope to pass the Amendment. They did not hope to carry any Amendment of any kind whilst the Home Secretary had the management of the Bill; but they wanted to be able to say, when crime redoubled—as undoubtedly it would—"Crime has redoubled; we told you it would." He wished to be able to point out to the Government that the arguments of the Irish Members were looked upon as stupid, and laughed at. Well, they hoped that during the three years that this Bill had to run, or when the period had passed away and they found on the Treasury Bench a Ministry somewhat more sympathetic, in consequence of what had gone before, this new Ministry would be willing to listen to them, and would say—"Your arguments were right before, and we are sorry that you were not listened to." Quite lately, a most remarkable statement had come from the Government through the mouth of the highest Official in the Irish Executive—namely, the Lord Lieutenant—to the effect that it was the intention of Her Majesty's Administration to drive public discontent in that country beneath the surface. That, he maintained, was one of the most unfortunate admissions that had ever come from the mouth of a Lord Lieutenant. Earl Cowper had told them this at Belfast, after the arrests of the "suspects," and again on leaving Dublin. This Bill would drive Irish discontent beneath the surface, because the people would find that it was too dangerous to take part in open agitation, and they would, therefore, be obliged to have resort to private agitation. If the Irish people were unable to understand the changes which had been made in the law, and in view of the fact that the Government were endeavouring to drive their discontent beneath the surface, they would, in the words of Shakespeare, "Take the law into their own hands and break it." The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had asked them what was their remembrance of public safety? Surely they remembered the phrase being made use of by Robespierre and his followers, and they had not heard those words, except in Lord Grey's Act, since the famous days of 1793. He was referring to the days when men's heads were taken off by a Committee of Public Safety. But in those days, although that Committee consisted of several individuals, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary now proposed to leave public safety in the hands of one man. The power the right hon. and learned Gentleman was bestowing upon Officials in the Bill was far more vast than hon. Members seemed to think. The Lord Lieutenant would have power to put down a meeting, whether public or private. He would ask this. What was an assembly of people at Mass, but a public meeting; what was an assembly of people in a chapel, or a church, or a meeting-house, but a public meeting; and, under this clause, what was there to restrain the Lord Lieutenant, if he chose to do so, from preventing people attending services at meeting-houses, chapels, and churches? Under this clause, meetings of Presbyterians in the North of Ireland could be prevented; and if there should be a recurrence there of public bigotry, similar to that private bigotry which manifested itself in this country, there would be power in the hands of, perhaps, some of the strongest bigots to put down every kind of public worship in Ireland. It might be argued, for instance, that the priests, whom, by the way, The Saturday Review had called "surpliced ruffians," were in the habit of haranguing their congregations on political subjects at Mass. The Government had arrested several priests; and, in the interests of what they were pleased to call "public safety," they might interfere still further with these gentlemen, and put down almost all the religious observances of the people in Ireland. He was not referring in particular to the Protestant Provinces of Ireland, or the Catholic Provinces; but he maintained that wherever there was to be a meeting of the people—wherever the people assembled together, three constituting a meeting—there would be power in the hands of the Executive to suppress such meeting. It had been fallaciously argued that the Government already possessed that power. In one sense, no doubt, it was true that the police had had the power of dispersing meetings at the point of the bayonet, or by the use of a few buckshot; but it was not the fact that the Lord Lieutenant, for the purposes of public safety, had had the power of putting down all manner of public meetings in Ireland. He would call attention to the fact that any action bringing a person under this Bill would be punished by six months' imprisonment. If a man took part in a public meeting, six months' imprisonment; if he took part in a riot, six months' imprisonment; if he took forcible possession, six months' imprisonment; if he ran a newspaper against the wishes of the Government, six months' imprisonment; strike high, or strike low, the punishment was the same—six months' imprisonment. He would appeal to the Government whether it was really necessary to maintain this extravagant provision in their measure? Not a single Member on the Government side of the House had risen to support it, except the Home Secretary and the Solicitor General; and beyond theirs, not a single argument in its favour had been used. No doubt, the Government had many willing assistants, and that many hon. Members would support them on their side of the House. Whatever the Government did there were many hon. Members who would throw up their hats and cry—"Well done!" But there were none of them ready to get up and defend, by their speeches, the retention of the words "public safety" in the Bill. The Home Secretary had made many trips in his operations recently. He had prosecuted members of the Salvation Army, and, by an extraordinary misapplication of the law, he had attempted to make them give security for the maintenance of the peace. He had failed in his endeavour, and why? Because he should have attempted, not to make them give security against breaches of the peace, but to give security for good behaviour. In this Bill, in a similar manner, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had mixed up security for the peace and security for public safety. If he had prosecuted the Salvation Army with the object of getting them to give security for good behaviour, no doubt he would have been successful; but he had mixed up the two things just as he was mixing up two things in this measure. He (Mr. Healy) would invite the right hon. and learned Gentleman, if he could not accede to the Amendment they were now discussing, at any rate, to agree to omit from the clause the word "or," and insert the word "and." That was to say, the clause, instead of running thus— The Lord Lieutenant may from time to time," &c, "prohibit any meeting which he has reason to believe to be dangerous to the public peace or the public safety, should run— Prohibit any meeting which he has reason to believe to be dangerous to the public peace and the public safety. He had no objection to the concurrence of the two words "peace" and "safety;" but he did object to the clause as it stood. This latter point was not a very large one, but he thought it was worthy of consideration.

MR. BYRNE

said, he begged to support the Amendment. This seemed to some Members of the Committee to be a very small matter. The Amendment only consisted of four words; but he ventured to say that there were no words in the Bill so strong as these. Like a great many other clauses, this one was drawn in a very elastic, and, it did not seem to him, a proper manner. The Lord Lieutenant would have power to prohibit any meeting he had reason to believe would be dangerous to the public peace; and one would think that such a power as that would be quite sufficient without going into the question of public safety. What did "public safety" mean? The Government pretended that they only asked for power to prevent crime, and further powers to enable them to govern Ireland in such a manner as to preserve the public peace. Well, if the Committee granted all these tilings to punish for what had been committed in the past, and regulate what was to bo done in the future, he did not see why it could not be done without going into this question of the public safety. Looking at the present condition of Ireland, they could not fail to see that there was a great deal of meaning in this clause. As he read it, it meant nothing less than this—that for the future no section of Her Majesty's subjects in Ireland should have the power of holding a meeting for any purpose, particularly if its object was in any way connected with politics, or the rights and extended privileges of the people. He ventured to say that, under this clause, the Lord Lieutenant would be able to put down any agitation whatever, whether it were for Home Rule or connected with the Land Question, whether it had reference to an extension of the fisheries or the construction of piers, the improvement of harbours or the extension of the franchise. Meetings in connection with all these subjects it would be in the power of the Lord Lieutenant to put a stop to. Such a power, he contended, was too much to give to an Executive officer of a Constitutional Government. If they looked back at the seed sown by the landlords, if they looked to the history of the country, and traced the circumstances which had led to its present condition, they would see great reason why they ought not to draw the knot too tight for fear of snapping the rope. It had already been pointed out by an hon. Member that the men who were evicted from their homes were now hungry men and dangerous men. The hon. Member for Galway had said that if he had been turned out of his holding, with his wife and children, on the roadside, and had been obliged to look on while those depending on him sickened and died, the chances were that he, too, would become a dangerous man. Well, with so many evictions, and so many hungry and dangerous men in Ireland, he ventured to say that this clause, passing as it was without amendment, would be in the future pregnant, not of good government and peace, but of that which would lead to the suppression of public meetings for any purpose whatever in Ireland.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 154; Noes 56: Majority 98.—(Div. List, No. 140.)

MR. HEALY

said, there existed on the other side of the House, as the division had shown, a strong opinion against this unrestrained interference with the right of public meeting on the part of the Lord Lieutenant. What he would propose, therefore, was this—that they should insert this Proviso— Provided, That this section shall not apply in the case of any meeting to promote or oppose the candidature of any person seeking election as a Member of the House of Commons or of any other representative body. It appeared to him that this was an Amendment which every Member of the House ought to support. It proposed merely that the power of the Lord Lieutenant should be restrained so far as meetings for bonâ fide electoral purposes were concerned. It was well known that at certain periods meetings were obliged to be held for electoral purposes, and that "Boycotting" meetings, and meetings with the object of inducing landlords to reduce their rents, could not be held under cover of electoral objects. Her Majesty's Government surely would not be afraid to adopt a system that was practised in France. In that country these public meetings at electoral periods took place without hindrance. There was likely to be an election in Mallow in a very short time, as it was probable that the Attorney General for Ireland would be going where "Obstruction ceased from troubling and the weary were at rest." Before the right hon. and learned Gentleman came into the enjoyment of his dignified repose, he (Mr. Healy) wished to make provision for the unrestrained right of public meeting during the contest which would ensue upon his retirement.

Amendment proposed, In page 4, line 16, after "safety," insert—"Provided, That this section shall not apply in the case of any meeting to promote or oppose the candidature of any person seeking election as a Member of the House of Commons or of any other representative body."—(Mr. Healy.)

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

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, that he entirely agreed with the principle of the Amendment; but he could not accept it in exactly the terms in which it was offered. If the hon. Member would agree to a modification of the clause, so as to make his object clearer, he (Sir William Harcourt) would be very glad to see whether words could not be devised to carry out the object in view.

MR. HEALY

said, he should be very happy, under those circumstances, to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. HEALY

said, the next Amendment he had to propose was to insert the sub-section— A copy of such order shall be forthwith served in the prescribed manner on the promoters of such meeting, if known.

Amendment proposed, In page 4, line 16, after "safety," insert the following sub-section:—"A copy of such order shall be forthwith served in the prescribed manner on the promoters of such meeting, if known."—(Mr. Healy.)

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

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he had no objection to this Amendment; but he should prefer that the words "if possible" should be inserted after the word "manner."

MR. HEALY

said, ho should be willing to accept the right hon. and learned Gentleman's proposal if his Amendment were agreed to.

Amendment, as amended, agreed to.

MR. DILLON

said, that, in the absence of the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell), he begged to move the sub-section to provide that threats, or alleged threats, on the part of any persons whatever, to interrupt with violence a public meeting should not be a reason for the prohibition of such meeting. He hoped the Government would be able to accept the Amendment, which would cover a class of cases which were of considerable importance to the Irish Members. It was well known that a great many cases had occurred, especially in the Province of Ulster, where attempts had been made by the landlords to prevent those interested in the affairs of the tenantry from holding meetings to agitate for an amelioration of their condition. The landlords and their agents had circulated statements to the effect that they would forcibly interfere with such meetings or demonstrations, and the Government in consequence had felt themselves bound to send a sufficient force into those districts to secure peace and prohibit meetings, in the interests, of course, of one party—the landlord party. In the future, if meetings were to be prohibited in consequence of threats to the effect that the opposite party would interfere with a meeting of tenants, no meetings would be held. In the North of Ireland, when the Orange Party had chosen to hold meetings, they had not been interfered with by the Land League; but, on the other hand, the Orange Party had very frequently published notices and placards, calling on their friends to attack the meetings of the Land League or of the tenantry, and drive those who took part in them from the field. Of course, as a matter of fact, while, in spite of these placards and threatening notices, the meetings were held, in not a single instance had the persons who had threatened put in an appearance. Their announced intention had been to drive the holders of the meetings like dogs across the Boyne, but they had never done so; they had hen afraid. In many instances, however, their threats had been communicated to Dublin Castle, whence, the belief being entertained that there was danger of a breach of the peace, instructions wore issued to the police to suppress the meetings. He only mentioned these points to show the Government that this Amendment had been drawn up in no spirit of Obstruction, but that it was a serious Amendment, and that unless it was adopted the issue of threatening notices would be an absolute prohibition of all meetings that were not Orange meetings North of the Boyne.

Amendment proposed, In page 4, line 16, after "safety," insert "Provided always, That threats, or alleged threats, on the part of any persons whatever, to interrupt with violence a public meeting, shall not be a reason for the prohibition of such a meeting."—(Mr. Dillon.)

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

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, everyone knew that rival meetings were the cause of considerable disturbance in Ireland, and to accept this Amendment would be to tie the hands of the Lord Lieutenant.

MR. SEXTON

said, he thought the objection of the right hon. and learned Gentleman scarcely met the case put by his hon. Friend. The right hon. and learned Gentleman stated that there wore rival factions in Ireland, and that, where meetings were held by these rival factions, there was a great prospect of a breach of the peace being committed. Probably, then, it was desirable that meetings, where these factions existed, should be protected; but, as a rule, it was not the case, where meetings in the interests of the tenant farmers were held, that the opposite party was a party of any appreciable strength; and what his hon. Friend desired was that the mere announcement by a person that there would be a disturbance should not be sufficient to induce the Lord Lieutenant to suppress a meeting. Any landlord, or agent, or bailiff, or hanger-on about these people—and he need not inform the Committee that there were many hangers-on who were only too ready to make mischief—would be able, without difficulty, to put a stop to a meeting which might be objectionable to him by simply writing to the authorities to say that there was likely to be a disturbance, or by posting up a placard to the same effect. Or a bailiff or a hanger-on could publish an advertisement in an Orange paper threatening to interfere with the meeting, and that would be decided by the authorities to be evidence that there was danger of a breach of the peace. The Lord Lieutenant should use his discretion, and have power to refuse to put a stop to a meeting unless he thought sufficient reason had been shown for such a course. He (Mr. Sexton) did not mean to say that where there really were two serious rival factious meetings they should be allowed to take place; but where there were not two great factions, where only one individual, or a small group of individuals, objected to the course about to be taken by the majority, he did not think that any announcement or threat of theirs should be allowed by the Lord Lieutenant to interfere with the holding and peaceable conduct of a meeting or demonstration.

MR. DILLON

said, it was not true, as the Home Secretary had stated, that if this Amendment were passed the hands of the Lord Lieutenant would be tied. That functionary was entitled, at the present moment, to prohibit meetings where he had reason to believe they would be dangerous to the public peace. He (Mr. Dillon) would mention a case, with all the circumstances of which he was acquainted, which would show how easy it would be, unless there were some proper safeguards adopted, for a single individual, or a small clique, to put a a stop to a legitimate meeting. A meeting had been convened in favour of the Land League at a place in County Fermanagh. The local landlord was strongly opposed to this meeting, and the local Orange Lodge put up a notice to the effect that they would drive those who intended to hold the meeting like dogs out of the district. Well, the magistrates of the place dined with the landlord, and on the occasion of this social meeting had informations sworn before them that there was likely to be a disturbance if the Land League meeting were held. It had since been discovered that the men who swore the informations were immediately under the influence of this local landlord. The whole thing was concocted at the landlord's table; information was sent up to Dublin Castle, with the result that the Lord Lieutenant prohibited the meeting. An enormous number of people came into the town, and it was with the utmost difficulty that the leaders of the popular Party prevented a collision taking place between the soldiery and the people. All the people were with the Land League, and the only danger of a disturbance arose from the fact that, acting upon these sworn informations, a military force was sent down from Enniskillen. So general was the opinion in favour of the meeting that no Orangeman would have dared to interfere with it. What was desired on this occasion was that the Lord Lieutenant should not accept the posting of threatening placards by single individuals as an evidence that there was likely to be a disturbance in the district. The Lord Lieutenant should not act upon entirely baseless rumours, but should inquire into the matter, and satisfy himself that there was real danger of a breach of he peace. Where there was a powerful faction opposed to a very small minority he should not be persuaded that there was likely to be any danger.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he did not think the words of the Amendment would exactly do. What he understood to be the desire was, that a meeting which would not be stopped by the Lord Lieutenant under the former words should not be stopped through a device of the kind suggested by hon. Members. He quite agreed that this kind of thing ought not to be allowed to take place, and he would therefore undertake to introduce into the Bill words calculated to render the success of such a device impossible.

Amendment, by leave, Withdrawn.

MR. SEXTON

said, he proposed to insert, at the end of the first paragraph, this Proviso— Provided, however, that the Lord Lieutenant shall not issue such order unless by and with the advice of the Privy Council in Ireland. One of the things he objected to most strenuously in the whole Bill was this clause, and the unrestricted nature of the personal and despotic power that the Lord Lieutenant would possess under it. This was a fair specimen of the kind of power that was to be found in the Bill. The Lord Lieutenant, of his own motion, might say what class of meeting was to be prohibited, and for what reason it was to be prohibited, and might act upon the merest hint or whis- per that he received. There was nothing to guide them as to the manner in which the Lord Lieutenant would exorcise his powers. On looking through the Bill he found there were occasions upon which the Lord Lieutenant would he bound to consult the Privy Council of Ireland—when, for instance, he proposed to proclaim a district. On such an occasion ho would be bound to consult the Privy Council, and without doing so he would not be allowed to proclaim a district. He (Mr. Sexton) further found, on reference to Clause 25, that the Lord Lieutenant might, from time to time, by and with the advice of the Privy Council, make, and when made revoke, add to, and alter rules in relation to certain matters which were stated in the Bill. He (Mr. Sexton) was at a loss to see why the Lord Lieutenant should be released from a similar obligation in reference to such an important matter as the prohibition of a public meeting, He did not for a moment conceal the fact that he had no admiration whatever for the Privy Council of Ireland. He thought it was about the worst constituted body to take part in the government of a country of anybody in the world. It consisted of the heads of the Military Profession, the Judges, and persons in the pay of the Crown, who had no sympathy whatever with the people of Ireland; who, in fact, had gained their position by desertion of the popular cause, and who now hated that cause with all the hatred of renegades. But so much did he feel that unrestricted power of this kind was bad for the people who exercised it, and bad for the people over whom it was exercised, that he would rather amend the Bill by requiring the Lord Lieutenant to have the concurrence of the Privy Council, than leave the powers of the section solely in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant.

Amendment proposed, In page 4, line 16, at the end of the foregoing Amendment, to insert the words "Provided however, That the Lord Lieutenant shall not issue such order unless by and with the advice of the Privy Council in Ireland."—(Mr. Sexton.)

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

MR. T. A. DICKSON

said, he should oppose the Amendment, as he did not think the Lord Lieutenant should be allowed to shelter himself behind the Privy Council. He would rather leave the power solely with the Lord Lieutenant.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, ho thought they had discussed this matter somewhat fully upon Clause 1. With regard to the Lord Lieutenant's right of suspending trial by jury, it had been suggested that the responsibility should rest upon various other bodies, under cover of the Privy Council; but the House had come most decidedly to the determination that in a matter of such grave importance the responsibility of the Lord Lieutenant ought to be undivided. As had been already stated, the Government, as a whole, were responsible for the action of the Lord Lieutenant, and he and the Government could be called to account by Parliament. It was far better, therefore, that the responsibility of the Lord Lieutenant should be undivided.

MR. P. MARTIN

said, he thought they ought to be consistent in this matter. Ho must confess that he had never seen a greater mass of inconsistency than was to be found in this Bill. In the proclamation of a district, and in. the subsequent clauses, the Lord Lieutenant was required to seek the aid of the Privy Council. Here, however, it was sought to vest in him undivided responsibility. He (Mr. P. Martin) agreed with the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) that though the Irish Privy Council was, as at present constituted, a body which certainly demanded sweeping reformation, yet there was this reason for its introduction in the section—that it preserved some semblance, at least, of that which the present Government apparently sought to ignore—namely, the right of Irishmen in some way to intervene and have some voice in the conduct of their own affairs. As an Irishman, he desired Irishmen to have a voice in the management of their own affairs. So long as they had a voice in the management of their own affairs the better would those affairs be managed; and he did contend, although he had not a very high opinion of the Irish Privy Council, that, for the sake of giving Irishmen some voice in a matter of this description, he should feel himself compelled to vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) if it were pressed to a division.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)

said, there was a distinction to be drawn between the functions to be performed by the Lord Lieutenant under the present section, and those under the section dealing with the proclaiming of a district. Under the present clause, the suppression of a meeting would be an Executive act; whereas the proclaiming of a district was a matter of general policy, and did not affect any individual case—it applied to a whole district. It had always been the case, in matters of this kind, that where large districts were concerned the Privy Council should be appealed to; but that where the action to be taken was of a less general character the Lord Lieutenant should act upon his own responsibility. It might be right or it might be wrong to have this clause in the Bill; but if the Bill was to have any practical utility at all, it would be impossible to accept such Amendments as this. If it were accepted, there would not be time between the receipt of the information that the meeting was about to be held, and the time at which that assembly would take place, to summon the Privy Council and hold a meeting. These meetings in the country districts were held under such circumstances that very often the Executive knew nothing about them until the night before they were to be held. It was thoroughly idle, therefore, to say that the Lord Lieutenant should consider the information he received, and call together the Privy Council in time to be able to take action, if action were necessary. It was said that this was a mere matter of form, this summoning of the Privy Council; and, whether it was or not, in a great many cases it would be utterly impossible for the Privy Council to be summoned, and after a consultation to take action, until the meeting it was called to consider was all over.

SIR PATRICK O'BRIEN

said, he would remind the Committee that in 1843, in the case of the proclaiming of the famous Clontarf meeting in Dublin, what occurred was this. It was believed that the meeting was likely to be a dangerous one, and the hurried arrangement which the Solicitor General for Ireland had referred to was made at once. The Privy Council were summoned, and, unless he was very much mistaken, the famous proclamation to put a stop to this meeting was issued only the night before the day upon which 50,000 or 60,000 people were expected to assemble. Every possible care was taken to prevent a collision between the military and the people. The hon. Member (Mr. P. Martin) had referred to the constitution of the Privy Council; and, as he had done so, it was but right that he (Sir Patrick O'Brien) should make him a present of this one remark. On the occasion when the Privy Council met to proclaim the Clontarf meeting, the only person who opposed its being proclaimed was an official of the Government, none other than Sir Edward Blakeley. He it was who, in advance of all the other members of the Privy Council, desired to preserve the liberty of the people.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

said, the Solicitor General for Ireland had misled the Committee, although, no doubt, unintentionally. It was not necessary for the Lord Lieutenant to consult the Privy Council in the case of proclaiming a meeting when it was thought likely to be dangerous. Under such circumstances a meeting could be proclaimed at any moment. The Lord Lieutenant could proclaim a meeting without the consent of the Privy Council, and anyone who attended that meeting would be liable to imprisonment.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he did not want to misrepresent the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland, and the Committee would see whether he had rightly understood him or not. He took it that his objection to giving the Privy Council the right of consulting with the Lord Lieutenant before a meeting was proclaimed was because information of a meeting that was likely to be dangerous might only be received on the eve of that meeting, and that there would, therefore, not be time to call the Privy Council together. Was that a fair representation of the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman? ["Yes!"] He might take it that that was the case. He was astonished, then, that the hon. and learned Gentleman, who was a barrister of many years' practice, and who had achieved great success, had endeavoured to make use of such an argument, which showed the real meaning of the whole clause. The Lord Lieutenant, it was said, might only hear of a meeting on the eve of that meeting, and His Excel- ency would issue his proclamation, therefore, almost simultaneously with his receipt of information. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) would recall this argument to the attention of the Government when they came to the next portion of the clause.

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA

said, the objection that there would not be time to call the Privy Council together appeared to him to be one without the slightest force. The members of the Privy Council, or rather a large number of them, resided quite close to Dublin, and their services, if they were required, could be availed of almost immediately. In the case of the Clontarf meeting, which was to have been held on the Sunday, six hours before the day on which the people were expected to assemble—because he believed it was not until 6 o'clock on the Saturday night that the decision was arrived at—the proclamation was issued. It had been pointed out that by leaving out all reference to the Privy Council in this clause, they left the Lord Lieutenant with an undivided responsibility, and rendered that official and the Government responsible to the House. But what was the value of that responsibility, when the Irish Members, and those who supported the popular Party in Ireland, were only a very small minority in the House? Surely, it was known very well that whatever was done by the Lord Lieutenant, or by the Government, if called in question in Parliament, would be flatted by the large majority of Members. What the Irish Members wanted to do, and all that it was in their power to do, was to have such safeguards put into the Bill as they thought necessary at the time of the passing of the measure. So far as the responsibility of the Government was concerned, all it ever came to was a badgering for some time by half-a-dozen Members, who had no weight, and whoso utterances had no effect upon Parliament. It did no good to badger the Lord Lieutenant or the Government; but, as it was quite conformable with ordinary legislation of this kind to fetter the Lord Lieutenant with the necessity of appealing to the Privy Council, he trusted this Amendment, to safeguard the interests of those who wished to hold public meetings, would be accepted.

MR. SHELL

said, it seemed to him that the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland had argued in such a way as to entirely upset the arguments of the Home Secretary. The Solicitor General's argument was that the Privy Council could not be summoned because there would be no time to do it. Then they might take it that at the very last moment a telegram must be received from some police official, or some private individual, saying that a certain meeting was to be held and that the peace was likely to be broken, and that then, on his own responsibility, the Lord Lieutenant was to say whether or not that meeting should be allowed to take place. Surely such a thing was impossible. It stood to reason, what the Irish Members argued over and over again on this and other parts of the Bill, that the responsibility the Government intended to take upon themselves, or throw upon the Lord Lieutenant, would be necessarily relegated by him to other individuals, for whom he could not be in a position to answer, and with whom ho could have had no conference. Suppose a meeting was to be held on Sunday, and the Lord Lieutenant only received notice of it on Saturday night, how could he come to a conclusion? He could only do so upon information that he received that the meeting ought to be suspended. On that recommendation ho would suspend the meeting. Surely this was not on his own responsibility. He (Mr. Sheil) denied any such statement. If the Lord Lieutenant really did act upon his own responsibility, he should not so much object to the Bill, particularly in the hands of the noble Lord who at present filled the position of Viceroy; but they had argued it over and over again, and now once more they had to repeat the argument, and to remind the Committee that it was not the Lord Lieutenant who was responsible. The people who really would be responsible, and were responsible, were people whom Parliament would never be able to bring to book. Parliament knew nothing of them. He would point out to the Government that most of the objections to the clauses in this Bill were on the score of this responsibility. The Government said the Lord Lieutenant would be responsible; but that was really not so, because this high official received his information from parties all over Ireland who were in a position far beneath him, and of whom he knew very little.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, that, whenever any doubt arose as to any clause of this Bill, the Irish Members claimed the benefit of the doubt for liberty, while the Government claimed the benefit of the doubt for tyranny; and, unhappily, the majority of the Committee seemed inclined to go with the Government in every case. It was, no doubt, pleasant for hon. Gentlemen to be saved the trouble of making up their own minds, and to leave two or three Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench to perform that duty for them. His hon. Friend had said that, according to the showing of the Attorney General himself, the Lord Lieutenant claimed to act in the matter on the spur of the moment. He could not have time to consider. The Bill was intended not to give him time to make any inquiry into the truth of allegations in telegrams that might be sent to him. Some fine evening a telegram might be sent to him stating that on the following morning a meeting was to be held in some part of the country which would constitute a great peril to the public peace and public safety. Not a moment's time was given to the Lord Lieutenant to reflect or inquire whether the information was well-founded; but he was forthwith to take action upon it. Suppose the Lord Lieutenant was easily alarmed, as such people had been from time to time, then, of course, in the working of this measure a good deal would depend upon the personal character and temper of the Lord Lieutenant for the time being. A story was told of a Lord Lieutenant, a good many years ago, who was persecuted with alarming reports by a class of eople in Ireland who found it their interest to work upon his fears, and who were then, as now, the opponents of freedom and public liberty in Ireland. They continually poured letters into the Lord Lieutenant's hands giving accounts of terrible affairs about to happen throughout the country. One morning, one of these gentlemen rushed hastily into the Lord Lieutenant's bedroom, and exclaimed—"Oh! my Lord, the people of Dublin are all about to rise!" His Excellency was a man of some discretion and judgment, and his reply was, that ho thought it was about time for everybody to rise. But there might be a Lord Lieutenant of very much less firmness of character than that gentleman, and one who might, on simi- lar information, take the very opposite course, by telegraphing orders to prevent public meetings from taking place. Such things were possible, and Irish Members felt perfectly certain that under this measure such things would occur from time to time; therefore, it was not too much to ask that the Lord Lieutenant should be required to consult either his Privy Council or some other body upon the necessity for taking action before acting upon alarming and probably absurd announcements made by frightened or ill-meaning individuals. For these reasons, he supported the Amendment, as he thought every lover of liberty ought to do.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 41; Noes 213: Majority 172.—(Div. List, No. 141.)

MR. PARNELL

proposed an Amendment, which he hoped the Government would agree to accept—namely, in line 16, after "safety," to insert— Provided, That in case of meetings for lawful objects summoned by handbill, placard, or other public advertisement, and whereof six days' notice has been given, the Lord Lieutenant shall give by similar notice in the district at least three clear days' notice of such prohibition. The object of that Amendment was to provide that where six days' notice was given of a meeting, the Lord Lieutenant should give a notice of half that period, warning people not to attend the meeting. The reasonable character of that Amendment was apparent on the face of it, because, if suitable notice was not given to people in any locality where a meeting was summoned to be held, many of the people who lived perhaps 10 miles or 15 miles from the place of meeting would attend without any knowledge that the meeting had been prohibited, and that they had rendered themselves liable to imprisonment for six months with hard labour. The way in which this clause was drafted illustrated the sweeping character of the whole Bill. There was not the slightest safeguard against persons being swept into one wide net and sentenced to imprisonment; and it would appear as if the promoters of the Bill desired to envelop the Government in Ireland in a suit of armour in which there should not be the slightest possible chink, and, at the same time, to provide the Govern- ment with a weapon of such a character as would enable them to strike down every form of Constitutional agitation. There was not the slightest safeguard provided for the liberties and rights of the subject in any part of the Bill, just as there was a similar absence of any proviso or safeguard in this clause; and one of the reasons why it was so necessary to insist on drawing attention to this matter was that these clauses wore all, one after the other, characterized by that utter want of any sort of consideration for Constitutional rights in Ireland. Nothing was thought of except the desire to arm the Crown in a way in which it had never been armed before in any Constitutionally-governed country, and to take away every right, liberty, and safeguard in respect to the exercise of Constitutional privileges. He hoped the Government, by according a different reception to this Amendment to that given to others, would show that they were sensible of the necessity of altering the character of this clause, at least to this extent.

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

MR. TREVELYAN

said, that, in a matter in which prompt action might be a primary object, it was equally important that the Government should not be bound by conditions of time; but by this Amendment the Government would be strictly bound, while it by no means followed that the promoters of a meeting would also be strictly bound. The Government would be absolutely bound to three days; but it might very well be that a handbill, or other notice of a meeting, might be posted at a place of which the Government might have no cognizance, or the handbills might be passed on from hand to hand, and not posted; and he thought it extremely likely that even when a notice was posted it might not come to the knowledge of the Government within the three days laid down. Though the Government were not willing to accept this Amendment, or the Amendment of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton), which was also on the Paper, still they did not wish to take anybody by surprise, or to betray anyone into finding himself in opposition to the law without being fully aware of it. The provision which the Government preferred provided that these meetings should be conducted with due formality and publicity, and that was practically the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. P. Martin), which was lower down on the Paper. That Amendment, with hardly any alteration, the Government would be willing to accept. They had already accepted the Amendment, providing that a copy of any order of prohibition should be served on the promoters of the meeting, and they thought if they accepted these two Amendments all the conditions of publicity would be met.

MR. PARNELL

said, ho was sorry that the Chief Secretary bad not met his objection, or the necessity for pressing his Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman said the Government might not receive notice of a meeting until the time for prohibition had elapsed. All he could say was, that that was a question of detail, and his object was to secure for the people of a district notice of the prohibition before they arrived at the place of meeting. He thought that a reasonable requirement; but if the Government wished to provide that a copy of a notice convening a meeting should be served at the nearest police station to the place of meeting, he would he willing to introduce such a Proviso. If the right hon. Gentleman thought six days' notice was too short a time, and that the three days might elapse before the Lord Lieutenant or the authorities in Dublin could receive information of an intended meeting and its character, then let the time be extended, say, to 10 days. The principle of the Amendment, however, he must insist upon—namely, that the people of a district should have public notice beforehand, for a reasonable time, that the Lord Lieutenant had prohibited the meeting in question. As to the provision of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny—namely, that two magistrates should attend at the meeting, that was reasonable in its way; but it did not attain the object he wished to attain—the object which the Chief Secretary had admitted to be a reasonable one; and he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would reconsider the matter, and agree to the principle of the Amendment, although the terms might be altered.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)

said, when the Govern- ment agreed to serve notice of prohibition on the promoters of a meeting, they supposed that that would be a sufficient notice through the promoters; but there was another objection to this Amendment. The Amendment proposed that the Government should have no power to prohibit a meeting unless they did so three days before the day of the meeting. Suppose the Government did not learn the dangerous nature of a meeting until two days before the day, they would not be able to prohibit the meeting, although they then knew the dangerous character of it.

MR. MARUM

said, that the notices of meetings were usually made to the people on Sunday by means of placards posted at the chapels in the district. Some time ago a meeting was announced in his own county, and, although the meeting had been notified for 10 days, the proclamation did not arrive until the evening of the Friday before the meeting was to be held. The time was so short that it was almost impossible to countermand the meeting. However, on receipt of a telegram, he went to the meeting, and with great difficulty stopped it. It was not an unreasonable proposal to make that where a meeting was convened to take place, where it would be difficult to countermand it, that every facility should be given for the purpose of stopping it.

MR. REDMOND

said, he did not think the argument of the Attorney General (Sir Henry James) against the adoption of the Amendment of the hon. Member for the City of Cork would bear a moment's examination. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that the Government might not, if the Amendment were adopted, receive notice of the dangerous character of a meeting until it was too late to prohibit it. But suppose the dangerous character of the meeting was only made known to the Lord Lieutenant within the three days specified in the Amendment, ho would still have power to stop the meeting. The difficulty was that, if the Bill were passed in its present form, the Government would be able to give six months' imprisonment to anyone who attended the meeting, although he might have had no notice whatever that it had been proclaimed. Irish Members stood on that point. They said, unless sufficient notice was given to the people that the meeting was prohibited, the Government had no right to punish them with six months' imprisonment for attending.

MR. SEXTON

said, the case suggested by the Attorney General (Sir Henry James) was one which could scarcely ever arise. He had often seen placards giving two months' notice in advance of meetings to be held, and they almost invariably gave a fortnight's notice. As his hon. Friend the Member for Kilkenny (Mr. Marum) had pointed out, notices were given Sunday after Sunday at the chapels in the various districts. Even if the case put by the hon. and learned Gentleman were to arise, the Lord Lieutenant would still have power to prohibit the meeting. He pressed upon the Government the reasonableness of the Amendment of the hon. Member for the City of Cork.

MR. TREVELYAN

said, in listening to the arguments of hon. Members opposite, the Government were aware that they spoke with a knowledge of the situation. But the two reasons urged by the Attorney General and himself stood in the way of the adoption of the Amendment put forward by the hon. Member for the City of Cork. They were willing to insert words to the effect that the proclamation of the prohibition should be published at the earliest possible moment; but further than that they could not go.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he regretted that the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant did not see his way to accept the Amendment before the Committee. It must be remembered that the hon. Member for the City of Cork had made a concession upon the original Amendment. The first proposal was that the Government should be bound to give three days' notice of prohibition in any case; but when it was shown that the Government might not have any information with regard to the meeting, his hon. Friend consented that notice should be given at the nearest police-station. His hon. Friend now instructed him to say that he went farther than that, and was willing to agree that notice of the meeting should be given 10 days in advance at the nearest police station. According to that arrangement, the Government would have sufficient notice of what was going to be done, and plenty of time to make up their minds on the subject of the meeting. He trusted the Government would be able to make this small concession. With regard to the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. P. Martin,) he believed, if the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had had as large an experience of public meetings as ho had, he would know that the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny, which he had signified his readiness to adopt, was of the most illusory character. Anyone who was acquainted with the character of public meetings in Ireland would know that in the majority of cases they were so large that a man with stentorian lungs would probably fail in making his voice reach to the circumference of these enormous gatherings. The presence of the magistrates, then, who, as proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny, were to read the proclamation of the Lord Lieutenant, would probably have the effect of exasperating the people, and producing the disorder which it was desired to avoid. He trusted the Government would give and take, so to speak, in dealing with this matter. The only object of Irish Members was that innocent people should not be caught without a fair warning, and subjected to the penalty prescribed in the Bill for the venial offence of attending a meeting.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, ho did not see that the proposal of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) was a very practicable one, because, were 10 days' notice of the intention to hold any meeting always required, great inconvenience might result. Such a machinery as that would, he thought, be more adverse to the general right of public meeting than almost anything else. It seemed to him that his right hon. Colleague the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had stated the case very reasonably. Her Majesty's Government could not bind themselves to any particular number of days within which the notice of prohibition should be given, because it was possible that circumstances which would render the meeting dangerous to public peace or public safety might arise within a very brief period of the meeting taking place. The Government were willing that the Lord Lieutenant should give notice, at the earliest possible moment, when the knowledge of danger to the public peace presented itself to him; that, in fact, he should lose no time in communicating with the parties concerned.

MR. PARNELL

thought the Government refusals to admit Amendments of the most reasonable character were standing very much in the way of their own progress.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

We have just accepted three Amendments.

MR. PARNELL

said, these were of a. very subordinate kind. He had simply asked that persons attending meetings of which 10 days' notice had been given should be exempt from the penal consequence of being liable to six months' imprisonment with hard labour, unless the Lord Lieutenant prohibited the meeting three days beforehand. The Committee would bear in mind that the Lord Lieutenant would still have power to prohibit and disperse a meeting irrespective of the three days' notice. As to the dangerous consequences of the speeches delivered which the Attorney General (Sir Henry James) anticipated would arise, owing to the meeting being hold without prohibition, he pointed out that at the last moment the Lord Lieutenant had always power to prohibit a meeting; and, as had been proved during the last 12 months, he could send police and soldiers on the very morning of the meeting to stop it, when, as had always been the case, the people would be ready to obey and retire. The Government had not attempted to show the necessity either for refusing this Amendment, or for bringing forward the clause. He had asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman, last night, whether he could give any instance in the course of the land agitation of a prohibited meeting being held, and ho declined to reply. The right hon. and learned Gentleman gave no instance of any case where the people refused to disperse and abstain from holding a meeting when called upon to do so by the magistrates, and yet he preserved a cast-iron front and unbending attitude in reference to this reasonable Amendment.

MR. MACFARLANE

said, bethought the Government might very well accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for the City of Cork, which did not in anyway militate against their professed intention to prevent the possibility of danger to the public peace or public safety. It had been pointed out that all this could be secured by the dispersion of the meeting at the last moment; and he was, therefore, quite at a loss to understand why the Government assumed such an attitude towards the Amendment before the Committee. Every concession in a Bill of this kind was a satisfaction to the Irish people; and the attitude of Irish Members was that the Bill was so oppressive and virulent that it was their duty to amend it, if possible. He had never spoken a word in that House in defence of crime and outrage; but he maintained that it was the duty of the House to take care that in hunting down criminals they did not injure innocent men. The Government contended, as a reason for introducing this Bill, that the criminal minority were "Boycotting" the innocent majority. He quite understood the Government giving the innocent majority power to "Boycott" criminals, and nothing of that kind would meet with any opposition from him; but he contended that the Amendment of the hon. Member for the City of Cork would have the effect of protecting innocent people, while it did not in any way interfere with the object of the Government.

MR. RYLANDS

said, he had a strong objection to the clause, even though it was necessary, inasmuch as it might lead to the punishment of men who were innocent of any offence whatever. Still, he thought it right to say that the course taken by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary and the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant was fairly adopted with the view of mitigating the clause. Her Majesty's Government were willing that every possible notice should be given, and that as early as possible, of the prohibition of a public meeting. But he hoped they would introduce a provision that no person attending a proclaimed meeting should be punished unless he knew when he attended it that the meeting had been proclaimed. It seemed to him only fair that words of this kind should be added, so that persons innocently attending the meeting should not be liable to the penalties of the Bill. He thought the Government were alive to the objections to the clause; and he hoped they would see their way to a further modification of it.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he would suppose the case of the conveners of a prohibited meeting becoming acquainted with the circumstance that the object of the meeting was distasteful to the Lord Lieutenant, and changing it to the petitioning of Parliament against a certain grievance existing in the country. He asked whether the prohibition of the Lord Lieutenant would hold good both against the illegal and the legal purpose; and whether any guarantee would be introduced into the Bill as a means of preventing the magistrates punishing persons for the changed purpose, just as if the meeting were held on the prohibited ground?

MR. SEXTON

said, it was difficult to see what object the Government had in resisting this Amendment. The hon. Member for the City of Cork desired that public notice should be given in the locality of the unlawful character of the meeting prohibited. He was willing that 10 days' notice of the intention to hold the meeting should be given. On the other hand, he wanted only three days' notice of prohibition on the part of the Lord Lieutenant. The Government, under this arrangement, would have a week to consider their determination. There was direct communication by telegraph and post between Dublin Castle and every police station throughout the country. It would only take one day to give notice of prohibition, and on the third day it would be in every part of Ireland. Then, although the Police Force were most unfortunate in their endeavours to detect crime, they were known to be very efficient for the purpose of gathering up every scrap of information and submitting it to Dublin Castle, so that there would be no difficulty in the way of the notice of the intended meeting reaching the Lord Lieutenant. He was obliged to point out that the offer of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was delusive, inasmuch as the promise that notice should be given at the earliest possible moment was of the vaguest possible character. The official mind in Ireland was fond of dramatic surprises, and of pouncing down suddenly on the people; and, as a rule, the less notice the people had the better the Executive would be pleased. It was against those dramatic surprises that the hon. Member for the City of Cork wished to guard the people. Again, although the police would be quick enough to communicate the prohibition of the meeting, there would not be the same alacrity to communicate that full and elaborate information, to Dublin Castle which, would enable a prompt decision to be arrived at; and the result would probably be that a proclamation would arrive on Saturday night or Sunday morning of a meeting to be held on the next day, in which case it would be impossible that the people in the district could be properly notified. He said that this system was neither honest nor fair; and he regarded it as an arrangement for entrapping the people. He was sorry to say, with regard to the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. P. Martin), that it would not meet the case; because the two Resident Magistrates whom he proposed should be sent to announce the prohibition of the meeting would have nothing to distinguish them; they would present themselves suddenly in the midst of 5,000 or 10,000 people, who had, perhaps, travelled 10 or 20 miles to hear what was to be said at the meeting; and they would mumble out something which to those in the immediate vicinity of the platform might be understood as a prohibition of the meeting. But, further, in those parts of Ireland in which rack-renting most prevailed, and where evictions were most keenly felt, knowledge of the English language was by no means universal; and he assured the Committee that the bulk of the people might remain ignorant of the fact that the prohibition of the meeting had been announced by the magistrates; and the consequence would be that great amount of confusion would follow. There could be no more effective way of disturbing the public peace in Ireland than to bring together a large number of unlettered people from various districts, and when they had assembled with a set purpose to introduce two persons in mufti to put an end to the proceedings. If the clause were carried out in the spirit notified by the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, the gaols would become choked in six months, and the failure of the Act established.

MR. METGE

said, he could not understand what possible reason the Government had for not accepting this very reasonable Amendment, unless it was that they desired to mark the Act from beginning to end with the impress of vindictiveness. He could only understand their policy on the ground that they wished to sweep into the net of the law as large a number of persons as possible. Her Majesty's Government did not appear to understand the proposal of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). His hon. Friend did not seek, in any way, to limit the power of the Government to prohibit meetings by notice given; all he said was, that in cases where people brought themselves within the letter of the law, by giving 10 days' previous notice of an intended meeting, they should be safeguarded by receiving three days' notice from the Government of the prohibition of the meeting. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant said these meetings could be got up at very short notice; but, from his own experience, he could positively deny that that was the ease. It was a very difficult matter to get up a meeting of an extensive character in Ireland under a fortnight or three weeks. Meetings got up at short notice were, as a rule, complete failures; on the other hand, he had seen a meeting, of which there had been two months' notice, dispersed at one day's notice by the Government. As he had said, he could not see what object the Government had in not accepting this Amendment, unless it was to drive people into the meshes of the law, and sweep them within the powers of this Act; and he hoped the Chief Secretary would find some means of meeting the view now expressed.

MR. T. FRY

said, he thought the Amendment was of such importance that some Members on the Liberal side might ask the Government to meet the objections to the clause half way. The contention of the hon. Member for the City of Cork was that the Government should at least give three days' notice when they wished to proscribe a meeting; and some hon. Members thought that if three days' notice could not be given, no penalty should follow where the people could not have known that the meeting was proscribed. It would be unfair to subject people under these circumstances to six months' imprisonment.

MR. GILL

said, he believed that if the Government rejected this Amendment that course would have the worst effect of anything it had done since this unfortunate Bill came before the House. The people of Ireland would think that the release of the "suspects" now was all a sham, and was only intended to empty the prisons in order that the Government might put another set of people in their places as quickly as possible; and that, instead of imprisoning people who were suspected of crime, they wanted to imprison people who were absolutely free from any crime. If the Government wanted to carry out any kind of policy that would conciliate the people of Ireland, they might give way on some small thing such as this; and it was only to protect the people from wrongful imprisonment that he and his hon. Friends were enforcing this Amendment. The Government had full powers for stopping meetings without this clause; and the Irish Members wished to prevent this severe punishment being inflicted on innocent people, who had no knowledge that they were bringing themselves within the law.

MR. SHEIL

said, it had often happened, as on this occasion, that when an Amendment was not printed, and was only read from the Chair, it was misunderstood; and in this case it appeared to him that not only did the Government misunderstand the Amendment, but even the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. T. Fry), who had spoken in favour of it, did not understand it. The object of the Amendment was, that should the promoters of any meeting- give 10 days' notice, then the Government should have seven days in which to consider whether to prohibit the meeting or not. What objection could there be to that? The Government would have seven days in which to consider the matter; they would know the object of the meeting; and all that was asked for was that they should not allow thousands of people to come from all parts of the country without their knowing that the meeting was proscribed. It seemed to him that the Amendment was so fair that it ought to be insisted on to the fullest extent, and he regretted that there was no more responsible Member of the Government in the House at that moment. He could not think that the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary would resist the Amendment, and he regretted that some more responsible Member of the Government had been prevented hearing the object of the Amendment. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: I have spoken upon it.] The Home Secretary was always opposed to Amendments; but he did not think the Prime Minister had appreciated this Amendment, and therefore he hoped there would be a strong opposition to the clause as it stood.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. POSTER)

said, the Home Secretary had indicated the real desire of the Government to meet the wishes of hon. Members opposite as far as possible; and he asked the Committee to observe in what respect the clause had already been modified. In the first place, the Home Secretary had agreed that the notice which the clause provided must be given at the earliest possible moment; in the second place, the notice was to be served on the promoters; and, in the third place, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had agreed to the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. P. Martin), that two magistrates should attend the meeting and give ample notice of its prohibition. Under these circumstances, it appeared to him that no one could claim that the people attending a meeting were in ignorance; but, in order that there might be no mistake about that, and no penalty imposed upon persons who innocently attended a meeting, the Home Secretary had consented to accept an Amendment inserting the word "knowingly," which would prevent a penalty being imposed upon any person not present with an active knowledge. But there was a practical difficulty in the way of adopting this present Amendment, which, he thought, even the hon. Member who proposed it would see. Any limit of time was open to one great objection—the hon. Member himself had pointed out that the Lord Lieutenant might still prohibit the meeting and prevent persons attending it; but the object of this Amendment was that persons should not be liable to prosecution for attending a meeting. If a distinct limit of time, within which notice must be given, was laid down in the Bill, it would be open to this great danger—there would be two classes of prohibition, one to be acted upon at the time if necessary, which would remain untouched by the Bill; and, secondly, a restriction as to time. What would be the consequence of that? Persons who were not by any means ignorant would know that two or three days' notice would be necessary in order to bring a meeting under the Act, and they would inevitably think that such notice was requisite to make a meeting illegal; and if that notice was not given the prohibition of a meeting would, be certain to lead to a collision between the authorities and the people, because the people would think that, inasmuch as the preliminaries under the Act had not been complied with, they were in their right, and that the authorities were acting outside their right. It seemed to him that the requirements of the Bill should be as stringent as possible to meet the circumstances of particular cases, and it would be most dangerous to have two classes of prohibition; and, therefore, while it was desirable that the earliest possible notice should be given, and no one should be liable unjustly, yet it would be impossible to accept the Amendment as now suggested.

MR. PARNELL

said, that the danger pointed out by the hon. and learned Gentleman would not arise. The proclamation of the Lord Lieutenant would render a meeting illegal, no matter when it was issued, and the people could be legally dispersed; but persons attending a meeting without a notice of three days, or whatever period the Government agreed to, would not be liable to penalties for being present. That would be a difficulty; and ho thought, as the Government were now for the first time imposing this penalty upon people attending meetings without the right to appeal or of the protection of a jury, the distinction he had proposed was fair, and before the division was taken he wished the Committee to see exactly what it was he wanted. If the Government would agree to carry out the views of the Irish Members, he would withdraw his Amendment until the Report. What ho wanted was, that there should be notice given at some definite period before the holding of the meeting, in order to entitle the Crown to punish persons attending that meeting where notice had been given by the promoters at the police station nearest to the place where the meeting was to be held. He did not wish to take from the Government the power of proclaiming a meeting, but he did wish to take away the power of punishing persons who had not received the notice of prohibition.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, the hon. Member had now brought the matter to a clear point, and had said that whether the meeting was to be prohibited within a fixed time or not, in either case the people would be acting illegally. That being quite clear, if a meeting was illegal, why should not any persons refusing to disperse, knowing the meeting to be illegal, be treated as acting illegally? At one meeting they would be liable to penalties for refusing to disperse; at another they would not; but in both eases the mooting was illegal. This seemed to him to be a difficulty in the case; and if the hon. Member should bear in mind one of the main reasons for desiring this penalty was that the Government believed the knowledge of this penalty would cause the people to disperse without force. That reason was equally applicable to both cases; and the Solicitor General for Ireland had pointed out, if at one class of meetings the people would not be liable to penalties, it would clearly be a greater inducement to refuse to disperse and to resist force. That seemed undesirable; and he would ask the hon. Member to consider this point. The only object now being contended about was founded on the supposition that the Government, having a knowledge of the circumstances which induced them to prohibit a meeting, would have some cause or other for withholding that knowledge deliberately from the people whom they ought to notify. Why should they do that? It was obvious that if the Government wanted to prevent a meeting they would take every possible means of preventing that meeting being held. It seemed to him a matter of common sense that they would take every precaution to let a prohibition be known. They were perfectly prepared to put in words where the notice was required at a point which had been passed and could not be dealt with now, declaring that it should be the duty of the Government to give notice at the earliest possible moment when the circumstances came to their knowledge. That seemed to him to meet the whole justice of the case. Then, when the meeting was held and the people were properly notified under the condition to be inserted in the Bill, and it came to the knowledge of the people that the meeting was prohibited, those persons deliberately refusing to disperse should be subject to the penalties of the Bill. That was a reasonable proposition; and he hoped the hon. Member would be willing, under the circumstances, not to press the Amendment, but to see whether, at some point hereafter, they could come to a satisfactory conclusion.

MR. DILLON

said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman was misrepresenting the issue in a very extraordinary way. What the Irish Members wanted was, not that men were to be punished because they refused to disperse, but because they were present at a meeting. That was an exceedingly difficult matter. The essence of the clause was that attendance at a meeting was to be a crime, and not the refusal to disperse. If that was what the right hon. and learned Gentleman wanted, he could have the Riot Act read, and call on the people to disperse, and then hold them liable if they refused.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he thought the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. P. Martin) would meet exactly what was asked, because two magistrates would notify to the meeting that it had been prohibited; and if the people refused to disperse, after such notification, they would be liable to the penalties. That, he thought, met the objection of the hon. Member, for the people would receive an authoritative notice before being called upon to disperse.

MR. PARNELL

said, that the Amendment he had desired to see introduced would act as a stimulant to the local authorities to inform the Lord Lieutenant in time, and not withhold the communication to the last moment when the people would be assembled and would have incurred the danger of penalties. It had been seen that the police and the local authorities had left the dispersing of a meeting to the last moment, and refrained from giving due notice to Dublin Castle, so that the people were put to the trouble of coming: long distances at the risk of coming into collision with the police and becoming liable to punishment.

MR. DILLON

wished to know what the Home Secretary assented to? He understood that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had said he would insert "knowingly;" but the Amendment which he was ready to insert left out all the words from "who" to "shall." Therefore, he did not see how the word "knowingly" was to be inserted.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, that "knowingly" would be put in at the top to govern the whole of the clause. What he meant was that "knowingly" should govern that clause, and with the Amendment he proposed to accept the clause would run thus— In case such meeting be so prohibited, two or more justices of the peace shall attend at the place where they have reason to believe such meeting is to be held, and then and there notify and repeat aloud, to the persons attending, the order prohibiting such meeting, and direct such persons to disperse; and in case any of the persons so met or assembled together shall not disperse within the space of one half-hour, such persons shall thereupon be guilty of an offence against the Act. The word "knowingly" did not arise at this point, because the persons present would necessarily know, as the proclamation would be made in their presence.

MR. DILLON

said, he mentioned this matter because the Home Secretary said he intended to insert "knowingly" before the word "who," and he understood that that would preserve the mere presence at a meeting as an offence. Now, the right hon. Gentleman said presence was to be no offence, and only a refusal to disperse would be an offence. That altered the matter very much.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he was willing to credit the Government with a desire to work out this clause as humanely and justly as possible. They had pledged themselves that the Lord Lieutenant should give notice of prohibition at the earliest possible moment after he received the information necessary for the formation of his opinion; but should not the Government, in their own interest and in the interests of good government, insert some provision in the clause which would make it incumbent on the local authorities to give the Lord Lieutenant that information at the earliest possible moment? That really was the point. The Irish Members were quite prepared to believe the Lord Lieutenant would give notice at the earliest possible moment from his point of view; but for the harmonious working of the clause, and to prevent ill-will, would not the Government insert some words making it incumbent on the local authorities and magistrates to inform the Lord Lieutenant at the earliest possible moment? That was of the greatest importance, because it might happen that the local police were on bad terms with the people, or there might be magistrates who had not sufficient knowledge of how to act in a difficult crisis; and so they might delay the notice to such a date that, although the Lord Lieutenant would give notice at the earliest possible moment from his point of view, his prohibition would be accompanied by a maximum of discomfort to the local population. If the Government would introduce words simply making it incumbent on the local police to give the earliest possible notice to the Lord Lieutenant, nine-tenths of the objections formulated in the Amendment would be fairly met.

MR. P. MARTIN

said, unquestionably there was considerable force in what had been said by some hon. Members opposite as to the possibility of the magistrates notification not being heard by some of those present. Probably it would meet those views to carry into effect what it was stated had been intimated by the Homo Secretary to the hon. Member for Tipperary, if the words suggested were added so as to make the sentence read— And in case the people do not disperse in the space of one half-hour such persons thereupon who shall knowingly remain present at the said meeting and shall not have had previous notice that the meeting has been prohibited shall thereupon," &c. He did not see what objection there could be to this addition to the Amendment. Surely, they were now super-adding statutory rights to the rights enjoyed by the Lord Lieutenant; and it should not be the intention of the Government that a person, who was not aware that a meeting had been prohibited, and who had not had reasonable notice, either from the proclamation or the magistrates, or from previous information, should be made an offender against the provisions of the Act, and be subject to six months' imprisonment. He thought the words he suggested reasonable, and those adopted by the Government ought, and he conceived would, have the desirable effect of terminating this discussion.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he was a little disappointed to find that when he had accepted an Amendment the hon. and learned Member was not satisfied with his own Amendment. He was in as great a difficulty by accepting the Amendment as if he had refused to do so. It was certainly very discouraging, and he would like to point out the difficulty in which they were landed. If this power was to be used it must be in consequence of a magistrate making the declaration. When the Riot Act was read the consequences followed. Was it reasonable to suppose that it was necessary that every man in the crowd should hear the Act read. The people in the crowd perfectly well knew what the whole thing meant—it meant the declaration of the illegality of the meeting, and what it was necessary to prove was that the Riot Act had been read. It was exactly the same thing whether a man heard it read or not, and he did hope that the hon. Member would not press this Amendment.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, that if Her Majesty's Government did not give notice of the prohibition of a meeting until the very last moment a great deal of expense would have been incurred—a great deal of popular feeling would have been excited, and all to no purpose. Without the slightest necessity the Government would have incurred a lot of unnecessary unpopularity. That was the logical position, and he thought it would be well if Her Majesty's Government would make it incumbent on the local magistracy and police not to cause any delay in their giving the information to the Lord Lieutenant as to meetings which were about to be held.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 49; Noes 176: Majority 127.—(Div. List, No. 142.)

MR. SEXTON

said, that the next Amendment which stood in his name opened up a very important question with regard to the responsibility of those who promoted public meetings, and as the House had now been sitting for a very considerable time, he hoped that the Government would now consent to report Progress.

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

MR. CAUSTON

said, that early in the evening the Prime Minister announced the intention of the Government to take a Morning Sitting to-morrow; but the right hon. Gentleman was not at all sanguine that any very satisfactory result was likely to follow. Now, this Prevention of Crime Bill was either urgent, or it was unnecessary. The Government said that it was urgent. The Irish people—the terror-stricken people of Ireland—considered it was necessary. ["No, no!"] He maintained the terror-stricken people said it was necessary, and he and a vast majority of the Members of the House of Commons were of opinion that the measure was required. He, therefore, rose to make an appeal and a suggestion to Her Majesty's Government. His appeal was that the Government should take immediate steps to bring the discussion on this Bill to a close. The sooner the Government recognized the fact the better it would be for the country, that the supporters and followers of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) were almost irreconcilably opposed to this measure, and were using every means in their power to defeat it. He did not wish to say anything unkind of the hon. Gentlemen below the opposite Gangway. If they were irreconcilably opposed to this measure, they were, perhaps, justified in using the immense powers they possessed under the existing Rules of the House to resist its progress; but, on the other hand, public opinion in the country was at the back of Her Majesty's Government, and if hon. Members opposite chose to use the means they had at their disposal to obstruct the progress of the measure, the Government and the House of Commons generally were in duty bound to use the powers they possessed to secure the passing of the Bill. Under the existing Rules he knew it would be madness to attempt to vote Urgency. Morning Sittings were absolutely useless, for they had been taken over and over again, and the result had been nil. He, therefore, ventured to suggest to the Government that the only course open to them under the existing Rules was to have a continuous Sitting, and he believed that the adoption of such a course would meet with the approval of a large number of Members on the Ministerial side of the House. The Government were in a very large majority, and they must recognize that fact. He did not pretend to say that they must use their majority unfairly; but it must be remembered that the interests of the country—[An hon. MEMBER: Which country?]—the interests of England and Ireland demanded that this measure should be passed. There was no one more anxious than himself to see remedial measures passed for Ireland, and when the Arrears of Rent (Ireland) Bill came before the Committee he should do all he could to assist its progress. He simply threw out this suggestion, and he hoped that the Government would not, at this early hour of the night (1.10), consent to report Progress.

MR. PARNELL

said, he must deny that there was any ground for the statement of the hon. Gentleman who had last spoken, that he (Mr. Parnell) had in any way used the Forms of the House to oppose this Bill, or that he was in any way obstructing the progress of this Bill, or encouraging anybody else to do so. The hon. Gentleman must recollect that, after all, he was an Englishman or a Scotchman—lie was not quite sure which he was—and he could not be expected to sympathize as much with them and their exertions to preserve the Constitutional liberties of their country as they sympathized with themselves and their own people. He could, therefore, understand, to some extent, the impatience with which he had viewed the attempts of the Irish Members to alter the character of this Bill. The hon. Gentleman must recollect that this Bill consisted of many clauses, a considerable number of which involved principles of the greatest importance and the most far-reaching consequences, taking away, one after the other, those Constitutional rights, which, up to last year, had been enjoyed in Ireland; and he (Mr. Parnell) would recommend the hon. Gentleman to hesitate before he desired to precipitate a conflict between the Irish people and the Government.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, the Government were sensible that the progress of this Bill had not been what the House of Commons had a right to expect. When a question of this kind was raised, he thought, a week ago, the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), speaking of the length at which these debates had been continued, said that the Government must consider that they had practically got the main part of the Bill when they had got to the 4th clause, and the Committee hoped and expected that in the subsequent clauses the pro- gress of the Bill would have been more rapid. The hon. Gentleman said—"You have got the main part of your Bill, and you have only been a week or 10 days in discussing all these clauses." "That was not an unreasonable time," said the hon. Gentleman, "because you have got the main part of your Bill." Well, but almost as much time had been exponded upon the next three clauses; therefore, the expectation held out by the hon. Member for Wexford had not been at all fulfilled. Just let them observe what had taken place to-night. He could not help pointing out, with regard to the manner in which the Business of the House was conducted, that two hours were spent on what he must call an inordinate abuse of Questions. To-day, for the first time, there were upon the Paper of the House of Commons 68 Questions, a number, he believed, unparalleled before. Day after day, and Session after Session, the abuse grew; and, as he had said, two hours were spent upon Questions to-day, some of which, no doubt, were important, but many of which, he thought, the House might very well have dispensed with. Since Question time, seven hours and a-half had been taken up in the discussion of Amendments, which nobody could call of first-rate importance. They commenced the clause yesterday; they had spent the whole of to-day upon it, and they had not yet come to its conclusion. It was perfectly impossible, in his opinion, that the Business of the House, upon this or any other Bill, could be conducted upon such a footing as that. He had no desire whatever, if they could avoid it, to go to anything that could be called extreme measures; but what had occurred must have satisfied everybody that things could not go on in the future as they had gone on in the past. He would rather reserve the consideration of future proceedings to the Prime Minister; and he hoped that, at all events, the Committee would show its desire to deal practically with a matter of this kind by finishing the discussion of this clause to-night.

MR. HEALY

said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had personally alluded to him. What he had said on a former occasion he would now repeat. He pointed out on Friday night last, in reply to something that was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen), that the Government had got four clauses of the Bill in a little more than a week, whereas the Tory Party had taken up five nights upon the three first lines of the Land Bill of last year. As this Bill was of great importance to the population of Ireland, of much greater importance than the miserable Free Sale Clause of the Land Act, he considered the conduct of the Irish Members had been far more pardonable than the action of the Tory Party last year. He pointed out last week that the Government had got the main clauses of the Bill. He added nothing to that except that he hoped the Government would not accept the advice given them by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon. The Government had now reached the 7th clause; in fact, they had proceeded two or three times as rapidly in the last two or three days as they did in the 10 previous days. Ho considered that the contention he put forward on Friday night last had been maintained to the letter. He made no complaint of the speech of the Home Secretary; but he did not think, after all, that the right hon. Gentleman ought to blame the Irish Members for what had occurred earlier in the evening. Everyone know that a considerable portion of the Question time was occupied in an animated dialogue between the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs and the hon. Member for Greenwich (Baron De Worms); in fact, he thought that the House never presented an appearance so much like a Punch and Judy show before, for the hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich was continually jumping up and down badgering the unfortunate Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In the whole course of their acquaintance with the late Chief Secretary there was never anything so much in the shape of baiting as had happened this afternoon in the case of the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs. With reference to the proposal to finish this clause to-night, he thought that if the Government would not take a Morning Sitting to-day the clause might very fairly be finished; but if the Government wanted to bring them down at 2 o'clock, he hoped his hon. Friend would insist upon reporting Progress. The Home Secretary must know that whenever concessions had been given during this Bill progress had been very largely accelerated. Nothing had astonished the House more than the manner in which they got through the 5th clause. It went through with a run. A substantial concession was made to hon. Gentlemen on that (the Opposition) side of the House, and through went the clause. Hon. Gentlemen of the Irish Party, during the progress of the Bill, had received support to their Amendments from hon. Members sitting on the Ministerial side of the House. The Irish Members had been encouraged to go on with their Amendments by the Radical Members of the House; and the inference they were to draw from that was that their arguments had produced a substantial impression on the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and it could not be maintained that they were arguing now in vain. It was a source of considerable satisfaction to them to find that, instead now of having minorities of 20 or 30, which were the minorities when they started the discussion of this Bill, those minorities had doubled, and now the supporters of Amendments were dividing 50 or 60 strong. He would suggest that the Government should make a statement that they would abandon the Morning Sitting and go on with the Bill now until they came to some point upon which there was a very material difference of opinion. It was proposed that they should meet at 2 o'clock. When they met, Questions would occupy the time until half-past 2, and that would only give them four hours and a-half; and then, when they met again at 7 o'clock, or at 10 minutes past—for the Speaker did not come in until one of the Whips informed him that 40 Members were present—["No, no!"] The noble Lord opposite, one of the Government Whips, shook his head; but hon. Members knew very well how this was done. On the grounds he had stated, and also on the ground of the inconvenience to which Members might be put, he would recommend the Government to drop the Morning Sitting, and see how they went on with the Bill to-night.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

said, he only rose for the purpose of suggesting that as it seemed to be understood that it would be possible, without sitting very late, to finish the 7th clause—which would be a very reasonable thing for the Committee to con- template—they had better try to avoid too much talking. If they went on with this discussion, they would only be losing time, which could be advantageously employed in considering the Amendments to the clause. They had been discussing the clause all the evening, and their minds were now properly set to it, and if they went on quietly and perseveringly, he did not think it need take them long to pass it.

MR. LABOUCHERE

said, the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) had stated that he would suggest to his Friends the desirability of going on with the 7th clause, and concluding its consideration to-night, if the Motion for a Morning Sitting to-day was withdrawn. He (Mr. Labouchere) would point out two things—first, that, as the hon. Member for Wexford had said, there had been more Liberals with the Movers of Amendments opposite on this clause than on any other Amendments to the Bill; and, in the next place, this clause was in itself a Bill. It would have the effect of putting a stop to public meetings, and he would put it to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary himself, how long would it be likely to take to pass a clause or a Bill doing away with the right of public meeting for three years in England?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, that with reference to the suggestion that the arrangement as to a Morning Sitting should be altered, he did not think that, under the circumstances, that could be done, for the reason that when an announcement was made by the Prime Minister early in the evening, people went away with the impression that that announcement would be adhered to. It would not be fair to alter the arrangement at this time of the evening. Hon. Members would see the difficulty the Government were involved in, in having made a promise of this description. Hon. Members opposite had the support of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere); and, no doubt, as the hon. Member for Wexford had said, that support was a very potent and valuable element in their resistance to this Bill. He thought, at all events, they ought to see what the opinion of the House was as to whether or not they should insist upon going on with the clause before a new arrangement was entered into. He must resist the Motion.

MR. PARNELL

said, he was sorry the Home Secretary had not been able to see his way to accepting the suggestion of the hon. Member for Wexford to go on for two or three hours tonight, and finish the clause, so as not to be under the necessity of coming down to a Morning Sitting.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I would consent to forego a Morning Sitting if I could; but it is impossible.

MR. PARNELL

said, he was sorry for that, because he thought if the right hon. and learned Gentleman had been able to accede to the Motion, it would have contributed very much to the harmony and despatch of Public Business. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary and the Committee would see that as they would be obliged to meet there again in 12 hours' time, it would not be reasonable for the Government to require them to stop here another two hours till they finished the clause. If they finished the clause, after deducting the time which would be spent in getting home and getting back again, they would only be left with something like 10 hours for sleep and transacting any private business they might have to perform. Then, again, it must not be forgotten that the number of hon. Members who were opposing this Bill, and endeavouring to amend it in the interests of a whole people, was very limited. Though they would have been willing to have given two hours to the further consideration of the clause to-night, if the arrangement had been for them to meet at 4 o'clock to-morrow, he did not think that, under the circumstances, they should be asked to give any further time to the Bill at present. It was not reasonable to ask them to go on any longer; therefore, he trusted the Government would give way.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had drawn attention to a statement which had been made by the hon. Member for Wexford, to the effect that when they had obtained the 4th clause of the Bill they really had secured the most important part of it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman from this had drawn the conclusion that as they had got the most important part of the Bill through, the rest should be allowed to pass as quickly as possible. To him (Mr. O'Donnell) it appeared the legitimate conclusion was that as the Government had got the "Boycotting" Clause and the clause for the suspension of trial by jury, they might have seen, their way to offering less resistance than they seem inclined to do to reasonable Amendments to the remaining portion of the Bill. [Cries of "Divide!"] The clamour arising from the Liberal Benches opposite was a conclusive proof of the incapacity of the Committee to continue the consideration of the Bill in a calm frame of mind to-night.

MR. MONK

said, there was a very general opinion amongst many of his Friends sitting on that—the Ministerial —side of the House, that it was desirable that Progress should be reported. If the Home Secretary hoped to get through this clause to-night, there could be no doubt that he was under a mistake. Considering the lateness of the hour, and that they were to meet again at 2 o'clock, the right hon. and learned Gentleman would do well to agree that Progress should be reported.

MR. T. E. SMITH

said, that, as one who had a strong feeling that the Government of the country ought to be supported in the measures they thought necessary for the purpose of preserving law and order in Ireland, he had always kept clear of anything like interfering with the Government in the conduct of their Bill. But he thought the time had come when an independent Member might be excused for saying that, so far as his feeling and that of others sitting near him was concerned, the opinion was gaining ground, both in the House and out of it, that it was the duty of Her Majesty's Ministers to take such steps as they might deem desirable to expedite and enforce the carrying out of the policy which they had thought it their duty to recommend. He was not bringing accusations against hon. Gentlemen opposite, who had felt it to be their duty, in the interests of the country from which they came, to oppose the Bill, line by line, and word by word; but the Committee must look at this matter as practical men. They must be aware that, under such difficulties as the House was placed in at present, it was quite impossible for Parliament to pass a perfect measure. If it was to be subjected to verbal criticism, it would be impossible to make it what was called a perfect measure, or, if they did, they would not have time to pass it this Session. They must proceed, to a certain extent, by rough-and-ready means. [Ironical cheers by the Irish Members.] Yes, rough-and-ready means; but, of course, he meant in crucial circumstances. Rough-and-ready means were sometimes necessary, and it was time for Her Majesty's Government to consider what measures they could take to bring this legislation to a termination. The conduct of hon. Gentlemen opposite, leading as it did to the eviction of somewhere about 20 families a-week, was likely to produce a strong feeling in the country that it was far from being patriotic. He would also venture to suggest that a feeling was growing throughout the country that the time had come when the Government must put their foot down and take some steps to secure the practical realization of that policy which they had taken upon themselves the responsibility of recommending to Parliament.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he should not have risen to keep the Committee from the division they were anxious for, had it not been for the remarks of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. The hon. Member charged hon. Gentlemen from Ireland with a policy the tendency of which was to increase evictions in Ireland; but it was not the Irish Party, but the Government, who were responsible for what was taking place in Ireland. They were following the precedent of last year by making their policy of conciliation follow that of coercion. This Bill was a Bill for increasing evictions in Ireland. It was a Bill for taking away from the Irish people that power of combination which, when the Government had deserted them, had been for the last two years the only means they possessed for stopping evictions. This was a Bill for putting the Irish tenants at the mercy of the Irish landlords; and yet, in full view of this fact, the hon. Gentleman (Mr. T. E. Smith), after his long experience, had the face to get up and accuse the Irish Members of increasing the number of evictions in Ireland. The Government, from their own point of view, had already obtained as much of the Bill as was necessary to enable them to preserve peace and order in Ireland. Then let them drop the rest of it. They had made themselves pos- sessed of far too much power. They had taken means for putting down "Boycotting," and when this clause had passed they would have taken means for putting down public meetings. They had possessed themselves of power to bring murderers before what they conceived to be an impartial tribunal. On the heads of the Government rested responsibility for all the evictions that were taking place by the delay they had allowed to take place in the passing of the Arrears Bill. It was monstrous that hon. Gentlemen like the hon. Member opposite (Mr. T. E. Smith) should try in this matter to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.

MR. CALLAN

said, the feeling was increasing from day to day that the Arrears Bill should be brought forward, and that these sentences of death, which, in the form of evictions, were being passed upon the people from day to day, should be put an end to. The Government should give precedence to the Arrears Bill. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Tynemouth (Mr. T. E. Smith), who had something of an Irish constituency, and others, had given the right hon. and learned Gentleman the opportunity for which, with malice prepense, he had been waiting, when, some time ago, he said there was some force in the suggestion that they should have Urgency for this Bill. It was quite evident to anyone who knew the right hon. and learned Gentleman's antecedents that he would only be too glad of any excuse which would enable him to avail himself of that continuous Sitting to hurry the Bill through, for which he had all along been so very anxious.

MR. METGE

said, they were not averse to proceeding with the discussion on this Bill if they were allowed to do so without being obliged to come down here to-day to a Morning Sitting. The answer the Home Secretary had given was that it was now too late to alter the decision of the Prime Minister; but that was the answer the Home Secretary invariably gave the House. This was the third or fourth time that a similar reply had been tendered. Why did he not think of it beforehand? The Government, no doubt, had intended to discuss this Bill until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. If they had made up their minds to do that, why had the Prime Minister brought for- ward his Motion; and if, on the other hand, they had not made up their minds to do that, why should they not now give way? If this sort of thing went on, hon. Members would have coercion on the brain.

MR. PARNELL

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman wish to take a division? It will only load to further loss of time.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I should like to know what the feeling of the Committee is upon this question.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 26; Noes 142: Majority 116.—(Div. List, No. 143.)

Motion made, and Question put, "That the Chairman do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Parnell.)

The Committee divided:—Ayes 24; Noes 137: Majority 113.—(Div. List, No. 144.)

MR. DILLON

moved that Progress be reported. He was surprised at the action the Government were taking. He had understood the Home Secretary to say that he desired to obtain the opinion of the Committee, and not that he intended to continue to divide. Therefore, he supposed that when the next Motion was made the Government would acquiesce, as a matter of course, and that the Home Secretary was only making a demonstration of force against the Irish Members. They were taken by surprise by the second division; but he hoped the Government would now consent to report Progress, seeing that the appeal came not alone from the Irish Members, but also from influential supporters of the Government, who emphasized their appeal by leaving the House when the Home Secretary desired to take the opinion of the Committee. He saw several leave the House because they would not vote for the Government, and would not vote against the Government. It was thus plain that there existed outside the Irish Party a feeling that the right time had now come for reporting Progress; and, therefore, it was absurd to place the Irish Members in this position at 2 o'clock in the morning—that they were to be looked upon as Obstructionists. They were asking the Government to consent to report Progress—an hour later than usual—because they were threatened with a Morning Sitting. They objected to a Morning Sitting, and had stated that if there was to be no Morning Sitting they would go on till 3 o'clock; but in spite of their objections a Morning Sitting was fixed.

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

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, it was quite true that he desired to ascertain the opinion of the Committee, and that opinion he had ascertained. Ho did not think the divisions that had taken place justified the boasts made as to the amount of support received from Gentlemen on the opposite Benches, for he believed that when the Division Lists came to be examined the}' would not show that the recruits from these Benches were numerous. The position in which the Committee was now placed illustrated what had long been the opinion of the Government—that a majority in the House was impotent in the face of a small minority. The hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) asked why he did not assent to the last Motion? The last Motion was one which would have defeated the Bill; therefore, it was natural that he should not assent to it. But he did not think to-night was the proper time to determine what course should be taken to facilitate the progress of Public Business. That question must be reserved for future consideration.

MR. E. POWER

said, he was glad to see that the Home Secretary had displayed an unusual amount of common sense; and when the right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of his great majority, he would ask him to remember that in the first division 25 Irish Members voted for the adjournment, and only 10 against it.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

said, he considered these divisions no test whatever of the sense of the Committee. There were Members on the Government side of the House in favour of an adjournment who yet voted for a continuance of the debate. The hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Monk) strongly urged the Government to consent to the Motion, yet he supported the Government in the division. What, therefore, was the value of this division while it was perfectly well known that men voted in that House, not because they objected to the Motion, but because they must support the Government? But it should be remembered that the Irish Members had the heaviest part of the work to do upon this Bill, and that the matter concerned them the most closely. They had to be in the House more than any other section of the House, and as they had to be back again at 2 o'clock, they had a right to ask the House to consider their physical requirements.

MR. WARTON

said, that as the Government were about to consider what steps they would take in the present position, he wished to make a practical suggestion, which was, that as murderers were stalking about the laud, and evictions had not been suspended, they should let the Executive in Ireland act as if this Bill had been passed, and bring in a Bill of Indemnity.

Question put, and agreed to.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow, at Two of the clock.