Commons Sitting of 13 August 1883

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Education, Science, and Art (Administration of Votes), Mr. Sclater-Booth and Mr. Jesse Collings added.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES—Class III—LAW AND JUSTICE, Votes 24 to 29; 31, 32, 35, & 36; Class IV.—EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND ART, Vote 2.
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolutions in Committee—Navy and Army Expenditure, 1881–2.
Committee—Medals * [188]—R.P.
Committee—Report—National Debt (re-comm.) [287]; Education (Scotland) [226]; Expiring Laws Continuance [283].
Considered as amended—Third Reading—Cholera Hospitals (Ireland) [282], and passed.

QUESTIONS.

  PREVENTION OF CRIME (IRELAND) ACT—DOMICILIARY VISITS BY THE POLICE.
  MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is the fact that the Shantsnagh police, county Monaghan, visit by day and night the house of Mr. Patrick M'Ginn, of Lengongoun, and that this has gone on for several months; if so, on what grounds; whether any outrages have been committed in Aughnamullen parishe; if so, when; by whose instructions Mr. M'Ginn is thus watched; whether the police who visit his house
  248
  carry a warrant; if not, what is their authority for making such domiciliary visits; whether their conduct has his sanction; and, if he can state what is the general character borne by Mr. M'Ginn and his family in the district?
  MR. TREVELYAN: It is the case, Sir, that the house of Patrick M'Ginn has been for some months past occasionally visited by the police, the reason being that there was strong reason to believe that illegal meetings had been held there. Except for the suspicion on this ground, M'Ginn is a man of good character. The visits were paid by order of the district Resident Magistrate and Sub-Inspector, and were not objected to by M'Ginn. I will make special inquiry as to whether the public interests require that they should be further continued. There have been two serious outrages in the parish named within the past four months—one, the burning of a meadow, and the other, a serious assault.
  MR. HEALY: I may inform the right hon. Gentleman that Mr. M'Ginn does strongly object to the visits of the police, and I would ask him to answer that portion of my Question which inquires whether the police carry a warrant, and, if not, what was their authority for entering this man's house?
  MR. TREVELYAN: The police visited the house by order of the Resident Magistrate and the Sub-Inspector of the district.
  MR. HEALY: Under what Statute? There is a particular section of the Crimes Act authorizing visits when the police carry a warrant. I would ask whether these visits are made under the Crimes Act?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, it was not necessary that the police should have a warrant when the visits were not forcibly made. If M'Ginn did not object, the police had a right to enter.
  MR. HEALY: If the police were wanted; but Mr. M'Ginn does not want the police.
  MR. TREVELYAN: The police state that they were not armed with a warrant, but that M'Ginn did not object to their visits.
  MR. HEALY: There will be objection for the future, and I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will convey that fact to the police.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—THE CORK BOARD OF GUARDIANS.
  MR. O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he is aware that Captain Sarsfield, Vice Chairman of the Cork Board of Guardians, refused to take the opinion of that Board on an application for the use of a board room for a conference of the elected and ex-officio Guardians of the county on the subject of the defects and suggested amendments of the Poor Law system in Ireland; and, whether it was within the Vice Chairman's competence to refuse the Board an opportunity of deciding upon the application; and, if not, whether an intimation to that effect will be conveyed to him?
  MR. TREVELYAN: I am informed, Sir, that the Vice Chairman did not refuse to take the opinion of the Board. There was a difference of opinion among the Guardians as to whether or not the use of the Board-room should be granted for the purpose asked, and, after some discussion, the matter dropped, not having been pressed by those in favour of it, and no formal resolution having been put.

  PREVENTION OF CRIME (IRELAND) ACT, 1882—POLICE PROTECTION.
  MR. O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether a blacksmith named Hallissey, in the Monanimy Division of the Mallow Union, has been under the protection of six policemen since September last; whether the cost of the extra police force, amounting to over £200, has been levied off the ratepayers of that division; whether the ratepayers challenged a sworn inquiry into the alleged attempt to shoot Hallissey, undertaking to prove that his story was a concoction; whether the inquiry was refused; whether Mr. Plunkett, special resident magistrate, on the 30th July wrote a Letter, threatening to enforce payment of the arrears of Police Tax, and to retain the police at the expense of the parish, unless within a few days the ratepayers subscribed £50 to enable Hallissey to emigrate, and promising, if the money were forthcoming, that he would use his influence with the Lord Lieutenant to relieve the parish of the Police Tax; whether the threat has induced
  250
  the ratepayers to subscribe the money necessary to influence Hallissey to leave the Country; whether Mr. Plunkett's Letter is an offence against the Intimidation Clause of the Crimes Act; and, whether the Government will take any action in reference to his conduct?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the district mentioned has been proclaimed as stated for the protection of a blacksmith named Hallissey. Whether he was fired at or not, he was cruelly "Boycotted" for a long time; his danger was admitted by many persons, and there could be no doubt whatever of the necessity for affording him protection. The proposal to collect a sum of £50 for the purpose of enabling him to emigrate was first made some time ago. It did not emanate from the Special Resident Magistrate as stated, and I believe the parish priest has the matter in hand. I am unable to say whether Captain Plunkett wrote a letter on the subject on the 30th of July. I have made inquiries, but have not yet been informed.
  MR. O'BRIEN: Whoever may have initiated the proceedings, is the House to understand that Captain Plunkett, or any other official, has authority to levy under threat any amount of black mail he chooses for the benefit of a private individual?
  MR. HARRINGTON: Arising out of the right hon. Gentleman's answer, I beg to give Notice that I shall ask him on Thursday, Whether a communication was sent by the Private Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant stating that Captain Plunkett was in communication with certain persons in that district with reference to the emigration of this man?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Captain Plunkett was in communication with the parish priest; but that is the only person.
  MR. O'BRIEN: In consequence of the reply of the right hon. Gentleman, I beg to give Notice that I will on Thursday ask, Whether the following is a copy of the letter written by Captain Plunkett to the parish priest:—
  "Dear Sir,—I have received your letter. I hope that the necessary amount may be raised in order that Hallissey may be in a position to emigrate, as I understand he is anxious to do so. If this is done, I shall recommend His Excellency to remove the proclamation, and thus relieve the parish of the Police Tax. But as long as the authorities consider that protection

  251
  is necessary the police will remain at the expense of the parish. Should you be able to get the necessary amount in a few days, I will use my influence to have as much as possible of the arrears for which warrants will shortly issue struck off; but this will not be able to be done after the warrants issue? "
  I will also ask whether the following letter has been addressed by the Chief Secretary to a magistrate in the district who applied for the remission of the Police Tax:—
  "I am to add that His Excellency understands that arrangements are now in progress by which the necessity for the protection of Hallissey will cease; and on learning that such arrangements have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion. His Excellency will direct the withdrawal of the additional force? "
  I will also ask what these arrangements were, by what legal authority they were entered into, and whether it is the law that any ruffian in the community, by making himself obnoxious to his neighbours—[" Order!"]——
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now making a speech.
  MR. O'BRIEN: I am giving Notice of a Question, Mr. Speaker, which is, whether any person who makes himself obnoxious to his neighbours can in this way have a handsome subscription made up for him?
  MR. HEALY: I also beg to give Notice that I will move a special Amendment to the Tramway and Emigration Bill, providing for the emigration of Mr. Hallissey at the expense of the tax-papers.
  MR. HARRINGTON: I beg to give Notice that at the same time I shall ask whether at the time that the Lord Lieutenant and Captain Plunkett were in communication about the emigration of this person, at the expense of the locality, they had in their hands a special fund with which to pay the cost of his emigration?
  MR. TREVELYAN: I do not see anything that calls for remark in what has happened, nor does it disclose anything inconsistent with official propriety. But when a man is publicly called a ruffian who has made himself obnoxious to his neighbours, I am bound to say that the offence of this man was that he worked for a "Boycotted" person.
  MR. O'KELLY: Are we to understand that the Government authorized this system of black mail?
  MR. HEALY: Assisted emigration.
  MR. O'KELLY: The brigands of the Treasury Bench.

  PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (CORRUPT AND ILLEGAL PRACTICES) BILL—CONVEYANCE OF ELECTORS—HOURS OF POLLING.
  MR. S. SMITHasked the President of the Local Government Board, If he has fully considered the important changes in the conditions of recording votes in elections for Members of Parliament involved by the Clauses of the Corrupt Practices Bill prohibiting the conveyance of voters; and, if it is the intention of the Government next Session so to amend the Ballot Act as to extend the hours of polling universally to eight o'clock in the evening?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: The importance of the hours of polling question in the eyes of those who sit on this Bench is well known, and I myself on several occasions proposed to the House of Commons a universal extension in boroughs, when it was generally supported by Liberal and opposed by Conservative Members. It has since been proposed with similar results by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and by the hon. Member for Glasgow. In 1878 a Select Committee reported against extension even in the large towns by the casting-vote of its Chairman, the hon. Baronet the Member for North Northumberland (Sir Matthew White Ridley), a Member of the Conservative Administration; but universal borough extension was not proposed to it at all. In the present Parliament it has once been proposed to the House, on June 2, 1880, when the Bill was read a second time; but only on the understanding expressed by the Leader of the Opposition that it should cease to be a universal measure, a view supported in the debate by some who sit upon this side. Since 1880 I have each year, at the beginning of the Session, introduced a Bill for optional extension of hours, which each year has been much opposed by many hon. Gentlemen opposite. That Bill passed its second reading last year and this year, but each year had to be abandoned in consequence of the character of the opposition with which it met. It is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to re-introduce the Bill at the beginning of the next Session, during which Session

  253
  they have every hope that it will become law.
  MR. ONSLOWasked whether the right hon. Gentleman, before introducing a Bill, would consider the propriety of nominating a Select Committee to inquire into the extension of the hours ef polling in small places?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, he did not think it would be necessary, because the question had been debated so often—some eight or ten times—that the views of hon. Members were pretty well known.
  MR. ONSLOWgave Notice that when the Bill was introduced he should move that it be referred to a Select Committee.

  ARMY—THE PROMOTION WARRANT—SIR ANDREW CLARKE.
  MR. TOTTENHAMasked the Secretary of State for War, If his attention has been called to letters in the "Standard" newspaper of the 4th and 7th instant, headed "A questionable transaction," and if it is the case as therein stated, that a Special Warrant is about to be issued to exempt Sir Andrew Clarke from the provisions of the existing regulations as to ineligibility for promotion on account of age; whether the age as now fixed by Royal Warrant at which a Colonel of Engineers is ineligible for promotion is fifty-nine, and whether Sir Andrew Clarke has reached that age; Whether the local or temporary rank of Major General was given to him to enable him to hold the office of Inspector General of Fortifications, which it is laid down in the Queen's Regulations shall be held by a General Officer, who shall be considered a General of Division, thereby setting aside the claims of other distinguished officers eligible to hold the appointment, and giving him precedence over the seniors in his own Regiment; whether he should not now be retired on account of age; and, what are the circumstances which justify the continued supercession of others, and the evasion of regulations heretofore rigidly enforced?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, it is a fact that a Warrant has been issued exempting officers holding the temporary rank of Major General from the operation of the clauses of the Promotion Warrant which deals with the eligibility of Colonels for promotion and employment after certain ages, and giving
  254
  them the benefit of regulations applicable to Major Generals so long as they hold that rank. Sir Andrew Clarke, who would be otherwise ineligible for promotion, comes under the operation of this Warrant. The appointment of Inspector General of Fortifications with the rank of temporary Major General was given to Sir Andrew Clarke under the circumstances stated by my Predecessor (Mr. Childers) in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Plymouth (Mr. Stewart Macliver) on the 5th of June, 1882. I will quote his words—
  "The Inspector General exercises, it is true, certain military functions, but they constitute a small portion of his duties; and Sir Andrew Clarke has been appointed because he is an engineer of great eminence, and has shown the highest qualities as an administrator; and because, as at the present time, proposals of great importance are expected from the Royal Commission on Colonial Defences and the Committee on the Defence! of Mercantile Harbours, we require to be advised by an officer of the very highest engineering, administrative, and financial capacity."—(3 Hansard, [270] 57.)
  The proposals referred to by my Predecessor are now before Her Majesty's Government, and Sir Andrew Clarke has already given a great deal of time and labour to their consideration. On his advice Her Majesty's Government must largely depend in coming to a decision as to the extent to which these proposals shall be adopted, and as to the measures to be taken for their execution; and, in the opinion of the Government, it is most desirable in the interests of the Public Service that he should continue to be their adviser until further progress has been made in the consideration of the subject.
  MR. TOTTENHAM: Are there any other officers besides Sir Andrew Clarke who have come within the provisions of this Warrant?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: I am not aware at this moment; but the Warrant is general in its application.

  STATE OF IRELAND—ASSAULT BY ORANGEMEN AT BELFAST.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY (for Mr. SEXTON)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been drawn to an account given in the "Belfast Morning News" of the 3rd instant, of an attack made by an Orange mob at Crumlin Road, Belfast, on a Catholic excursion party on the night of the 31st ult.; whether

  255
  this excursion party, consisting of about twenty ladies connected with the vesper choir and schools of the Holy Cross Retreat, and of a few young men, were suddenly and without provocation attacked while driving home along the Crumlin Road by a mob of about three hundred men and boys, with the result that eleven ladies were struck with stones, that one of them received a dangerous wound, that the clergyman in charge of the excursion was severely struck, and that worse was only prevented by a constable off duty, and in plain clothes, who came by chance upon the scene; whether, although the excursionists before leaving in the morning requested police protection on their return, and obtained a promise of it, and that the police station is within one hundred and fifty yards of the spot in question, no steps whatever were taken by head constable Howe, or anyone in charge of the police, even by stationing a constable at the dangerous point, to guard the peace and protect the excursionists against violence; what is the explanation of this; and, what steps will be taken by the Irish Executive to mark their sense of it, and to prevent a recurrence of such scenes?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, I regret that it is true that such an attack was made; but the terms in which it is described are somewhat exaggerated. One young lady was hit on the head and slightly injured. The clergyman also was struck, but not in any way injured. It is true that protection on the return journey had been asked for, and Head Constable Howe had accordingly arranged to place additional men on the streets; but, unfortunately, he did not expect the excursionists to return so punctually as they did, and the men were not sent out in time. The Head Constable admits his error on this occasion; but as he is highly spoken of as an energetic and hard-working man, not only by his own officers, but by the Rev. Mr. Anthony, the Roman Catholic clergyman who was in charge of this excursion, I think the caution which has been administered to him is sufficient notice to take of the matter. The Rev. Mr. Anthony expressed himself quite satisfied with the explanation given, and spoke highly of Head Constable Howe's attention to his duty during the past four years.
  MR. O'KELLY: Has any effort been made to arrest the men who attacked the procession?
  MR. TREVELYAN: I will make inquiries on that point.

  NATIONAL EDUCATION (IRELAND)—ENGLISH AND IRISH EDUCATION CODES.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY (for Mr. SEXTON)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that, whilst a pupil in an English Elementary School, who has been examined in any subject by one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Public Elementary Schools, may be presented for examination in the same subject by the Science and Art Department on the expiration of a period of six months (vide "Directory of the Science and Art Department," Rule XLVII, page 20, edition of 1881), on the other hand, no pupil in a school under the patronage of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, who has been examined by an officer of the Commissioners in any subject can be presented for examination in the same subject by the Science and Art Department until after a period of twelve months has elapsed (vide "Directory," page 41, Rule I.); whether he is aware that this difference in the rules applied to the two countries by the Department operates to lessen the earnings of the Irish as compared with the English teacher, inasmuch as, in multitudes of cases, owing to the months in which the Irish examinations are held, the teacher cannot present his pupils at the next annual examination by the Department; whether he is aware that, in regard to extra subjects, the Result Pee paid by the Department being eight times as much as that allowed by the Commissioners, the Irish teacher is driven to withhold from the Irish examinations in extra subjects those pupils whom he thinks likely to pass the examination by the Department; and, whether, in regard to the extra subject of Agriculture, the Irish teacher is obliged, by a rule of the Commissioners, to present his pupils for examination by their Inspector, though the Result Fee for each successful pupil is but five shillings, and though this regulation, coupled with the time rule already quoted, prevents him from earning the Result Fee of two

  257
  pounds allowed for each successful pupil by the Department; and, whether the time rule will be made uniform for both countries?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, it is not the practice of the Commissioners of National Education to pay a results fee for any subject for which a results fee has been already paid within the results period (one year) by the Science and Art Department. This rule was made after consultation with the Science and Art Department—the object being to prevent a duplication of payment for the same subject in the same results period on the answering of the same pupils. If a different rule applies in England, it appears to me to be a matter for the consideration of the Science and Art Department whether any change should be made; and, if so, in what direction. For my own part, I have no hesitation in saying that, if other things are equal, the same rule should apply in Ireland and England, and I will communicate with the Science and Art Department on the subject. I think that the query as to agriculture in the third paragraph of the hon. Member's Question is put under some misapprehension, as I understand that agriculture is not an extra subject in Irish National schools.

  NATIONAL EDUCATION (IRELAND)—EXAMINATIONS IN AGRICULTURE.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY (for Mr. SEXTON)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, What practical agricultural training is possessed by the Inspectors of the Irish Board of National Education who conduct examinations in agriculture in schools under the direction of the Board, and what certificates of competency in this regard are held by those Inspectors; whether examinations in agriculture are held at all periods of the year, Midwinter as well as Midsummer; and, whether, as the income of the teacher depends on the result of the examination, arrangements will be made, in the case of schools with gardens or plots of ground attached, that the agricultural examination shall be held at a time when the value of the teacher's work can be practically tested?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the Commissioners of National Education inform me as follows:—The pupils and farms of
  258
  agricultural schools are examined by an Inspector who is qualified by education and practical experience for his office. Agricultural schools are inspected and examined twice each year at such times as results can be fairly judged. The school gardens are examined at periods when the Inspectors consider they can do full justice in the matter of results.

  NATIONAL EDUCATION (IRELAND)—THE "IRISH EDUCATIONAL JOURNAL."
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY (for Mr. SEXTON)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is true as stated in the "Belfast Morning News" of 14th and the "Northern Whig" of 15 May last, that the President and ex-president of the National Teachers' Organisation, the Chairman and Secretary of the Belfast National Teachers' Association, and eight associated teachers, were on Monday 7th May last brought to the Belfast Model School before Head Inspector M'Cullum and District Inspectors Gordon and Moran, with no further intimation of the cause than a line from the Head Inspector: "Please meet me at the Model School at two o'clock this day;" that these teachers were one by one brought into the Inspectors' Office and required to declare whether they had any connection with the "Irish Educational Journal; "whether they had written articles or corrected proofs for it; whether they knew the editor or reputed editors; that these teachers after being examined were prevented from leaving the office till the proceedings closed about six o'clock, an army pensioner being placed on guard at the office door; whether on a teacher declining to answer a certain question Dr. Moran said "You must answer it," and then to his colleagues, "We'll report him officially;" whether the same official said at another stage of the proceedings, "Now we are weaving a net round them;" whether there is any rule of the Commissioners of National Education prohibiting teachers from owning and editing a journal solely devoted to the cause of primary education; and, whether it is not a fact that the primary teachers of England and Scotland conduct such journals, and that the civil servants enjoy a similar privilege?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the Commissioners of National Education have no objection whatever to national teachers owning and editing a journal devoted to the cause of primary education, and there is no rule prohibiting it; but a journal called The Irish Educational Journal and National Education Gazette, purporting to be owned and edited by National teachers, has from time to time contained articles reflecting in so reprehensible a manner on the administration of the Department to which the teachers belonged, that the Commissioners felt themselves obliged to interfere, and endeavoured to ascertain who was responsible. They, therefore, ordered an inquiry which was held in Belfast. The alleged incidents at the inquiry referred to in The Belfast Morning News are unknown to the Commissioners; but they will investigate the statements.

  STATE OF IRELAND—WESTMEATH.
  MR. HARRINGTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether a police hut has been recently erected at Coldoro, in the neighbourhood of Ballycumber, county Westmeath; whether there was any other reason for the erection of the hut than the fact that an iron gate had been stolen off the land of a man named Gaynor residing in the locality; and, whether it is true that the sub-inspector of police visited the houses of several farmers before the hut was erected, and cautioned them if the iron gate was not returned he would have this additional police tax placed on them?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, a police hut has been erected on the lands as stated. The theft of the gate was only a symptom of the state of affairs which rendered the police necessary. Mr. Gaynor had taken an evicted farm, which had been "Boycotted," and turned into a common by the neighbours. He sought police protection to enable him to stock it, and this was afforded to him by patrols, which, however, proved to be insufficient. Preparatory to putting cattle on the farm he repaired the fences and put up an iron gate, which was stolen and carried away. Persistence in this line of conduct rendered the imposition of extra police necessary; but the district was given a further chance of escaping the proclamation by the circumstance referred to in the last paragraph of the
  260
  Question. It is true that the Sub-Inspector, acting under the direction of the Resident Magistrate, warned the people that unless the gate was returned the Lord Lieutenant would be asked to proclaim the district.
  MR. O'BRIEN: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether any proposal has been made by the Government to send Mr. Gaynor out of the country?
  [No reply was given.]

  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY—SUB-CONSTABLE FORBES.
  MR. SHEILasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether sub-constable Forbes was transferred from Meath to Limerick because of a complaint against him; what the charge against him was; whether the Inspector General, as well as Mr. Ross the County Inspector of Meath, were aware at the time the transfer was ordered, that sub-constable Forbes had hired a house for his family and himself, for which he had paid a year's rent in advance; and, whether the loss suffered by sub-constable Forbes, in consequence of the unexpected change of his quarters, will be made good to him?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, I am informed that Sub-Constable Forbes and two others were transferred for the good of the Public Service on suspicion of their having been concerned in an anonymous correspondence in the Press, reflecting on the conduct of certain officers and men of the Force. As the Service makes no provision for leaving a man permanently at any particular station, if Sub-Constable Forbes paid for a house a year in advance, he, of course, did so at his own risk, and is not entitled to any compensation in the matter.

  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY—MEETING OF THE NATIONAL LEAGUE.
  MR. BIGGARasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he is aware that the meetings of the Kanturk Branch of the Irish National League, are regularly attended by Members of the Royal Irish Constabulary; if he can state under whose directions, and for what purpose, this annoyance to the members of a legal organization is so persistently carried out; and, whether he will give instructions

  261
  to have the practice discontinued?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the meetings of the Kanturk, as well as other branches of the National League in the district, are usually attended by the police, but they never force their admission unless obliged to do so under warrant?
  MR. HARRINGTON: May I ask if the people resisted the police would they be prosecuted under the Prevention of Crime Act?
  MR. HEALY: Of course they would.

  INLAND FISHERIES (IRELAND)—THE FISH PASS, KILLALOE.
  MR. KENNYasked the Chief Secretory to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he is aware that the Irish Board of Works removed the fish pass at Killaloe last autumn, and have not since replaced it by a new one; if he is aware that a great number of salmon and peel have recently been destroyed by endeavouring to ascend the Shannon through the sluices at Killaloe; if he will cause inquiry to be made; and, if the facts are found accurate, recommend that a new pass be constructed to prevent this great destruction of valuable fish?
  MR. COURTNEY: Sir, the old fish pass at Killaloe was removed when the weir there was altered; a new one is in hand, and will be finished in a month. I have inquired as to any loss of fish during the alteration, and am glad to say that the information I have received does not bear out the allegation in the Question.

  ARMY EDUCATION—THE ROYAL WARRANT OF 25TH JUNE, 1881—ARMY SCHOOLS.
  MR. LEAMYasked the Secretary of State for War, Why the provision in paragraph 485 of the Royal Warrant of the 25th June 1881, that the pay of Sub-inspector of Army Schools should be the same as that of Quarter-master of Artillery, has not been carried out in India, while the advantages conferred by this Warrant on Quarter-masters, Riding-masters, Non-commissioned Officers, and Privates in India have been conceded; and, whether the Inspectors and Sub-inspectors of Army Schools suffer a loss of status as represented by pay, on transfer from the Home to the Indian Establishment; and, if so,
  262
  whether this grievance will be remedied?
  MR. J. K. CROSS: There are no Inspectors of Army schools nor Quartermasters of Artillery in India. Inquiry will be made whether it is desirable to make any change in the existing rates of pay of Sub-Inspectors of Army schools; but I must observe that no representation on the subject has been received from any quarter.

  THE IRISH LAND COMMISSION (SUB-COMMISSIONERS)—JUDICIAL RENTS.
  MR. O'KELLYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether two of the Sub-Commissioners appointed for the counties Eos-common, Sligo, and Leitrim, namely, Messrs. Morrison and Henston, did on the 11th July last in proceeding to visit the farm of Mr. John Watters, who had an application for the fixing of a fair rent heard at the sitting of their Sub-Commission in Carrick-on-Shannon, drive to the farm in the trap of the landlord, Mr. C. C. B. Whyte, D.L., Hatly Manor, in company with Mr. Whyte and his bailiff; whether in the decisions delivered at Mohill subsequently the Sub-Commissioners fixed the judicial rent in this case at the old rent; and, whether a competent valuer swore that the old rent was a rack rent?
  MR. TREVELYAN: A communication has been addressed to the Sub-Commissioners named, asking them for a Report on this matter; but I am informed that as they are at present taking their vacation, some days may elapse before their reply is received.

  THE IRISH LAND COMMISSION—COURT OF APPEAL—CASE OF "DRISCOLL v. HALL."
  MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, in hearing evidence in Driscoll v. Hall the Land Commissioners heard any witness as to value, or confined themselves to hearing evidence as to a legal point; whether they sent a court valuer; in how many cases have they given decisions in which neither they nor the Sub-commissioners sent a court valuer, and is it an invariable rule not to give judgment unless they or the Sub-commissioners have sent a court valuer, or heard evidence as to value; and, is it the fact that the rent fixed is

  263
  greater than what the middleman pays his own landlord for his tenant's land, and for twice as much land in addition, which is in his own possession?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the Land Commissioners have forwarded to me a very full Report on this subject. It is too voluminous for me to take up the time of the House by reading it, and I think the House should have it in full; that is evidently the wish of the Commissioners. I will, therefore, lay it on the Table without delay.
  MR. HEALY: How soon may we expect it?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Very soon. It is a very long answer to the Question. I shall have it issued as a Parliamentary Paper.
  MR. HEALY: Will the right hon. Gentleman have the Estimate for the salaries of the Land Commissioners postponed until it has been printed?
  MR. TREVELYAN: I cannot undertake to give an assurance to that effect.
  MR. HEALY: In that case I shall have to move the reduction of the Vote.
  MR. TREVELYAN: If that is the intention of the hon. Gentleman, I would rather read the letter.
  MR. HEALY: It is certainly a most important matter, and I intend to call attention to it on the Estimate.
  MR. TREVELYAN: Then I will read the letter. It is as follows:—
  "Irish Land Commission, Dublin,
  "11th August, 1883.
  "SIR,—With reference to Mr. Healy's Question regarding the case of O'Driscoll, tenant, Hall, landlord, I am directed by the Irish Land Commissioners to state as follows:—John Hall, the landlord, is, in fact, an extremely poor peasant. His wife's evidence as to their way of living was that she went spinning, that she had two sons and a daughter in service, and another daughter in America, who sends her a couple of pounds. Hall rented some land from Lord Bantry, at a rent of £10 18 s., about 14 years ago. Hall's wife having to leave the place in which they were living, and to go and live as caretaker to her father, a bargain was entered into between her and Driscoll to the effect that Driscoll was to take the larger portion—amounting to seven statute acres—of the land at £12 a-year upon the terms that he would give it up again when Hall wanted it. The Sub-Commissioners came to the conclusion that the land was let for a temporary convenience, and dismissed the case. An appeal was brought. Upon consideration of some intervening circumstances not necessary to detail as to the lapse of time, the Commissioners, on appeal, though not without much hesitation, were of opinion that they ought not to confirm the dismissal pronounced by the Sub
  264
  Commissioners; but they were unanimously of opinion that as Driscoll refused to give back the land to Hall according to his undertaking, he should, as regards the land, be held to his bargain, and to give him a statutable term at a lower rent would not be just. They considered Driscoll's conduct to be unreasonable, and fixed the rent at the sum he had agreed to pay without going into the question of value. This order they thought consonant with justice, and they had distinct power to make it under the terms of the Statute. There is no invariable rule on the subject of sending a Court valuer. It is the ordinary rule that where there is an appeal from the decision of the Sub-Commission fixing a judicial rent, one of the Court valuers visits the farm before the hearing on appeal, and reports on its value. This is not done when the originating notice is dismissed. If the Commissioners, on re-hearing, are of opinion that it should not have been dismissed, their general practice is to remit the case to the Sub-Commissioners to fix a fair rent. They did not do so in Driscoll v. Hall, for the reason they have stated. The Commissioners, at the same time, consider it their duty to protest against being called upon by Government to make statements or to give explanations in relation to their judicial decisions. The rule that protects such decisions from being made the subject of Parliamentary inquiry is not, they conceive, a rule arising from any personal privilege; but it is a rule of public policy to secure the independence and impartiality of the judgment seat. When a Question is asked in the House of Commons impugning the judicial decision, and the Question is forwarded to the Judges who made the decision for a reply, the latter are placed in the dilemma either of violating a Constitutional rule, or, should they decline to answer upon the ground of that rule, of being assailed under the plea of privilege of Parliament in coarse and vituperative language. The Land Commissioners submit that the Question in Parliament seeking to ransack the judicial decision indicates of itself the only reply that can be properly given, and that the responsibility of making that reply should not be cast upon the Commissioners with the result of exposing them to language insulting in itself and calculated to prejudice the administration of justice. The Commissioners think that in justice to them this letter should be communicated to the House of Commons, or else that they may be at liberty to make it public, if they should so think fit.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
  "W.W. GWENNY."
  MR. HEALY: I beg to give Notice that I will call attention to the circumstances of fixing fair rents, not upon the lines of the Act of Parliament, but by going into personal, collateral, and family matters; and, still further, I shall call attention to the fact that while the right hon. Gentleman has communicated a document reflecting upon Members of this House for having in their capacity as such asked Questions regarding a judicial decision of Mr. Justice O'Hagan and the other Land Commissioners, these

  265
  Commissioners did not use their position as Judges to decline to give evidence before the Committee of the House of Lords; that they have gone before the House of Lords and allowed themselves to be close questioned——
  MR. SPEAKERintimated that the hon. Member was out of Order.
  MR. HEALY: I give Notice, Mr. Speaker, that I shall call attention to that subject.

  SOUTH AFRICA—ZULULAND—CETEWAYO.
  SIR HENRY HOLLAND (for Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH)asked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether, if it prove to be the fact that Cetewayo has been compelled to seek British protection in the reserved territory, Her Majesty's Government will direct that measures shall be taken to prevent him or his adherents from recommencing war, or using the reserved territory as a basis for fresh agitation or military operations in Zululand?
  MR. RYLANDSasked if the Under Secretary could at the same time state whether he had any information that Cetewayo was still in his own country collecting his forces, and, according to a telegram published to-day in The Standard, was about to make an attack on Usibepu?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: No, Sir; we have absolutely no information later than that which I gave to the House a few days ago. I have seen the telegram referred to, but am quite unable to say whether there is any truth in it or not. In the total absence of authentic and positive information of what is the true state of affairs at this moment, I am unable to give any definite answer to the Question which has been put upon the Paper; but I may say this much—that Her Majesty's Government would not view with indifference any attempt to use the Reserved Territory as a basis for military operations.

  SOUTH AFRICA—NATAL—RESTORATION OF LANGALIBALELE.
  SIR HENRY HOLLANDasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether Sir Henry Bulwer had been instructed by the Colonial Office to report as to the conditions upon which Langalibalele might be restored; and, if so, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a Copy of those
  266
  Instructions and of Sir H. Bulwer's Report?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: Yes; Sir Henry Bulwer was instructed by the Colonial Office in the sense referred to, and those instructions and his Report will be laid on the Table of the House in the course of a few days.

  PREVENTION OF CRIME (IRELAND) ACT, 1882—ARREST OF MR. B. M'HUGH.
  MR. O'KELLYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is true that Mr. Bernard M'Hugh, of Thomastown, county Roscommon, was arrested on the 22nd of June on a charge of conspiring to murder Mr. Young, for which murder he was tried and acquitted six years ago; whether, having been remanded six times, and on each occasion for eight days, he has been finally set at liberty without any evidence having been produced against him; whether he was brought into the sub-inspector's room in the police barracks at Castlerea, and into the presence of the sub-inspector and a stranger; whether the stranger, addressing Mr. M'Hugh, said—
  "Now, M'Hugh, we have got evidence that will convict you; but, if you hand up the actual murderer, you can go home to your family, and we shall do all we can for you; "
  whether Mr. M'Hugh was only permitted to be represented once by his solicitor before the magistrate, and although he applied, on each occasion on which he was remanded, to be allowed the services of his solicitor, he was not permitted to communicate with his legal adviser; whether, on cross-examination, Sub-Inspector Wynne swore that "no information had been sworn against Mr. M'Hugh;" whether the Government will take any action in view of the conduct of the police; and, whether any compensation will be given to Mr. M'Hugh for the loss of his time, and the damage done to his character by these proceedings?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER): M'Hugh was arrested on the 22nd of June on a charge of conspiring to murder Mr. Young, for whose murder he had been tried and acquitted three, not six, years ago. There was several remands, and finally the case dropped from want of completeness in the evidence. The Resident Magistrate informs me that he is not

  267
  aware of any overtures having been made to M'Hugh, and that no such conversation as that referred to occurred in the police barracks. It is untrue that the prisoner was ever refused permission to see his solicitor or to be represented by him. I am not aware of what evidence Mr. Wynne gave; but I cannot think he said that there was no sworn information against Mr. M'Hugh, as there was. The last part of the Question I have to answer in the negative.
  MR. O'KELLYsaid, that he had put the Question denied by the Attorney General upon the faith of a letter received from M'Hugh himself. On going into Committee of Supply he would call attention to the persistent persecution to which this man had been subjected for three years in view of the fact that the Government had under their own protection the man who confessed himself to be the organizer of Mr. Young's murder.

  PRISONS (IRELAND)—MR. HARRINGTON.
  MR. T. D. SULLIVANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, What alterations have been made in the treatment of Mr. Edward Harrington, at present imprisoned in Tralee Gaol; whether he is still compelled to wear the prison clothes, and to do the work usually allotted to criminal prisoners; whether he is allowed to read any newspaper, or whether any one of the employés in his office is allowed to visit him, to consult with him about his business; if not, how long will he be kept in gaol before being allowed to receive any visits; and, whether it is true that he is confined in a small cell twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the prisoner has been relieved from the plank bed, and is allowed to communicate by letter with his friends and receive their letters according to rule. He has the use of books sent by his friends, and has four hours' exercise daily. He wears prison clothes and does the work usually allotted to prisoners who are not sentenced to hard labour. He is not allowed newspapers or visitors, and will be three months in prison before he can be allowed to receive visits. It is not the case that he is confined in his cell 22 hours out of the 24.

  MADAGASCAR—ACTION OF THE FRENCH AT TAMATAVE—CASE OF THE REV. MR. SHAW.
  MR. A. M'ARTHURasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Her Majesty's Government are aware that the Rev. G. A. Shaw, agent of the London Missionary Society at Tamatave, is detained a close prisoner on board a French man-of-war, and refused permission to communicate with his friends; whether they have received from the French authorities any statement of the charges brought against Mr. Shaw; and, what steps they have taken to secure a fair investigation into his case?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Yes, Sir; Her Majesty's Government are aware of the arrest and detention of Mr. Shaw, and they understand that he has been refused permission to communicate with his friends. Her Majesty's Government have not yet received from the French authorities any formal statement of the charges against Mr. Shaw; but they have reason to believe that he is accused of what the French Admiral considers a very serious offence. Her Majesty's Government are in communication with the French Government on the subject.
  MR. R. N. FOWLERasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Her Majesty's Government have received any information concerning the refusal of the French authorities at Ivondro, in Madagascar, to permit a party of twenty-two English subjects including women and children, to proceed from that place to Tamatave in order to embark for England; and, if so, what are the reasons assigned by the French for such proceeding?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Sir, the facts are as follows:—Commander Johnstone learnt a few days before July 7 that a party of English missionaries from Antanarivo had arrived at Ivondro, and, having been interfered with by the Hovas, turned southward to Mahanoro. Captain Johnstone thereupon arranged that the officers in charge of a Government steamer, which had been despatched from the Mauritius to take away any refugees, should call at Mahanoro to take off the missionaries; but it was stated that, owing to the heavy surf, it would be impossible to communicate

  269
  with the shore. There is a British Vice Consul at Mahanoro, Mr. J. J. Wilson.
  MR. HEALY: Will the noble Lord say whether the French Admiral considered this such a serious charge that he has put this clergyman on a plank bed?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: I have no information as to that.

  POST OFFICE (CONTRACTS)—THE IRISH MAIL SERVICE.
  MR. ONSLOW (for Mr. RITCHIE)asked the Postmaster General. Whether any tenders were received for the carriage of Her Majesty's Mails between Holyhead and Kingstown other than that of the City of Dublin Company; and, if so, by whom were the tenders made?
  MR. FAWCETT: Sir, in reply to the hon. Member, I may state that besides the tender of the City of Dublin Company for the conveyance of mails between Holy head and Kingstown, the only other tender received was from Mr. Holt, of Liverpool. This tender proposed the employment of small despatch boats; but, although, they would have made the passage in quick time, they would have afforded very inadequate accommodation for the sorting of mails and no accommodation for passengers. It was, therefore, thought inexpedient to accept his tender.

  AFGHANISTAN—THE SUBSIDY TO THE AMEER.
  MR. JOSEPH COWENasked the Under Secretary of State for India, If any information has been received from India respecting the subsidy to be paid to the Ameer of Afghanistan; and, if he is now in a position to state to the House the services the Ameer is to render in return for £120,000?
  MR. J. K. CROSS: The annual subsidy of 12 lakhs of rupees is given as a subsidy personal to the Ameer Abdurrahman as an aid towards meeting his present difficulties in the management of his State, to be devoted to the payment of his troops, and to other measures which may be required for the defence of his territories. No Treaty has been concluded with the Ameer.
  MR. JOSEPH COWENasked, whether there were no conditions of service to be given by the Ameer in consequence of this payment? Subsidies to previous
  270
  Ameers had been given; but in consequence of these, they had extended to the British Government certain powers—such as to have a Resident at Kabul, Agents on the frontier, facilities in respect to commerce, and even a distinct, provision that the foreign policy of Afghanistan should be regulated and controlled by the British Government in India. What he wished to know was whether any such conditions had been obtained from the present Ameer in consequence of this subsidy?
  MR. J. K. CROSS: No such conditions have been imposed upon the Ameer.
  MR. JOSEPH COWENgave Notice that on the Indian Budget he would call attention to the subject.
  MR. ONSLOWinquired whether arms and ammunition were to be given as well as the £120,000?
  MR. J. K. CROSS: No, Sir; no arms or ammunition. If any more Questions are to be put, I shall be very much obliged if hon. Members will give Notice.
  MR. ONSLOW: I beg to give Notice that, in consequence of the way in which the hon. Gentleman answers my Questions, in future I shall put all such Questions to the Prime Minister.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I beg to say, in that case, if the hon. Gentleman contemplates putting Questions to me, owing to his disapproval of the answers given by my hon. Friend, I shall not think it my duty to take over the duties of my hon. Friend.
  MR. ONSLOW: I beg to give Notice that at the usual time I am going to give the right hon. Gentleman Notice of a Question for Thursday next.

  LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART—THE ASHBURNHAM MSS.—THE IRISH MSS.
  DR. LYONSasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he can comply with the request of the Society for the Preservation of the Ancient Language and Literature of Ireland to allow the Ashburnham MSS. to be examined by a gentleman, whom the Society designate, and who is exceptionally well skilled in Irish Literature and Antiquities, before the final selection of the works intended to be deposited in Dublin?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): In reply to my

  271
  hon. Friend, I have to state that when it was finally decided to propose to Parliament the purchase of the Stowe Collection, Sir Samuel Ferguson, who is Deputy Keeper of the Irish Public Record Office and President of the Royal Irish Academy, assisted by Mr. Hennessy, who is Todd Professor of Celtic and Editor of Irish Chronicles, conferred, under the direction of the Treasury, with Mr. Bond, of the British Museum, and these gentlemen recommended to us which manuscripts should go to the Royal Irish Academy and which to the British Museum. Their Report, about which there was no difference of opinion, has been approved, and I cannot re-open the question.
  MR. O'KELLY: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that London has got some of our Irish MSS., and is he not aware it was clearly understood they were all to be sent to Ireland?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): No; I said nothing of the kind.
  MR. O'KELLY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if there is any person in the British Museum who knows Irish?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): The two gentlemen who have examined the manuscripts are well acquainted with the Irish language.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYasked whether, before these manuscripts were transferred to Dublin, the right hon. Gentleman would make inquiry as to the provision for their safety? The manuscripts in the Royal Irish Academy were kept in common book-cases. The documents now in question were of an important character, and he thought they ought to be kept in fireproof cases.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, the Irish Board of Works had been directed to take care that proper provision was made for the cases in which the manuscripts were to be kept.
  MR. GIBSONsaid, that as Sir Samuel Ferguson's name had been mentioned, he assumed that that gentleman would be thoroughly satisfied with the custody of the documents?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, they were acting under the advice of Sir Samuel Ferguson.

  THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS COMMISSION.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEasked the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he can state when the Report of the Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts will be distributed; and, whether he can account for the delay in its publication? The right hon. Gentleman added that he had seen a précis in the papers; but the Report itself was net forthcoming.
  MR. HIBBERT,in reply, said, the Report would not be ready for distribution for a few days. The delay had occurred owing to certain Commissioners having appended reservations since the last meeting of the Commission, and to Lord Penzance having written a separate Report. As to a précis of the Report having been published in several newspapers, he had to say he had communicated with the Secretary to the Commission, and he had written disclaiming any part in the publication. The Home Office were only supplied with one copy, and that still remained there. He could not explain the publication unless the information had been furnished by some Member of the Commission. He wished also to state that the Copy of the Report which appeared in the public papers was not a correct copy; it was a copy of a Report which was issued some time ago.

  CROWN LANDS ACT—THE NEW BRIGHTON FORESHORE.
  MR. BIGGARasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, If he can state what authority (if any) the Wallasey Local Board has over the foreshore of New Brighton, and what rights the owners of property have to the portion of the foreshore in front thereof?
  MR. COURTNEY: Sir, the Wallasey Local Board hold a lease of seven acres of foreshore at New Brighton for a term which expires in 1939. They lately held a lease of about two miles of foreshore on each side of New Brighton Ferry for the purpose of preserving order on the shore, and to prevent the uuauthorized removal of shingle; this lease has recently expired, and negotiations are pending for its renewal. It is not known that the owners of property at or near New Brighton have any rights over the soil of the foreshore.

  LAW AND JUSTICE—LONDON BANKRUPTCY COURT.
  MR. WAUGHasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Why, in the Appropriation Accounts of the London Bankruptcy Court, credit is taken for £65,546 12 s. 3d. for fees collected by stamps, showing a profit on that account of £8,595 148. 8d. whereas about £56,000 of those stamps represent the fees due to the country Courts of Bankruptcy, and cover the £46,517 16 s. 11 d, paid to the country registrars, leaving a profit of £9,482 3s. 1d. from those courts, instead of a loss of the above sum of £46,517 16 s. 11 d. and showing a loss on the London Bankruptcy Court of £47,404 5s. 4d?
  MR. COURTNEY: Sir, the. hon. Member refers to the statements of gross and net cost appended to, but not part of, the Appropriation Accounts. These are prepared by the Controller and Auditor General. I think a blot has been hit in the bankruptcy figures; but I would point out, in justice to the Controller and Auditor General, that he has no means of knowing what proportion of the bankruptcy fee stamps represents work done in the County Courts. His attention has been called to the point.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—MEDICAL ACT AMENDMENT BILL.
  SIR LYON PLAYFAIRasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, considering the important interests involved in the Medical Bill, he can arrange for a Second Reading of that Bill early in the week?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, owing to the important interests involved in the Medical Bill, we are most anxious to take the discussion and obtain the judgment of the House upon it on the earliest day we can; but the progress made with certain other Bills is not sufficient to allow me to name a day at the present moment. I hope in the course of three or four days to be able to do so.

  SUEZ CANAL-THE ENGLISH DIRECTORS.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether his attention has been called to a telegram, in nearly all the newspapers of the 9th instant, to the following effect:—
  "The Directors of the Suez Canal Company held their monthly meeting in Paris yesterday,
  274
  M. de Lesseps presiding, and the three English members of the Board being present. They gave their unqualified approval to the Letter of M. de Lesseps to Mr. Gladstone of the 20th of July;"
  whether the three English Directors concurred in this unqualified approval of a Document which contends that the existing Suez Canal Company enjoys
  "For ninety-nine years the exclusive monopoly of excavating any maritime Canal through the Egyptian isthmus;"
  and, if so, whether Her Majesty's Government have taken any steps to show to the Canal Company that such expression of opinion on the part of the three British Government Directors of the Canal does not necessarily imply the concurrence of the Government in the contentions of M. de Lesseps?
  MR. GLADSTONE: The paragraph which the hon. Gentleman has quoted did attract my attention; but we have had a report of what took place at the meeting, and the language of that paragraph is certainly not accurate. What was asked of the Council of the Suez Canal Company was an approval of the letter generally, which I do not understand would cover anything beyond the general scope of the letter; but a special approval was asked of the last paragraph of the letter, and that last paragraph had no relation to any disputed or disputable question, but referred entirely to the intention to give increased accommodation along the line of the present Canal. With regard to the apprehension of the hon. Gentleman that the acceptance without any protest of this proposal by the British Directors might have committed the British Government, I think he will have seen by this time there was no such committal on the part of the Council itself. However that may be—I do not wish to enter into any argument—the opinions and pledges of the British Government must be taken from their own written and spoken declarations; and I may remind the hon. Gentleman that on the 24th of last month I referred to this subject, and I said I believed that the exclusive power to which reference had been made in these discussions by us was a power to prevent others from piercing the Isthmus, and did not touch the question, either affirmatively or negatively, whether the present Company was authorized without any further concession to make a second Canal.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, that, as the right hon. Gentleman had said the Board of Directors were asked to pass a general approval of the whole letter and a special approval of one part of it, he would ask how far the right hon. Gentleman could allow the Canal Company to go under the impression that the general approval of the letter which contained the words he had quoted was concurred in by the British Directors? He would also ask the right hon. Gentleman whether any steps would be taken, in accordance with the assurance given by the Secretary of State for War, that the English Directors would be warned not to mix up in political
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, we shall give such instructions to the English Directors from time to time as may seem to us to be necessary. I think the hon. Gentleman is not quite under a correct impression. He seems to think that the Directors of the Canal Company are under the supposition that every expression and argument of that letter has been adopted by the Company and by its Directors. We have no reason to know or believe that such is the case; and the hon. Gentleman will observe that, if such were the case, the distinction between the general approval given to the letter, as a whole, and the special approval given to the last paragraph would altogether disappear and be of no account.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked whether the three English Directors who were charged with the negotiations with the Canal Company, and who in their negotiations pledged themselves to conserve the monopoly of M. de Lesseps and the Company, were entitled, after the decision of the House and after the general expression of feeling in the House and in the country, even to join in a general approval of a letter which contained the words quoted in the Question to the right hon. Gentleman?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, they had no character as negotiators whatever, and I am not aware they have done anything which commits the Government.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked if they were not negotiators between this country and M. de Lesseps and the Company?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I must distinguish between the two characters.
  276
  If the hon. Gentleman has a difficulty in distinguishing between the character of these gentlemen as Directors and their character as negotiators, or, at least, the political effect of their action as negotiators, that is a matter which it would have been well to consider at the time they were made Directors, and when the original arrangement was made. So far as the negotiations are concerned in which they were engaged, that matter is now entirely dropped, and their action must now be judged as that of Directors, and not negotiators. I can only repeat I do not believe that by acquiescing in the general acceptance of the scope of M. de Lesseps's letter, they have done anything that in any manner limits or commits the action of the British Government.

  OYSTER FISHERIES—THE RIVER BLACKWATER (COLCHESTER).
  MR. ROUNDasked the President of the Board of Trade, If he will lay upon the Table of the House the Report of their Inspector who held an inquiry at Colchester in January last upon applications for grants of the River Blackwater for Oyster Fisheries, inasmuch as the matter is of considerable interest to all parties represented at such inquiry?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN,in reply, said, it had not been customary to publish the Reports in the case of the applications refused; he supposed the chief objection being the great cost. As there was some interest taken in this matter, he would inform the hon. Gentleman that the reasons why the application in this case was not granted were—Firstly, the applicants proposed to appropriate a large area of an already existing public bed or productive dredging ground; secondly, the area was a dredging and fishing ground, and the appropriation would have been detrimental to the public interest and to the owners of private oyster grounds, and to the local dredger-men and fishermen; and, thirdly, the applicants failed to show that by means of these grants the supply of oysters would be materially increased.

  MADAGASCAR—ACTION OF THE FRENCH AT TAMATAVE—STATEMENT OF THE PRIME MINISTER.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEasked the First Lord of the Treasury, When

  277
  he will be prepared to make a statement with respect to Madagascar; and, whether he can now give the House any particulars with respect to a proclamation said to have been issued by "the Superior Commandant of Tamatave," prohibiting access to Tamatave "to all Foreign sailors, soldiers, and officers? "
  MR. GLADSTONE: In answer to this Question, Sir, I am not able to name any time when I can make a statement with respect to Madagascar. The Papers, which contain a great deal of matter and much Correspondence—some of it perhaps a little conflicting—have only very recently come into our hands. They were only in my hands on Saturday last, and we are not aware that the French Government have as yet received any detailed information. Lord Granville stated in "another place," I think on Friday last, that he was awaiting tidings of the French Government having received such information, and it had been agreed between M. Wadding-ton and himself that when that information arrived communications would immediately take place. The right hon. Gentleman, therefore, will see I am not in a condition further to refer to the matter or to name a day on which I can make a statement, or to say anything about the presentation of Papers on the subject. I do not think there would be any advantage in entering in details respecting any particular Correspondence; but, undoubtedly, it is a fact that a prohibitory proclamation was issued by the French authorities, of course purporting to be issued in virtue of the military occupation. Certain questions may arise upon the terms of that proclamation.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEasked whether the House might expect any statement before its rising? He must remind the right hon. Gentleman that he himself made a statement in what might be called "another place," which had evoked a great deal of interest and curiosity.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Yes, Sir; my statement was confirmatory of what we have previously stated with regard to our own impressions upon the communications that had passed with the French Government at the time when this intelligence arrived, and it was confirmatory of the intelligence we then had received that the matters that happened and the communications upon them at
  278
  the outset were of a nature to lead to the supposition that no apprehension need be entertained with regard to their ultimate issue. I would readily make a statement if it were a matter dependent upon our own action alone; but as it was a matter affecting a Foreign Government, I cannot give any pledge on the subject whatever to make a statement.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I will repeat the Question next Monday.
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTasked whether it was true that Admiral Pierre had been recalled from Tamatave? He also asked the Prime Minister whether his attention had been called to statements in the French newspapers to the effect that the French people were highly gratified with the amende honorable made by the right hon. Gentleman, and whether he was aware that his speech on Wednesday last, at the Mansion House, was taken as an apology to France?
  MR. GLADSTONE: No, Sir; no such statement as that mentioned by the hon. Gentleman as appearing in the French newspapers has reached me. I do not understand how uttering a warning as to the interpretation to be put upon documents necessarily couched in the succinct language of telegrams could be taken as an apology or retractation on my part. We have no information whatever as to Admiral Pierre being recalled.

  PARLIAMENT—INTRODUCTION OF MEASURES IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
  MR. JOSEPH COWENasked the First Lord of the Treasury, If, with a view to the more equitable distribution of legislative labour, some of the chief measures of the Government could not in future be initiated in the other House of Parliament?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, this is a question of much interest and importance, and I may state that it has been present to the mind of this and, I believe, preceding Governments. But very great difficulty is found in giving effect to what appears on the surface to be a most reasonable proposal. It is supposed that time may be gained by introducing various important measures first in the House of Lords. Once or twice we made some serious experiments of that kind; but

  279
  we found in the issue that we gained nothing whatever in consequence of the large alterations and the cuttings and carvings that were deemed necessary. Still, the question is never lost sight of, and the introduction and passing of the Medical Bill in the House of Lords is an indication of what we are willing to do. I quite agree in the opinion that is conveyed in the Question; and what I hope is, that if the House ever obtains command over the conduct of its own Business, that steps will be taken to originate measures more frequently in the House of Lords.

  POST OFFICE (IRELAND)—LETTER CARRIERS.
  MR. T. D. SULLIVAN (for Mr. DAWSON)asked the Postmaster General, Whether it is a fact that the letter-carriers in many Irish towns receive much lower wages than similar officers receive in England, although the Irish letter-carriers give the same time and perform like duties?
  MR. FAWCETT: Sir, the rates of wages for letter-carriers, whether in Ireland or in England, differ according to the value of labour in the locality concerned. I may further state, in reply to the hon. Member, that although some Irish letter-carriers get less than some English letter-carriers, on the other hand, some English letter-carriers get less than some Irish letter-carriers. Circumstances alone can decide these cases.

  INDIA—THE MADRAS CIVIL SERVICE.
  MR. GIBSONasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether the Secretary of State for India has yet reconsidered the grievances of the Madras Civil Service, and the working of the concessions made by him last year, in order partially to relieve the block of promotion in the service; and, whether there has been any recent communication with the Simla Government on the subject; and, if so, with what result?
  MR. J. K. CROSS: Sir, no communication has yet been' received from the Government of India upon the subject of the representations made to them by the Government of Madras some time ago, to the effect that the extent to which the offer of proportionate expenses had been accepted during the past year did not offer the relief which was expected to result from it. A difference
  280
  of opinion having arisen between the Governments of Madras and Bombay as to the date from which the payment of the special or minimum allowances to certain members of the Madras Civil Service was sanctioned, the matter was referred to the Secretary of State, who has approved the Orders issued by the Government of India, which ruled that, as is usual in such cases, these allowances should take effect from the date of the receipt in India of the despatch of the Secretary of State sanctioning the scheme.
  MR. GIBSONasked whether the Secretary of State had given his decision in favour of the Civil Service?
  MR. J. K. CROSSsaid, that no communication on the subject had been received from India, and therefore the Secretary of State could not consider it.
  MR. GIBSON: Will he ask for it now?
  [No answer was given.]

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—THE OLDCASTLE UNION.
  MR. TOTTENHAMasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is the case that, at a recent sworn investigation by the Local Government Board inspector into the conduct of the medical officer and infirmary nurse of the Old castle Union, county Meath, a Roman Catholic clergyman named Ward was permitted to be present and interfere in the proceedings; whether it is the case that the said clergyman holds no official position in connection with the Union, but has nevertheless been the medium of preferring charges against the aforesaid officials, which were pronounced by the Local Government Board to be unsubstantiated and vexatious; and, whether he will advise the Local Government Board to take steps to prevent the interference of unofficial persons with the administration of this Union?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, I am informed that, before the inquiry was opened, the Rev. Mr. Ward waited on the Inspector and requested permission to be present. This the Inspector consented to as a matter of courtesy, but without any understanding whatever that he would be permitted to take any part in the proceedings. In the course of the inquiry the Inspector's attention was

  281
  drawn to the fact that the Rev. Mr. Ward was offering suggestions to some members of the Board of Guardians present. This interference was at once stopped, and was not renewed. The Rev. Mr. Ward is the Roman Catholic curate of the parish; but except that as such he is assistant to the Roman Catholic Chaplain, he holds no official connection with the Union. It did not transpire during the inquiry, or in any of the Correspondence which which has passed with the Local Government Board, that he was the medium of preferring charges against the Union officers.

  PATENTS—REVISED INDEX OF PATENTS.
  SIR EARDLEY WILMOTasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether the revised Index of Patents, promised some time ago to the Associated Chambers of Commerce, has been completed; and, if so, when it will be pnblished?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN,in reply, said, he was not aware that any promise had been made on the subject. But he was informed that a revised Index between 1817 and 1852 was nearly completed, and that the very important Index from 1852 to the present time would be proceeded with almost immediately. He had, in view of the passing of the Patents Bill, asked for a report of such matters as might be required if the Bill passed into law.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—POST OFFICE BILLS.
  MR. FRANCIS BUXTONasked the Postmaster General, Whether, considering that the Post Office Bills numbers 15 and 16 on the Paper, contain very little contentious matter, and were of great public importance, he would make every effort to proceed with them tonight, or on an early day?
  MR. FAWCETT,in reply, said, that he was most anxious the Bills should pass, because, though not of first-rate importance, they would confer great benefit on the public by facilitating the transmission of small sums, not only in this country, but in the Colonies, and would also afford additional security for property entrusted to the Post Office. There was no opposition to either measure but that offered by the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton),
  282
  and he hoped the hon. and learned Gentleman would allow the stage to be reached of the Speaker leaving the Chair, and in that case he would promise that sufficient time should be allowed to elapse before any progress was made in Committee as would enable the hon. and learned Member to place Amendments on the Paper which he would consider with a view, if possible, to their acceptance.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—NATIONAL DEBT BILL.
  SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA: I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, in face of the many Amendments set down to the National Debt Bill from all quarters of the House, he will persist in going into Committee on it?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS),in reply, said, that Amendments had been put on the Paper already. Considering the discussion which had taken place on the second reading, and the large majority by which it had been carried, he should not feel justified in withdrawing the Bill from consideration to-night.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I beg to ask the Prime Minister what will be the course of Business this week, when he proposes to go on with the Bankruptcy Bill, and how many nights will be devoted to Supply?
  MR. GLADSTONE: With regard to Supply, I may, perhaps, be rather sanguine; but I do not abandon the hope of its being finished on Thursday. I do not speak with confidence; but if it be not finished then, we may add a third day this week, because its postponement till Monday will necessarily involve a postponement of the Prorogation over next week. With regard to the Bills, we are anxious, after Supply to-night and before Thursday, to proceed with the Bills immediately before the House. I exclude those that have come down from the Lords. To-morrow the first Order will be the Parliamentary Registration (Ireland) Bill, and the second Order the Report of the Bankruptcy Bill. After that we shall proceed with the Tramways (Ireland) Bill and the Local Government (Scotland) Bill, assuming

  283
  that the National Debt Bill is disposed of this evening.

  EGYPT—THE CHOLERA.
  SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTasked the noble Lord the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Whether he could inform the House that, as was stated in the newspapers, the cholera was rapidly abating in Egypt?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Yes, Sir; there has been a decrease all over Egypt, except at Alexandria, where there is a slight increase. At Cairo there has been a very great decrease.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—DHULEEP SINGH—THE INDIAN BUDGET.
  MR. ONSLOWgave Notice that he would on Thursday ask the Prime Minister, Whether it is true that Dhuleep Singh was about to visit India; if so, whether he should be allowed to go to the Punjab and the North-Western Provinces; and whether there was any truth in the report that treasonable letters connected with his visit had been seized at Lahore? He would also ask when the Indian Budget would be taken?
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he must put the Question with respect to the Indian Budget in the same category as others. They must make some progress with the Bills before the House. If they made that progress he would give an answer on Thursday.

  INLAND NAVIGATION AND DRAINAGE (IRELAND)—THE BLACKWATER (CO. CAVAN).
  MR. BIGGARasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Why have not the sluices at Pertenlohn, on the Ballyboy River, to prevent the overflow of the Blackwater up to Baunboy, county Cavan, been finished, although it was contracted to be so two years ago; and, is it a fact that a competent builder was not allowed by Mr. Pratt, the superintendent, to see the plans and specifications on 20th May 1880, although he travelled from Baunboy, county Cavan, to Drumsna, county Leitrim, it being advertised the plans would be seen at the latter place; and, if the fact is as stated, is he prepared to censure Mr. Pratt?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Mr. Pratt, the Superintendent, reports as follows:—
  "The work is in the hands of a competent contractor, and the Drainage Trustees will compel him to finish it. The plan and specification were never refused to anyone."

  PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (CORRUPT AND ILLEGAL PRACTICES) BILL.
  MR. HEALYasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether, in considering the wishes of Irish Members as to the modifications of the Schedule of expenses, he would act on the principle that the majority of 17 Irish Members was conclusive as against the minority of three?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES),in reply, said, he would fulfil the promise he had made by causing Amendments to be inserted in the House of Lords.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—REVENUE AND FRIENDLY SOCIETIES BILL.
  MR. BULWERasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the Government intended to proceed with the Revenue and Friendly Societies Bill; and, whether Clause 15 would be pressed?
  MR. COURTNEYsaid, that, in view of the opposition with which it was threatened, Clause 15 of this Bill would not be proceeded with.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  SIR JOHN HAYasked the Prime Minister, Whether it was intended to go on with the Local Government Board (Scotland) Bill to-night?
  MR. GLADSTONE: No, Sir; I think we may safely say it cannot come on tonight.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
    SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)

    CLASS III.—LAW AND JUSTICE.
    (1.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £38,235, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on

    285
    the 31st day of March 1884, of Criminal Prosecutions and other Law Charges in Ireland, including certain Allowances under the Act 15 & 16 Vic. c. 83."
    MR. HEALYsaid, that with regard to this Vote he wished to express his opinion that there had been going on in Ireland, for a very considerable time past, proceedings under the Criminal Law which he could not but regard as an abuse and an evasion of the Habeas Corpus Act. It had been of late years in Ireland a custom with the Government to arrest men in large batches on vague and unsubstantial charges, to put them into prison, and to keep them there from week to week before bringing them up at the Assizes for the county in which they had been arrested. "When so brought up their cases were adjourned from time to time, merely to suit the whim of the Government, as represented by their officials; and, as a result, he might say that at the present moment there were some 60 or 70 persons who had been lying in different prisons for the last six or seven months, and must remain there until January next, before they could have a chance of being brought to trial. There was a notable case in the County Meath, where some three or four individuals were arrested on the information of an informer, or rather informers, so infamous in character that Baron Dowse, who heard the case, said that, in his view, they were the lowest type of human nature he had ever met, if even they could be said to possess human nature at all. In the County Mayo there had been a similar case—indeed, it was still going on; and he would ask what had been the conduct of the Crown with regard to the men who had been arrested, and who had been kept in durance and remanded, remanded and remanded again, on the evidence of an informer, which evidence had been spun out in order to keep the case alive, and, as a result, to keep these men in solitary confinement as long as it should suit the convenience of the Government so to do? They were not allowed to talk together, nor were they allowed to have what were to them luxuries—namely, tobacco and newspapers. When these men were first brought up, and on subsequent occasions, the bad French system was adopted of endeavouring to gain information, or rather to invent evidence, by
    286
    the method of treatment applied to the prisoners themselves. There could be no doubt that under the Prevention of Crime Act the man or men in custody might have been tried a month ago, if tried in the county of Dublin. Another matter of which he strongly complained was that in the case of one of the prisoners, P. W. Nally, a statement concerning him was carefully cut out of the newspapers and sent to his fellow-prisoners before those papers were allowed to reach them. He would not complain if these things were done with the country under Martial Law; if the country was teeming with crime, or if there was any evidence to show that there was any formidable conspiracy against the Government existing in the country. It was well known to everybody that agrarian crime was decreasing with great steadiness; a fact which was shown by the official statements issued from month to month; and yet these prosecutions were continued to be got up by the Government, or, as he feared, by the Government officials, whose only object was the making of large salaries and extra fees. The Votes were full of items which showed that the officials wished the Reign of Terror to continue. The Royal Irish Constabulary, because they thought it would secure rapid promotion, and the Resident Magistrates, because they knew that a collapse of the Reign of Terror would cause their offices to lapse and their salaries to cease, got up mere fishing investigations. It was, therefore, he thought, clear that it was by means of a patched-up prosesecution of the kind to which he alluded that the Mayo prisoners were still kept in confinement, and that in Naas some 20 men were kept in gaol, on the evidence of a prostitute, for three or four months, there being no intention on the part of the Government to proceed with the prosecution. It was, to his mind, a curious thing that in cases where the Government actually did proceed they did so on the evidence of disreputable witnesses; and, as far as the case in King's County was concerned, these men were kept in prison on the unsupported testimony of an abandoned woman. The same state of things existed in the County Clare, where 20 or 30 men were kept in prison, and not brought to trial, on the information of a convict, who was himself undergoing a sentence

    287
    of penal servitude for life. In this county, however, there was an upright Judge on the Bench—he alluded to Mr. Justice Barry—and he refused an application made by the Crown for a lengthened postponement of the trial, and therefore the imprisonment would not, as in the case of the Mayo prisoners, extend for six months longer without trial. The Crown had refused to proceed with prosecutions at Assize after Assize, in the hope of inducing men to give evidence under the pressure of long spells of solitary confinement; and they had not failed to resort to all sorts of dodges to gain their ends. He was sure that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would not adopt or permit this system of the solitary confinement of unconvicted prisoners if he knew what it really meant; and he could not understand any man in the position of the right hon. Gentleman tolerating a system of the kind on the suggestion made to him by his underlings that it was in any way necessary in order to put down crime. Crime had, practically, ceased in the country in the form and to the extent in which it existed three years ago. In all countries where anything in the nature of civil war had arisen something in the nature also of an amnesty had followed when quiet had been restored; but it was not so in this case, although the country had, practically, returned to the paths of peace, as far as agrarian crime was concerned. In Sheffield, the Commission to inquire into the Trades' Union outrages, which were far more barbarous than any in Ireland, had full power to condone crime; and this had invariably been done there. There was no excuse for the course of proceedings which had been adopted by the Government; and he therefore claimed that the Estimates now put before the Committee were inflated Estimates, and were based on a system which, so long as it existed, would make it impossible for Ireland to return to a condition of peace and quiet.
    MR. HARRINGTONsaid, he agreed with his hon. Friend (Mr. Healy) that it was the duty of the Crown in Ireland to do everything in its power for the repression of crime; and he maintained that it was also the duty of the Crown to do that in such a manner as to win respect on the part of the people for the law and its administration. But the
    288
    means by which the right hon. Gentleman had worked up the administration in Ireland, particularly during the last year, had done more to injure law and the administration of justice than any system which was ever introduced into any country of Europe. With respect to the murder at Loughrea, there was a man who was in gaol on the same charge, named Dilleen, and actually he was one of the witnesses employed by the Crown to bring home the case against these unfortunate men. They were arrested early in January last; they were remanded for eight days, and at the end of those eight days the Resident Magistrate had them before him in the office at Galway Gaol, where none of the friends of these unfortunate men were allowed to enter, and where there were no representatives of the Press present. In point of fact, a solicitor was the only person allowed by the courtesy of the Crown to be present. The men were put on their trial in that informal manner, and on the affidavit of a policeman that he expected shortly to have some further evidence they were again remanded. When they were next brought up the same formality was gone through, and they were remanded again; and so on until they had been remanded nine times, when they were eventually returned for trial on the evidence which had been adduced against them on the first day. He believed that that evidence was such as the Crown could not rely upon for bringing home guilt to either of the prisoners, and in no other country would it for a moment have been accepted as evidence which would justify a committal for trial. The case against M'Carthy was made out on the information of a man who had been a tenant of his for a small house in Loughrea. This man had, on several occasions, made himself obnoxious to M'Carthy, and M'Carthy's family; and, finally, it was found necessary to give him notice, and to evict him. This was immediately after the murder; and, knowing that this man had such evidence to give, was it likely that M'Carthy would have attempted to turn him out of his house? The story was one which ought to have plainly convinced the persons who got up the prosecution that it was a pure fabrication and a mere after-thought on the part of this man, who was really endeavouring to punish M'Carthy for

    289
    having evicted him. There was another case of a somewhat similar nature, in connection with which a number of persons were imprisoned in Galway Gaol at the present moment. It was a case in which some seven or eight young men from the locality of Loughrea were arrested for a murder committed there about a year ago. He ventured to say that in the experience of hon. Members they never hoard a more extraordinary story put forward by the Crown in justification of the arrest of any person than in the case of these men. They had acted entirely on the statement of an informer—one of those low-class informers, whom the Crown had so frequently to bring to its assistance in administering the law in Ireland. The allegation of the informer was that four or five of these young men, who were farmers' sons in the locality, joined and made common cause with a policeman who was engaged in protecting a bailiff in the locality, and finally committed the murder with the policeman and bailiff. The Crown not only arrested these six young men, but also the policeman; and at present the policeman and these farmers' sons, who were said to have allied themselves with him, were awaiting not their trial, but the pleasure of the Crown, to discharge them. In this case the statement of the informer was certainly directed, not against the policeman, but against these young men; and he had only introduced the name of the policeman into his statement because he believed that the policeman had gone to America. The name of the bailiff was also introduced, because he was also known to have gone to America. The difficulty the Crown had to contend with in this case was that if they found the men guilty they must also find the policeman guilty. The young men charged with this fearful murder were brought forward day after day in the office of the gaol, and were remanded time after time, until they had been remanded nine times in all—that was to say, that from the date of their first examination nine weeks elapsed, and the Crown had them put back each time, on the sworn oath of a policeman, that further evidence might be forthcoming. Up to the present moment, he believed that no further evidence had been forthcoming, and he was satisfied that none ever would be, because he believed the story of the informer,
    290
    on the face of it, was so absurd and ridiculous that no persons, except those entrusted with the administration of justice in Ireland, would have acted upon it. He now came to the case of a man named Casey, lately in Tralee Gaol, charged with murder. This unfortunate man had been imprisoned on the statement of a little girl, 13 years of age, that on the day of the murder she had seen him in the locality where the crime was committed. It so happened that by some strange misfortune, young as she was in years, this girl did not go into Court with an irreproachable character. The Crown, for a period of 14 months, had been putting the prisoner off trial from Assize to Assize upon applications for adjournment, and they had now finally released him on bail, himself in £10, and two sureties in £5 each. On such information they had been able to remand this man for 14 months, in the vain hope that, in the end, they might have an opportunity of finding him guilty of murder. What were the means resorted to in order to find him guilty? During the time he was in Tralee Gaol he was brought up to the Assizes on two occasions; but the Crown failed to put him on his trial. One day, when he was imprisoned in Tralee Gaol, he was called upon to parade with other prisoners in the prison yard. The Sub-Inspector of the district wont into the prison yard where this man and other prisoners were, accompanied by the Resident Magistrate and a low, ill-clothed tramp, who had been introduced evidently for the purpose of identifying the man. In going along the line of prisoners the Sub-Inspector preceded the tramp, and finally stopped at a point directly opposite this unfortunate man Casey. The would-be informer, following close up, stopped at the same place, laid his hand upon Casey, and said—" That is the man I saw murder Mr. Herbert." Now, if the informer had made that statement bonâ fide, why did not the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland put Casey upon his trial, and bring justice homo to him? If, on the other hand, the statement of the informer was not correct, and there was no foundation for it, what was the defence of the right hon. and learned Gentleman for the employment of an infamous wretch of this kind to point out an innocent man as having

    291
    been guilty of murder? It had been alleged by his hon. Friend the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) that in all the cases in which the Crown had found it necessary to bring prisoners to trial in Ireland during the past few years, they had been signally unfortunate in getting the assistance of the evidence of any respectable member of the community. It was a strange fact, and he should like to know how the Attorney General, or the Chief Secretary, accounted for it; but in all the cases which had been brought forward the Crown had never been able to get the evidence of a single witness whose character was unimpeachable. This subject was not now being drawn attention to for the first time in that House; but it had been the subject of comment from the Judicial Bench in Ireland, and not only the Press of the United Kingdom, but the Press all over the world, had expressed surprise that in the recent trials in Ireland the Crown had taken the evidence of the man who, above everybody else, was responsible for the barbarous crime which had been committed, and had made a compact with him in order to find guilty those who had been his dupes. The same tactics which the Crown had adopted in Dublin had been adopted in regard to several other cases in Ireland. Some time ago a murder was committed at Irishtown, near Mullingar, in the county of Westmeath. It was the murder of a young woman named Esther Croughan. At first, an attempt was made to show that the murder was of an agrarian character; but, subsequently, evidence proved that it had nothing agrarian about it. The Crown, for a long time, made an endeavour to bring some person to trial, and ultimately they succeeded. But who was the person employed as their chief witness, and what was his statement? His own statement was, that he was himself employed to commit the murder, and that he employed other persons who came forward at his instigation; that he placed a pistol in their hands; and that he believed they committed the murder. That was the man whom the Crown made a treaty with—the very man who, upon his own confession, was responsible, more than anyone else, for the crime which took place. He (Mr. Harrington) would read a portion of this man's evidence,
    292
    so that the Committee might form their own judgment with regard to it. It appeared that he had left the county of Westmeath for some time, and had been working in England, before the Crown, by some happy chance, lighted upon him, or before he found that the position of an informer in Ireland was becoming a very lucrative one. His statement was this—
    "Previous to my going to England, I was working for the late John Croughan, who was brother of the murdered girl, for over seven years. I was working about the land and the stables. Anne, John, Esther, and the mother were the only persons then living there. Esther and her mother always joined us against John and Anne. There used to be frequent disputes against them. John Croughan died in October, 1881, and I did not work with the family after that. Some time after that I was digging potatoes in one of the fields belonging to the Croughan's, which crop of potatoes belonged to myself. Anne Croughan came to me on that occasion, and told me that she was put out of the house, and that she had got no food from her mother or sister. She then asked me could I get something done for her, and I told her I would see about it. When I asked her what she meant, she told me that she wanted her sister Essy done away with; and if I would do it, or get anyone else to do it, we would get money for it. I got 10 s. subsequently from her by a messenger. After that I made appointments with certain persons to do away with Essy. The first I spoke to about it was a man from Irishtown, who said it would be well done, and that there would be plenty got to gain money on it. I also consulted two other men, one of whom said he would do it. I afterwards spoke to him on the subject, asking him would he go along with the other man to shoot Essy Croughan; he said he would. I mentioned to both of the parties about the money to be given, but not the amount, as Anne Croughan did not mention any amount to me; she said she would give me as much as she could get. Some time after I met these men in Mullingar, and I introduced the question of the shooting of Essy Croughan; one of them said he was ready, and proposed to do it at any time, and that he would do it soon; one of the others said he would go with him; the third said nothing at the time, but was listening to the conversation. A few days after, I saw my wife talking to Anne Croughan, who stopped that night with us, and for several subsequent nights; she asked me was I going to get anything done for her; or was I going to let it go by altogether? I said I was not; that I had spoken to men; and that they were satisfied to shoot Essy if she gave them money. She said she would give all the money she could get. A week before the murder, Anne Croughan came to my house, where she stopped for the night, and there was some conversation about the murder. She gave her reason for not stopping at home; that she would not like to be there, if possible, if anything occurred. Previous to this occurrence, a revolver was brought to me by a man who said he was told to bring it to me

    293
    when he would have done with it. On the night before the murder, I met one of the men by chance near the railway station. He stopped a good while speaking about this affair. He told me that he would go in the morning and shoot her. On the day of the murder, I went into a public-house, where he gave a description of how it was done. He said—'Wasn't it well done? '—and I said it was."
    He would ask hon. Members to consider whether, in any other country than Ireland, or under any other administration in the world, a man who, on his own showing, had planned a murder, and employed and paid the very persons who perpetrated it, would have been taken by the hand by the Crown, feasted by them in gaol, and thus employed to convict those whom he had led into the commission of crime? Even the learned Judge, when the case came before him for trial, commented upon the conduct of the prosecution in placing such a man in the witness-box to swear away the lives of others; and added, further, that he did not believe one word of his statement. He (Mr. Harrington) did not believe one word of his statement, or that any of the allegations contained in it were true; but what were they to say of the conduct of the Crown, who had placed him in the box to take away the lives of innocent men by perjury? No man in Ireland was more anxious than himself to put an end to the unfortunate state of crime which had existed there during the last few years; and, in his own humble way, he had done all he could, whenever he was travelling in Ireland, to endeavour to put down that state of crime. He had himself been a victim, and he had himself suffered the luxuries of a plank bed at the hands of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary opposite; but, nevertheless, he challenged the Government to point to one word he had ever said, during the whole of the agitation in Ireland, that was calculated to encourage crime. Furthermore, he challenged them, although he had spent 12 months in gaol as a "suspect," under the administration of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster)—he challenged them to produce a single speech of his during the agitation in which he had not condemned crime and outrage. He came now to the case of another man, whose name was now pretty familiar to the House. As the case had been mentioned incidentally
    294
    in the House on various occasions, he would not trouble the Committee with full details, especially as he intended to go into them at length at a future time. The case he referred to was that of the unfortunate man, Myles Joyce. He did not propose to deal with the execution of Joyce at present; but he would simply draw the attention of the Committee to the manner of the trial. It was the theory of the law of England that a man, when he was put upon his trial, and had a jury of his fellow-countrymen to try him, should be tried by 12 of his peers. Let them see what was the practice in Ireland. This man was arrested, with a number of others, for an atrocious crime—the murder of an entire family in Maamtrasna, in the county of Galway. The murder was certainly of a most revolting character; and although three men paid the extreme penalty of the law for it, and four or five others were suffering penal servitude for life, he believed that the motives of the crime were shrouded in mystery. Indeed, it was difficult to define the motives, even at the present time, which prompted the murder at all. It was, however, quite evident that the murder was in no sense agrarian; and he thought that fact in itself tended to the condemnation of those who were administering the law in Ireland—namely, that in the case of a murder of this kind, a murder of a purely social character, they should have resorted to a mode of trial which they themselves said they found necessary in cases of agrarian murders, and of agrarian murders only. This unfortunate man and his fellow-prisoners were placed on their trial, not in their native county—not in the county where the murder was committed—but they were conveyed away from their homes for a distance of 200 miles, and brought up to Dublin, to be tried by a jury selected from a special jury panel. Hon. Members, who did not know much of the working of the law in Ireland, were often surprised that the law was not more respected in that country. All he could say was, that if they would study the working of the law in Ireland, instead of being surprised that the law was not respected, they would be surprised that the law was even so much obeyed as it was. Let them take the case of this unfortunate man, Myles Joyce. He was conveyed

    295
    more than 200 miles from his home, and put upon his trial in Dublin. Not a single word of English was he able to speak; not a single word of his own language were the jury who tried him able to comprehend. The Judge, who tried him, was to him as much a foreigner as if he were a Turk trying the case in Constantinople. The very crier of the Court, and the counsel who represented him, were foreigners to him; and the whole trial, as far as he was concerned, was an empty show and a farce. As if to make the farce still more ludicrous, the very interpreter employed by the Crown to interpret the language of the Court to this unfortunate man was a policeman. Hon. Members asked why was not the law respected in Ireland; why did not the people assist in upholding the law and the administration of justice in Ireland? He would ask, in return, could any man of intelligence, or common sense, give his sanction to a system of law administered in such a manner as that in any country in the world? If this unfortunate man had had a foreign name, if he had been called Arabi, or Suleiman, his case would have drawn attention to it over and over again in the House of Commons. But, unfortunately, he had not lived in a climate sufficiently foreign to excite the philanthropic sympathy of hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House. When that man was brought to trial—certainly, when he was arrested he was arrested on the evidence of two men, who stated that they left their house at night and tracked a party of men to the place where the murder was committed, and they gave his name as that of one of the men they recognized among the party. Previous to the day of the trial two other men who were charged became approvers, and gave evidence against the rest, the Crown, as the Crown always did in Ireland, closing with the informers. Now, this man had been conveyed more than 200 miles from his home. If he had been tried at home, in the very townland in which he had been born—he belonged to a class too poor and too humble to employ legal assistance; but when he was taken away from his home for a distance of 200 miles it was rendered absolutely impossible for him to bring up the witnesses who might be necessary for his defence. He
    296
    (Mr. Harrington) knew perfectly well that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland would say that the Crown, when it effected a change of venue in cases of this kind, would pay the expenses of witnesses; but any solicitor who had had to defend a prisoner in Ireland knew what trouble he was put to before he was able to obtain the cost of a single witness he might require upon a trial. Even if he got the expenses of the witnesses, he still had to bring them from their homes, and to keep them for two or three weeks, according to the pressure of business, at the place where the trial was held; and it was only on returning home and signing a requisition for the expenses incurred, that he could hope to receive some consideration for his outlay at the hands of the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland. This man, being placed in this position, made an application, through his counsel, for the postponement of the trial. That application was, he thought, a very reasonable one, and such an application made in any country except Ireland would have been granted by the Judge, and would not have been opposed by the Law Officers of the Crown. The application was that, owing to the surprise created by the evidence of these men, who endeavoured to save their own lives by sacrificing those of others, it was necessary to go to the locality and examine the truth of the statements made, and, if necessary, to get witnesses to disprove them. When that application was made on behalf of the prisoners the Crown resisted it; and the Judge, as the Judges always did in Ireland, obeyed the direction of the Crown. What was the consequence? That unfortunate man, Myles Joyce, was tried by 12 men specially selected from a special jury panel—12 men actually packed for the trial, because the Crown, although they had a special jury panel, challenged 24 jurors before they succeeded in selecting a jury. The man so tried was found guilty, as also were the others, and they were subsequently executed. He would only say that two of the men found guilty with Myles Joyce, when they knew that they had no object themselves to gain, and that under Heaven they had no mercy to hope for, made a distinct and deliberate statement the day preceding their execution that they were

    297
    guilty, and that this man Myles Joyce was innocent. That statement was sent to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; but the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland hanged the man. He knew the answer would be made, as it had already been made, that men who were wicked enough to commit such a crime would be wicked enough to make a false statement with regard to the murder. That allegation was made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland in that House, and he could only characterize it as the statement of cold-blooded officialism. It might be the belief of the right hon. and learned Gentleman; but his belief would not uphold government in Ireland, and it would not conduce to good government in that country. The people of Ireland, who were themselves interested in the administration of the law, and who wished to see their country happy and free from crime, declined to concur in it. He (Mr. Harrington) would assort that, so far from that statement being correct, the people of Ireland fully believed—the people in the locality in which the murder was committed fully believed, and he (Mr. Harrington), and many intelligent men with him, and many of the priesthood of Ireland also fully believed—that the man Joyce was foully done to death, and that perfect knowledge of his innocence was in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant. [Cries of "Oh!" and "Order!"]
    THE CHAIRMAN: I do not know if the words of the hon. Gentleman reached me rightly; but I understood him to state that perfect knowledge of the innocence of the man was in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant. Are those the words which the hon. Gentleman used?
    MR. HARRINGTON: I stated that perfect evidence of the innocence of Joyce was in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant, if he wished to examine it.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I understood the hon. Gentleman to say "knowledge."
    MR. HARRINGTON: No; "evidence."
    MR. BULWER: The word used by the hon. Member was "knowledge."
    MR. HARRINGTONcontinued: Well, materials for knowledge, if the Lord Lieutenant wished to make use of them. That was the way in which the law was administered in Ireland, and it was the manner in which it would always
    298
    be administered in regard to one class of people. And now let them see how the law was being administered by the Grown in regard to another class. Some time ago, in the county of Kerry, an agent of the Earl of Kenmare went with firearms to the farm of a tenant of that landlord, and, accompanied by the police, endeavoured to force his way into the man's farm for the purpose of opening a quarry to which he alleged he had a right of way. The tenant denied that any such right of way existed, and said that he had never given his permission for the exercise of it. At all events, it was a question of disputed title; but the agent of the Earl of Kenmare presented a loaded revolver at the breast of the unfortunate man, and forced his way into the farm, aided, abetted, and assisted by a policeman, who presented his rifle and tossed the tenant aside, after which they went and took possession of the quarry. Now, how did the Crown proceed in that case? Over and over again the Judges had commented on the manner in which unfortunate tenants who had been driven out of their homes had endeavoured, under shelter of the night, to gain possession of their dwellings, and the most severe sentences the law permitted to be passed were inflicted by the Irish Judges upon any unfortunate person who sought shelter from the inclemency of the weather in the only place in which he could obtain that shelter. But in the case of this man, who was bailiff of the Earl of Kenmare, Her Majesty's Chamberlain, because he happened to be the agent of that noble Lord—the Crown put him on his trial, it was true, the Resident Magistrate having returned both him and the policeman for trial; but the Attorney General sent down to the county of Kerry and asked the Crown prosecutor to withdraw the case. He would read to the Committee what occurred when the ease was brought before Lord Justice Fitzgibbon, at Tralee, in March last—
    "Mr. Moriarty, Q.C., applied to his Lordship for permission to send up a bill before the Grand Jury dealing with a charge of forcible entry and assault brought against Mr. Henry Doran, Lord Kenmare's agriculturist, and a sub-constable named Macallory, by a tenant farmer named Cornelius Casey, who resided on the Kenmare estate. His Lordship delivered a lengthened Charge to the Grand Jury, in which he reviewed the details of the case, and

    299
    ordered the jury that if they considered the case was one in which a criminal assault could be proved by the tenant Casey, it was their duty to send the case on for trial before the Court; but as the assault arose out of a quarrel which took place when Mr. Doran was trying to enter the lands forcibly, if they considered that the prosecution should be instituted as one of a disputed title before a Civil Court, their ignoring the bill would render the tenant Casey liable to an action for damages. All the same, even if it was a quarrel arising out of disputed title, the strong hand would not be exercised by anyone. With regard to Sub-Constable Macallory's case, it was for them to decide whether he was only doing his duty, or whether he outstepped it. The Grand Jury ignored the bill."
    When the Grand Jury ignored the bill, one of the charges which, no doubt, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would be disposed to make against him (Mr. Harrington) was that a leading article appeared in his paper, asking why there was not some machinery put in force by the Crown to compel the Grand Jury in that case to find a bill, when it was so invariably put in force in other cases to compel Grand Juries to find bills? He was at that time a prisoner of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, and he was, therefore, not in a position to give his sanction to that article; but he did so now to the fullest extent. He believed that the article was a sensible and a rational one, and, with the exception of one sentence contained in it, which reflected on the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, he fully concurred in it. But when the article appeared the representative of the Crown actually applied to the Judge for an indictment against himself and the paper, because he had drawn attention to the matter.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)asked who made the application?
    MR. HARRINGTONsaid, the representative of the Crown, to whom he referred, was Mr. Atkinson; but he thought the right hon. and learned Gentleman was going to be very technical. Mr. Atkinson did not exactly make an application; but he drew the attention of the Court to the article, and said that, pending the decision of the Crown in the case, he would place himself in communication with the Attorney General, and he should not ask the Judge to proceed with it at present; but at the next Assizes he would be in a position to tell the Court what the Crown proposed to
    300
    do. He (Mr. Harrington) was afraid that he had troubled the Committee at too great length already; and he only wished to say, in conclusion, that he was as fully alive as the right hon. and learned Gentleman, or anyone else, to the importance of enforcing the law in Ireland, where the law required to be enforced; but he believed that the manner in which the law was being administered, and the manner in which it was being enforced in Ireland, tended more to demoralize the people of that country, to make them lawless, and to give them sympathy with crime, than anything previously practised in the country. Instead of making the law respected, instead of inducing those who were subjected to it to sanction, support, and sympathize with it, as was the case in every well-governed country in the world, the means resorted to by the Crown were alienating the people from the law, and compelling them to regard the officers entrusted with its administration not as the friends of justice, but the enemies of law, order, and good government in Ireland.
    MR. O'SHEAsaid, he thought every hon. Member would have heard the declaration made by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, as to his desire that crime should be brought to justice in Ireland, with satisfaction; but he wished to call attention more particularly to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), with respect to the prosecutions which had recently taken place for conspiring in County Clare. There were two batches of men charged with conspiring—one from Crusheen, on the north side of the county, and on the borders of Galway; and the other from the extreme West, at Miltown Malbay. There was no Member of that House more anxious than he was to see murder, or any other crime, whether agrarian or not, severely and certainly punished in Ireland; but he thought that nothing tended less to the due administration of justice, and the implanting in the breasts of the Irish people a respect for law, than certain prosecutions which had lately taken place, and which had been called "fishing prosecutions." As long as there was straightforward evidence that was likely to bring home a crime to any malefactor, then, by all means, let every engine of the law be put in motion; but

    301
    these "fishing prosecutions," these prosecutions in which a number of men were taken up, confined in different cells, and where every effort was made to induce one or another to give evidence, whether true or false, against the rest, in order to save his own shin, was really a system which, when made general, could not be too strongly condemned. A great many men who were determined to give every support in their power to law and order entertained a very strong opinion that this was a very bad system indeed. He wished the Committee to understand exactly what took place in regard to these two accusations of conspiring against two batches of men in County Clare. He would take the Crusheen case first. The men were arrested on the information of a convict, and brought to Ennis. The evidence of the informer was taken; but no reasonable evidence was brought forward to corroborate it. Nevertheless, the men were remanded over and over again, every obstacle was thrown in their way, so far as rebutting evidence was concerned; and the end of all of it was that, after the greatest excitement had been created in that part of the county, the Judge ordered them to be let out on bail, notwithstanding an application by the counsel of the Crown for a postponement of the trial until next Assizes. Then, what would happen? Why, naturally, that all the ill-disposed men in the neighbourhood would regard what had occurred as a triumph over law and order. He thought that circumstances of that kind ought to be taken into consideration by the Crown beforehand, and that they ought to feel that fishing investigations of this character were not likely to end in the punishment of the men who were charged. Fishing prosecutions, which were only undertaken on the off-chance of getting proof against a man, should certainly never be resorted to. The same kind of thing took place in the Miltown Malbay case, and the result was that the men were out on bail with the charges still hanging over them. He appealed to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland to look into these cases; and if the facts were as he had stated them, then the prosecutions ought to be withdrawn immediately. There was one cruel circumstance which had been mentioned
    302
    in regard to these men—namely, that they were on the point of emigrating, and that they had actually taken their tickets. Could anything be more cruel than that, upon the chance of bringing the case to a favourable issue to the Grown, men who had already taken their passes for another land should be kept at home idling their time away, instead of being allowed to emigrate? He could not conceive anything more likely to drive men to the commission of crime than such a state of affairs; and he asked the Government seriously to consider if it would not be better to make up their minds and declare an amnesty against the persons who were the victims of these fishing prosecutions? Various cases had been brought forward by the hon. Gentleman who had spoken last (Mr. Harrington); but he would refer only to one of them—namely, the Maamtrasna murder. He would ask the Committee to reflect for a moment, upon one of the statements which had been made by the hon. Member. He (Mr. O'Shea) had been present at one of these murder trials himself; but he could not say that it was that of Myles Joyce. The hon. Gentleman had, how over, pointed out that that unfortunate man was a perfect stranger in the midst of a Court where no one understood him, and where he understood nobody, and where the interpreter employed was a policeman. He appealed to English Members whether it was right that a policeman should have occupied that capacity in such a case? He did not for a moment suppose that the arrangement was due to anything worse than want of reflection; but half the cruelty of the world was the outcome of want of reflection. It must have been a terrible tiling for a man like Joyce to see that one whom he regarded as his natural enemy was the only person he could speak to. At the last Kilkenny Assizes, which was presided over by Baron Dowse, an informer who gave evidence was spoken of by the learned Judge in language that was seldom used in regard to a witness in a Court of Justice. The learned Judge told the jury that a more infamous specimen of humanity he had never seen than the man brought forward to sustain the prosecution. He (Mr. O'Shea) was of opinion that it was a great mistake on the part of the Crown to bring forward charges which they

    303
    could only support by the evidence of men who were described by the Judge in such terms. Many of these things seemed but small to the professional man engaged in securing a conviction; but they were things which sank deeply into the minds of the people.
    MR. JOSEPH COWENsaid, he had no desire to enter into a detailed discussion of the Vote under consideration. That would be done by the Irish Members themselves. But there was one point—which struck at the very springs of British justice, and in which English Members were as much, if not more, interested than the Irish—to which he wished to allude. The question had been referred to on previous occasions, but there had never been an adequate answer to it; and the present was the first, as it certainly was the fittest, opportunity for a full and adequate explanation respecting it. What he wished to say was this. When the Coercion Act now in operation was first submitted to the House, it contained provisions for certain trials being conducted by a Commission of Judges. The Irish Judges, however, greatly to their credit, refused to undertake the onerous and objectionable duties that the Government proposed to thrust upon them. In consequence of this refusal, the Ministry, at the end of the Bill, introduced new clauses which empowered the Attorney General to shift the trials from one end of the country to the other, and authorized him to jumble together the county and borough jurymen. In a word, to secure a verdict, he could change the scene of trial as well as the composition of the jury. The first Commission under this Act commenced its sittings in Dublin last autumn, and there were five cases set down for trial at it. For these trials there was a panel of 193 jurymen pricked. Of this number, 112 were Protestants, 80 were Catholics, and one a Jew. The manner in which the jury panel was got was purely mechanical, and no objection was taken to it. The jurors themselves were selected from the panel by ballot, and this operation was also impartial. But, by some legal, arithmetical, political, or other legerdemain, it curiously happened that there was not a single Catholic juror allowed to serve on any of the five juries that were selected. This was a very extraordinary circumstance. It was a veritable
    304
    Chinese puzzle. What he wished to learn from the Attorney General or the Irish Secretary was—how it came to pass that every Catholic was excluded, and that Protestants alone were allowed to act on these juries? Other cases of a like kind had occurred throughout the country. At Cork, where there were 200 jurymen summoned, 150 were Catholics and 50 were Protestants. By the same species of manipulation, however, 47 out of the 50 Protestants were required to serve on the juries, while only 35 out of the 150 Catholics were chosen. One of two things—either the Government had discovered a process by which they could draw Protestants from the ballot box at will, or they had packed the juries. There was no escape from this dilemma. They were either masters of some mystery, or they had broken what was supposed to be the letter, and certainly was the spirit of the law. The Irish Executive evidently felt that they had been guilty of procedure that they could not defend, because, when attention was called to the matter, they tried to evade it in a very paltry way. On the first two trials the names of the jurymen objected to were read out aloud in Court. The Freeman's Journal called attention to the exclusion of Catholics, and commented on it. At the next trials the names of the men objected to were not read out—only their numbers were called. This was done with a view of concealing the very dubious proceedings that the Irish Law Officers were guilty of. It had been asserted in that House that no man was disqualified in consequence of his religious opinions. According to Ministerial statements, it was the farthest thing from the thoughts of the Irish officials to exclude Catholics alone. This was the stereotyped answer. Jury-packing in olden times in Ireland was reduced to a fine art. It was done to perfection, and the manner of doing it was concealed. Every time the practice was referred to in the House of Commons, however, it was denied, although everybody knew it was resorted to. Hon. Members might recollect the case of Lord Fingall and the members of the Catholic Association. It was roundly denied that they were tried by a packed jury; and yet it was a fact that a list of the jurymen who did try them was afterwards found, in the handwriting of the Irish Secretary, in the possession

    305
    of the Crown Prosecutor. Sir Robert Peel said, when they passed the Catholic Emancipation Act, that it was one thing to render Catholics eligible for political and judicial offices, but it was another tiling to confer such offices upon them. He (Mr. Cowen) knew that spirit formerly animated the Irish Executive; but he had been led to believe that it had died out. He was certain of this—that the English people were averse to such religious distinctions being made. Conservatives and Liberals alike were opposed to it; and the only reason why it was tolerated in Ireland was because in this country people did not know of its existence. It was, nevertheless, a fact that—54 years after the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Act, and 14 years after the disestablishment of the Irish Church—the Irish Executive had so much distrust of Catholic jurymen that they would not allow them to take part in agrarian or political trials. Now, did the Government believe that by this species of exclusion they were likely to make the Catholics more loyal and more contented? If they did, they were greatly mistaken. Distrust begot distrust, and the distrust of the Catholics by the Government would lead to the distrust of the Government by the Catholics. It was a fact that, though nine-tenths of the people of Ireland were Catholics, as many as nineteen-twentieths of the magistracies and like offices were filled by Protestants. This was excused on the ground that the Catholics were usually poor, and otherwise unfit for such posts. But whatever disqualification there might be for filling the office of magistrate, the disqualification did not apply to filling the office of juryman, because here was a case where Catholics were absolutely upon the jury panel, and yet they were prevented discharging the very duties that the Legislature had thrown upon them. He felt sure the Government—even from their own standpoint—were acting very unwisely in this matter. The indirect effects of the pure and impartial administration of law were much greater than the direct effects. Jurists and moral philosophers, from the time of Solon and Socrates to Paley and Jeremy Bentham, had all contended that it was better to allow an occasional criminal to escape than to create a distrust of the justice and impartiality of the
    306
    law in the minds of the community. Yet, here the largest portion of the Irish people were distrusted, and, by the action of the Executive, declared to be incapable of exercising the powers that by the Constitution they possessed. The moral teaching of the law ought to be such as not to alienate men's minds and sympathies from it, but to lead them to gravitate to it. The Government ought not to keep up the harassing prosecutions by which they were hunting the Irish peasantry to death, or, if not to death, at least engendering amongst them an undying hatred of the English rule. Other Governments in the case of civil wars had cried a truce. They had granted an amnesty after a certain measure of blood had been spilt; and surely the Irish Executive would do well to follow the example. There was another point he wished to call attention to. It was this—Nothing did more to excite popular odium against the Irish Executive than the system of secret inquiries that were conducted in Dublin by the police and the magistrates. One of the first requisites of a Court of Justice was that its proceedings should be public. It was the surest guarantee against corruption and cruelty. The Irish Government, howover, persisted in shrouding all their preliminary inquiries in secrecy and mystery. There were two institutions in this world whose names always sent a thrill of horror through the popular imagination—the Star Chamber in England and the Bastille in France. Every feeling calculated to arouse indignation and excite animosity was stirred by the memory of these two hateful places. The Government might not be conscious of it; but it was a fact that the proceedings now being conducted in Dublin Castle were associating that building with the other two obnoxious institutions. The sooner they tried to shake themselves clear of that prejudice the better. Every Irish peasant at home, and every Irish emigrant abroad, looked upon the Castle with the same feelings of distrust and detestation that the French peasants in times past looked upon the Bastille in Paris. The Government would really serve their own ends better if they would at once proclaim martial law. Everybody knew that there were occasions in the history of the world when the safety of the State required that dictatorial power should be

    307
    vested in the hands of one man, or a small body of men. These men for a time wielded exceptional authority for the benefit of the community; but their action did not interfere with the ordinary law, or bring discredit upon the administration of justice. The Irish Executive had double powers. They had all the authority of the Dictator, and along with it they discredited the judicial institutions of the country. They created a feeling against the administration of justice, and against the English Ministry, that neither this generation nor the next would see die out. He knew they would not listen, or, if they did listen, they would not heed his counsel; but he was, nevertheless, satisfied that the future would show that what he was now saying was correct.
    MR. O'KELLYsaid, he thought the hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle (Mr. Cowen) would appeal in vain for the secret of jury-packing in Ireland. It was a sort of Chinese puzzle; the secret lay with the Crown Prosecutors, who took care never to admit the public into their counsels. The evils which arose from the system of secret investigation were very great, and not confined to any particular Province. He had been obliged that day to call attention to the case of Mr. M'Hugh, which had arisen out of this system of fishing for crime. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in his answer to the inquiry he had addressed to him on that subject, had denied certain statements contained in the Question. In so doing he admitted that the right hon. Gentleman had acted according to the best of his belief. The statement was that the man was arrested on the 22nd of June last, and then brought to the police barracks, where he was put into the Sub-Inspector's room with a stranger, who, addressing himself to the man M'Hugh, said—" We have evidence sufficient to convict you; but if you will surrender to justice the real author of the murder in this case you shall go to your home, and we shall do what we can for you." Mr. M'Hugh had written to him, and from what he knew of that man he believed his statement to be absolutely correct, that one of the curates of the district—Father O'Beirne—was sent for without any communication with him, and was introduced into his presence.
    308
    M'Hugh said he believed the probable object of that on the part of the Government was to surprise any confidences that might take place between them; because some three years ago, when M'Hugh was arrested on the charge of murdering Mr. Young, this priest heard his confession in gaol. The man naturally assumed that the object of the Government, in bringing this priest into the room, was to surprise whatever little confidences might pass between the two men, so that they might be able to put the priest into the witness-box against M'Hugh. If anything worse than that happened in the Star Chamber he would like to know it. Did the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that there was the sworn evidence of Clarke the informer—Clarke the confessed murderer—against this man; was that the sworn evidence on which the right hon. Gentleman relied? Now, he wished to call the attention of the Committee to the way in which the law was administered in Ireland, and the story of the man M'Hugh was an excellent case in point to show with what vindictiveness and injustice the law was being used against individuals. Some three years ago this man was arrested with another man whose name he had forgotten. [An hon. MEMBER: Weldon.] He was charged on the evidence of a man named Clarke, an informer, with having murdered Mr. Young, a magistrate, who was very much respected, and was of an amiable character; the Government put him in prison, and kept him there for 18 months; after being remanded from time to time, he was put upon his trial and acquitted. He was acquitted on this evidence. Clarke confessed that he himself was one of the parties who plotted the murder of Mr. Young; he admitted that in the witness-box. When the case came to trial, a priest, a doctor of the town, and a policeman, came forward and swore that at the time the murder was committed M'Hugh was in the Castlereagh Court House; he was acquitted, and disappeared from the scene for a little while until Mr. Forster's Coercion Act was put into operation, when he was put in prison and kept there for more than a year, although no crime had been committed in his locality, nor for miles around; he was one of the first men arrested on suspicion, and one of the last released from prison. On the 22nd

    309
    of June last he was again suddenly arrested upon the charge of conspiracy to murder. When it became apparent that the Government could not prove anything against him efforts were made to intimidate him to swear away the life of another person. During all the trial there was but one piece of conclusive evidence—there was evidence, of course, that a man had been killed; but it was never able to be proved that any human being had been a party to the murder. The man Clarke was known in the district to have a private grudge against Mr. Young; he was known to have threatened him. When Clarke came forward and attempted to swear away the life of this innocent man, the Government supported him; and when he failed to show that M'Hugh was a party to the conspiracy in which he (Clarke) admitted himself to have been engaged, the Government allowed him to go away, they took him under their protection, and in all probability had him in their pay still. The Government were using the power of the law to persecute M'Hugh, simply because he was distasteful to them. Those were the facts, and he thought Irish Members were entitled to some clear explanation of them, as well as an assurance that there would be something in the nature of a Statute of Limitations for the purpose of protecting this man from lifelong persecution on the evidence of a confessed murder.
    MR. O'BRIENsaid, he had been expecting some attempt on the part of the Attorney General for Ireland to reply to the series of damaging inferences and accusations brought forward by Irish Members, and to the still more damaging query raised by the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Cowen). The whole system of Crown prosecutions in Ireland was so infamous that Irish Members could go on giving instances in point until morning, as bad as those which the Committee had listened to already. He said that the Government, by using this system, were responsible for all the crimes committed last winter in Ireland. The system created more crime than it punished, besides disgusting and disheartening anyone who desired to have respect for the law. What were the facts? From the early part of May, 1882, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford
    310
    (Mr. Forster) left the country, the number of agrarian crimes in Ireland was diminishing by leaps and bounds—that was to say, during May, June, and July—and during those three months Earl Spencer did not try a single sort of repression—this peculiar system was not in force at all. There was the evidence of James Carey as to the state of things in July. He said that in that month he relinquished his connection with the "Invincible" Society, which was falling to pieces; its occupation was gone, the horror in the public mind caused by the Phœnix Park murder was unabated; and he ventured to say that if this system had not been put in force the murderous spirit which had developed since by its assistance would never have dared to raise its head. In August, however, Judge Lawson's Special Commission commenced, and so they had a new reign of violence in Ireland. Cases began to be handed over to juries, such as those described by the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Cowen)—juries selected by the secret agent of the Conservative Association in Dublin—Mr. Walsh. [Colonel KING-HARMAN: I beg to deny that.] He took the denial for what it was worth. The Government, who knew better, had not denied it. There were scenes of scandalous foul play taking place on the Bench at the time he spoke of, in the selection of juries and in the jury room; and when the most eminent Journalist in Ireland—the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray)—ventured to remonstrate mildly, and call for inquiry in his newspaper, he was thrust into prison with every circumstance of indecency and vindictive-ness. Public opinion was thus driven from the surface, public indignation was smothered, and the expression by every means of lawful opinion was put an end to. The "Invincibles," of course, saw their chance, and began their work again. He asked, who was to blame for that cessation of improvement? In their hurry to hang murderers, by hook or crook, the Executive hanged men whom, as his hon. Friend said, the public sentiment in Ireland believed to that day to have been foully tried and unjustly condemned. What was the amount of credibility to be given to the informers' evidence? When they were in prison, policemen and spies were sent around to work on their weakness, and

    311
    get them to denounce one another; and, of course, the result was what might have been expected. It had gone on all the winter, and it was going on at the present moment; there had never been any attempt to deny it; the prisons were filled at that moment with men who for months had been awaiting trial, not because there was no evidence against them, but on the chance that before their trial they would be weakened, or suborned, or coerced into telling a story. It was almost flogging a dead horse to be denouncing these infamies when there had not been the slightest attempt to deny them. In dealing with this Vote he wished they could reduce it to the last farthing of its amount, because he believed the smallest coin of the Realm would be worth more than this system of criminal prosecution to the Irish people.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, he wished that some of the eloquent indignation which had been expressed by hon. Members opposite had been directed against the crime in Ireland which they all deplored, instead of against those who had been endeavouring, under circumstances of considerable difficulty, to vindicate the law and to punish crime. He was sure that if hon. Members would endeavour, whilst condemning crime and outrage, to give the law their sympathy and assistance, they would materially contribute to bring about the state of affairs they wished for. He had said that those concerned in the vindication of the law in Ireland had to deal with circumstances of very considerable difficulty, and he thought this was a proposition which was self-evident. Hon. Members opposite appeared to forget the crime which had existed in Ireland until recently. That crime had really been crime perpetrated by a secret and privy conspiracy. Outrage and crime had not been committed by assassins in the face of day. The outrages had not been committed in daylight in the presence of respectable witnesses; but gangs of men with blackened faces, or otherwise disguised, had gone about in the middle of the night destroying their victims, and, in some instances, leaving not a single human being behind to tell the tale of what had passed. If these men were to be convicted at all, they could hardly be expected to be brought to justice by the clergyman of the place,
    312
    or by the doctor, or by the magistrate, or by the landed gentry, or by the respectable farming classes, because these, as a rule, had not been the objects of attack, and, therefore, had no testimony to give on the subject. It was freely admitted that it was an unfortunate necessity, not peculiar to Irish law at all, but existing in other countries and other lands, that in cases of secret and privy crime recourse must be had to informers. He regretted that it was necessary in Ireland to obtain the assistance of such persons; and he would gladly have availed himself, had it been possible, of the assistance of persons not in any degree mixed up with crime. He regretted the necessity of having recourse to these men; but he, for one, could never consent to lay down a rule that, under no circumstances, could the assistance of persons, themselves implicated in crime, be used against their accomplices. One of the very circumstances which most strongly tended to produce a want of that confidence amongst secret conspirators which was necessary for the fulfilment of their fell designs was the possibility that, at some time or other, one of their number might turn against them. To that circumstance was largely due the success which had attended the vindication of the law in Ireland. He demurred to the statement which had been made by some hon. Members that in every case where convictions had been obtained they had been obtained on the evidence of informers. This had not been the case. There had been many cases in which such evidence had been used without conviction; there were many cases in which, although it had not been used at all, convictions had been obtained. Hon. Members had called attention to a great number of cases in which they complained of an abuse of the Criminal Law; and a complaint had also been made by the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) of the delay in bringing persons to trial. The hon. Gentleman had mentioned a number of instances. He (the Attorney General for Ireland) did not profess to recollect the facts of each and every one of those cases with minute accuracy; and if, in any respect, his memory turned out inaccurate, any error he might make was not intentional on his part. He found considerable difficulty in dealing with the cases which

    313
    the hon. Member had cited; because, in some instances, the prisoners had not yet been tried, and it would not be becoming and fair if he were, in the case of men untried, to express his opinion in relation to the evidence, either one way or the other. He, therefore, was under a restraint which hon. Members opposite had certainly not imposed upon themselves. It might be that some of the cases would result in acquittal. If the evidence was not strong enough to convict, he should be just as happy as any hon. Member opposite could be if an acquittal took place. He had no wish that there should be a conviction, either in the case of innocent persons, or in the case of insufficient evidence, and evidence on which it would not be reasonable to act. It was a matter for thankfulness to those concerned in public prosecutions to know that they had got a verdict from a jury in a case, and that the prisoner had got the benefit of the consideration of 12 of his countrymen. A verdict of acquittal was accepted just as loyally by the officers of the Crown as if the decision had been in the opposite direction. Reference had boon made by the hon. Member for Monaghan to the case of the Mayo prisoners, in which, on the evidence of an informer, a number of men had been returned for trial; but the case had been postponed until the next Assizes. Hon. Members were, perhaps, not aware that when a prosecution was commenced, it was not possible, nor would it be right, to go on if the evidence was not complete. If they had complete, strong, and primâ facie evidence, the case must be returned for trial. It often happened, even if a case had been returned for trial, that there still were threads of evidence which had not been followed up. Sometimes there turned up evidence on the eve of a trial; and in regard to the very case in respect of which the statement of the hon. Member for Monaghan was made—although he (the Attorney General for Ireland) was not in a position to express any opinion with regard to the evidence in that case—since the trial had been postponed very material and important evidence, which, in his opinion, ought to be submitted to a jury, had come to the knowledge of the authorities. He was sorry it was necessary to postpone criminal cases; but sometimes a postponement was very necessary. In all murder cases,
    314
    it was recognized by the law of the land that it was the right of the Crown to postpone a trial once without giving any reason. After that, it became the right of the prisoner to call upon the Crown to go on, and, if they failed to do so, to claim his discharge under the Habeas Corpus Act. He was sorry if any man had been detained in prison under circumstances in which he ought to have been liberated on bail. At the same time, it must be remembered that the Judges were absolutely independent, and were not under the control of those representing the Crown. They were absolutely independent, and could only be removed by means of an Address presented against them in both Houses of Parliament.
    MR. O'KELLY: They are liable to promotion.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, he thought it was only necessary to say that the suggestion of the hon. Member for Roscommon (Mr. O'Kelly) could hardly be intended to be taken seriously, for it could not be supposed that the conduct of the Judges would be affected by what a Crown Solicitor might think or do. As regarded the case of the Mayo prisoners, they were returned for trial not very long before the commencement of the Mayo Assizes. The cases were very complicated, and, as he had already said, additional important evidence had been procured since they were returned for trial. It appeared that the Crown authorities were charged with a slight inconsistency by hon. Gentlemen opposite. Hon. Members had insinuated that those applications for the postponement of trials had been made in consequence of a desire on the part of the Crown to prejudice the cases of the prisoners by having them tried before a particular Judge, and it was hinted that the Judge probably selected by the Crown to try the cases was Judge Murphy, the most recently appointed of the Judges. Now, as a matter of fact, it was Judge Murphy who postponed the cases, so that the trials would not take place hereafter before him. They were told, again, that these applications were made because persons profited by them. The Constabulary certainly did not profit by them, neither did the Crown Solicitors. The Crown Solicitors were paid by salaries, and they, there fore,

    315
    did not profit to the extent of one farthing by a postponement. The witnesses certainly did not profit by postponements, neither did the counsel. The hon. Member for Monaghan had said that the Attorney General profited by them; but he (the Attorney General for Ireland) was willing, in the presence of the Committee, to have it decided whether he was likely to be a party to a proceeding whereby the imprisonment before trial of any person would be prolonged in order that a couple of guineas might go into his (the Attorney General for Ireland's) pocket. He asserted, with a full sense of his official responsibility, that, so far as he was aware, and so far as he could answer for the time of his Predecessor (Mr. Johnson), in no single instance had a postponement been asked for on the part of the Crown except for bonâ fide and real reasons. The hon. Member for Monaghan had referred to the Naas case. That was a case in which a policeman was murdered. A number of persons, undoubtedly, were concerned in that murder, and several prisoners were returned for trial, chiefly on the evidence of a young girl of the peasant class. He had considered the facts of the case, and had come to the conclusion that not one suggestion of personal impropriety against the girl's character had ever been proved. The Crusheen conspiracy and the Miltown Malbay case had also been referred to. In the Crusheen case there were two sets of persons arrested in different parts of the country. As regarded those arrested in Miltown Malbay, there was against them a very formidable case of conspiracy. The case, however, did not involve the actual commission of any individual outrage, although, undoubtedly, it was a most formidable case of conspiracy by persons who banded themselves together by an illegal oath for the purpose of committing outrages. When he came to read the information, he directed that the men should be discharged. The Crusheen case stood on a very different footing. There a dwelling-house had been attacked by a number of men armed to the teeth. The master of the cottage opened the door and fired in the dark in the direction of those who had fired at his house; and he (the Attorney General for Ireland) only wished that the example of that man were more generally
    316
    followed. One of the attacking party was shot in the back. He was immediately deserted by his comrades, was arrested, and was convicted of having taken part in the outrage. That man afterwards swore to the persons who were concerned with him in the attack on the house. [An hon. MEMBER: He was sent to penal servitude for life.] Of course he was sent into penal servitude, and why should he not be? He (the Attorney General for Ireland) presumed the man was still undergoing imprisonment. The man came forward, in the first instance, and mentioned the names of a number of persons who were with him on the occasion of the attack, and two persons of very respectable position gave evidence in the strongest degree confirmatory of the charge he had made, speaking to the very oath and the circumstances under which the conspirators were sworn in, and with reference to the general objects of the conspiracy. The man, however, afterwards went back on what he had sworn, and refused, ultimately, to appear as a witness at the trial. Under the circumstances, he (the Attorney General for Ireland) had no wish to go into the merits of the case with reference to the individuals who were still untried. The men had been sent for trial, and they were now out on bail. As to the result of the trial, he would say nothing; but he thought that if the men charged with the crime were guilty, it was highly important, in the interests of the public, that they should be convicted. A good deal of comment had been made with regard to another case—namely, that of John M'Carthy, who was now in prison on the charge of murdering Constable Linton while on duty in a street in Loughrea. It was quite true that other persons had been charged with the murder, and had been tried and acquitted. It was quite true, also, that two other persons were now on their trial with respect to the same murder. In regard to that case, however, it was necessary that the evidence should be complete, and there could be no hardship in adjourning the trial until the next Assizes. He assured the Committee that it was his most anxious desire to avoid any postponement which could by any possibility be avoided; and the case would, undoubtedly, be tried at the earliest possible moment.
    MR. HARRINGTONsaid, there had been two postponements.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)thought the hon. Gentleman was in error on that point.
    MR. HARRINGTONsaid, the magistrates remanded the prisoners from time to time until the Assizes were over.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, that, recollecting the kind of organizations with which the law had to contend in Ireland, it was not an unreasonable request that in this and several other cases the trials should be postponed. Another case was referred to by the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy)—namely, that in which a number of persons were returned for trial in connection with the occurrence at Letterfract, in Galway. In that case, a number of persons went to the door of Lyton's house at about 8 o'clock in the evening, broke open the door, dragged Lyton and his son into the roadway, beat them, and fired shots at them, murdering them both. There were, undoubtedly, six or eight persons engaged in this outrage, although only one had been tried and had paid the penalty of his crime.
    MR. HARRINGTONsaid, the man was not traced at all. The statement made at his trial was that he was at a wake at the time of the murder; and then his witnesses had been sent out of the country.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, that the statement that the man's witnesses had gone to America was not made at the trial. As a matter of fact, his witnesses were examined. There were half-a-dozen of them, and they swore that he was at the wake. The man's identity was proved by the dying declarations and the statement, sworn in his presence by the lad, who died within a fortnight, to have been present on the occasion, and to have murdered his father. As a matter of fact, a clearer case had never been submitted to a jury, and it was a case in which the prisoner very properly paid the penalty of his crime. It was not necessary for him to ask the Committee to come to a conclusion, one way or the other, as to this trial. The point was, that one person did not commit the crime alone, but that it was committed by a number of persons; and when positive
    318
    and clear evidence was given of the complicity of several other persons in the crime, it was a matter demanding complete investigation, and it was receiving such complete investigation. If, in the case of persons now returned for trial, clear and plain evidence was not forthcoming, they would be acquitted. It had been said, more than once, that there ought to be a Statute of Limitation passed in respect of these crimes in Ireland.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he heard the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), and certainly his hon. Friend did not recommend that a Statute of Limitation should be passed in reference to these crimes.
    MR. O'KELLYsaid, that what his hon. Friend (Mr. Healy) had asked was that a Statute of Limitation should be passed with regard to the particular men who had been tried and acquitted.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, that in regard to crime of a purely political character he should be glad to pass an amnesty when the state of the country would permit of it. But he was not now dealing with political cases at all. He declined to accept the doctrine that midnight assassination, usually against persons who were absolutely unpolitical—against herds and poor peasants—was a political crime in any sense of the word. The hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) dwelt upon the case of the murder of the policeman, to which he (Mr. Porter) had already referred. There were several persons awaiting trial on that charge; and there was against them, undoubtedly, the evidence of an informer. That evidence was such as the Courts were accustomed to treat with great caution, and not to act upon except in so far as it was corroborated. The case in question, however, distinctly demanded investigation. There had also been mentioned the case of the murder in the vicinity of Loughrea. That was a terrible crime. A house was attacked at night, and amongst the assailants was a police-constable and a bailiff. The bailiff had escaped to America; but the constable had been returned for trial, along with a number of other persons,
    MR. HARRINGTONasked how many remands had taken place; and whether, at the last remand, any additional evidence was brought forward?
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, he was really unable to answer the question from memory. That was a matter which must rest with the magistrates. Of course, the Crown felt it their duty to apply for remands as long as there was a prospect of getting additional evidence. Witnesses had to be brought a considerable distance; and in this particular case the postponement had taken place with the consent of those who represented the prisoners. Again, reference had been made to the murder of Mr. Herbert in Kerry; and he (the Attorney General for Ireland.) might say that in that case there was a clear and distinct charge against the man who had boon returned for trial if the witnesses were to be believed. [Ironical Home Rule cheers.] Well, his experience was that a man of bad credit might tell the truth in a particular case; and it was quite possible that though a man was not a safe witness for a jury to rely upon, he might be telling the truth for all that, and it was the bounden duty of the police to investigate the case, and it was the bounden duty of the magistrate to return the man for trial. But when a case came before him (the Attorney General for Ireland) it was his duty, inasmuch as he should have felt if the man was convicted on the evidence of a doubtful witness that the conviction was very unsatisfactory—it was his duty to prevent the trial, and have the prisoner liberated. Under the circumstances, he did not permit the case to go on. Hon. Members said that the authorities ought to bring forward witnesses of unimpeachable character. Of course, they would do so if they could get such witnesses. But these murders were not planned and carried out upon persons of unimpeachable character. Reference had been made to the case of the persons charged with the murder at Mullingar. That case was tried before Baron Dowse at Kilkenny. The learned Judge formed an opinion, which he expressed in very strong language, as to the man Walsh, and he advised the jury to acquit him. He (the Attorney General for Ireland) could only say that with this advice he most heartily agreed. It was the duty of the Crown to act upon evidence which appeared sufficiently satisfactory and trustworthy; but in many cases they had no test of what was satisfactory and
    320
    trustworthy until the case was heard in Court, although there might be, in extreme cases, such tests as he had mentioned. The case he had just referred to went for trial upon the evidence of a man called Walsh, who, undoubtedly, on his own showing, was an accomplice. The police and the magistrate did their duty, and then the jury did theirs by refusing to convict, because the evidence was not satisfactory to them; but the remarks of the Judge on the character of the witness Walsh, made for the guidance of the jury, did not necessarily involve any condemnation of those who sent the case for trial. The hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) then referred to the case of the Maamtrasna murders. Of the details of that horrible crime the Committee had heard so much of late that he would not go into them again. The hon. Member particularly alluded to the execution of Myles Joyce, and he dwelt upon the circumstance that the prisoner did not speak English, and therefore did not understand the language in which the trial was conducted. The proceedings must necessarily take place in the English language; but the evidence, as the case went on, was interpreted into Irish. The objection which was now raised he had never heard put forward before. He could remind the hon. Member who had called attention to this matter that the policeman who interpreted was not one of those engaged in the investigation of the case. The officer was under the immediate control of the prisoner's attorney; and he had, no doubt, done his work faithfully and well, notwithstanding that differences of opinion had arisen as to the proper interpretation to be put upon certain words. When a horrible murder, such as that at Maamtrasna, occurred, they could not allow the man to escape trial on account of his being unacquainted with English; and anyone who was concerned in these trials, at which there had been Irish-speaking witnesses and Irish-speaking prisoners, would know that increased pains and care had been taken that nothing should be done to in any degree prejudice the prisoners. And he might say that an indictment was brought, on an occasion not very remote, in that House against the conduct of the trials in Dublin. The hon. Member who had brought the indict-

    321
    ment—he thought the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell), who he did not now see in his place—had referred to the Maamtrasna case as one in which there had been no unfairness. The hon. Member was very much against what had taken place on the previous trials mentioned by the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Cowen); but as to the Maamtrasna case, he was of opinion that it was the only one on which the public mind and conscience was satisfied as to its fairness. There was one part of the statement of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Harrington) which he could not pass by without alluding to. The hon. Member had permitted himself to say that Myles Joyce had been "foully done to death by the Lord Lieutenant, who had evidence in his hands at the time to prove the man's innocence." It would be hardly necessary to ask anybody but people blinded by prejudice—it certainly would not be necessary to ask the vast majority of Members of that House—to come to the conclusion that Lord Spencer, if he had not believed a man to be guilty, would not have allowed him to be executed. [Mr. BIGGAR: Oh, oh!] The hon. Member for Cavan was amongst those who made that charge. He did not know whether the hon. Member for Cavan believed it or not. [Mr. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: All Ireland believes it.] He did not know upon what these hon. Gentlemen founded their statement, for, on the evidence of those who attended the trial, he declared that a clearer or more conclusive case had never been proved in a Court of Justice against any man than that which had been proved against Myles Joyce. The man, with several others, had walked a long distance across fields to the house of his victims, for the purpose of assassinating a whole family—he had killed them all, except one, a boy, and he had left him behind, believing him to be dead. The assassins were watched, almost from the beginning to the end of the proceedings, by two persons, who gave evidence on the trial; moreover, some of the men implicated in the assassination had turned round and given evidence against the others. One of the principal witnesses who proved the presence of this man, Myles Joyce, amongst the gang of murderers in a walk of five miles across the fields and back, was his own cousin, a person who was also
    322
    related to him by marriage, and against whoso veracity there could not be a shadow of suspicion. It was true that two of the prisoners had subsequently declared that Myles Joyce had not been a party to the assassination; but that was a statement to which the authorities could not for a moment attach weight, in the absence of any other ground to believe that the man had been unfairly convicted. That Myles Joyce was guilty of the murders they had upon the sworn evidence of those present at the time, one of them being his own cousin. However, he would not go more fully into this case, or ask the Committee to re-try it—he was only dealing with the charges that had been made against the Executive. The hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) had mentioned the case of the man Casey, complaining that whilst the Crown had prosecuted unnecessarily and convicted unfairly, in some instances, in this case they had unjustly refused to prosecute. In the case referred to—that of Casey—the farm was held by lease, Casey being the tenant, and Lord Kenmare the landlord. Casey had not produced the lease; but the fact, as it appeared in the information, was that for a period of 30 years Lord Kenmare, or his agents, had been in the habit of using the quarry in the tenant's field. On one occasion Mr. Doran going there, as had been his wont to do, found the gate locked. He sent at once for the police, who went to the spot; the gate was then pushed open by Mr. Doran. A statement had been made by one of the witnesses that Doran, the bailiff, drew a pistol when resisted by the man Casey; but there was no evidence on the part of the police that he had done such a thing. That was the entire case against Mr. Doran; there was nothing more than the assertion of a right which Lord Kenmare's agent claimed to have existed for 30 years which the man Casey was attempting to evade, and that right could have been demonstrated if the lease had been produced. It was obvious to anyone who know anything about law that was the real point in dispute; and inasmuch as he (the Attorney General for Ireland) had come to the conclusion that it was a mere attempt to put the Criminal Law in motion for a purely civil purpose, he had refused to allow the case to go on.

    323
    A bill had been sent up to the Grand Jury, with the sanction of the learned Judge who presided, and the Grand Jury threw it out, and they were quite right in so doing. If in that one case, believing there was an attempt to use the Criminal Law for a civil purpose, he had refused the application of a tenant to proceed against a landlord or an agent, he had certainly on more than 20 occasions stopped proceedings by landlords against tenants where a similar attempt was being made.
    MR. HARRINGTON: Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman stopped any such case which had been returned for trial?
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER): Yes; many.
    MR. PARNELL: Does the proportion the right hon. and learned Gentleman mentions bear any proportion to the respective applications to put in force the Criminal Law against tenants for civil purposes?
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, he was not in a position to go into these figures at present. He said that; but, at the same time, he also said that he had never allowed himself to be swayed by any consideration as to whether an application was brought by a tenant or by a landlord. Whenever an action was brought in which seemed to him, either from motives of economy or from ill-will, it was desired to put the Criminal Law in motion for civil purposes, he had always stopped it, and he always should do so; and he believed his Predecessors had always done the same thing. As to the general administration of justice in Ireland, referred to by the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Cowen), and particularly with regard to the late trials in Dublin, it had been remarked that there had been an exceedingly small number of Catholics on the juries. He (the Attorney General for Ireland) had admitted that the small number of Catholics on the juries was a strange circumstance—[Laughter from the Irish Members]—but hon. Members who laughed must remember that last year, when he had the figures before him, he had gone exhaustively into this matter. Mention was made in particular of the earlier cases under the Prevention of Crime Act. It must not be forgotten that in each and every one of
    324
    these cases the prisoners had the right of challenge, and that they had the advice of persons who were perfectly competent to assist them in exercising that right, from the knowledge they had of the panels. Not in a single case had they exercised that right to the full extent; and that point had never yet been dealt with by Members of that House. He had pointed out that there was a rule which excluded from criminal juries a class of persons, who, no doubt, might be perfectly respectable, but whom it was not thought right to place upon the panel—namely, licensed vintners. That was an established rule, which had not been made by him, but by his Predecessors; but, at any rate, the instruction was positive that these persons should not be put upon the panel. These persons, who retailed spirits, were brought into contact more or less with persons engaged in criminal pursuits, and it was therefore supposed that their decisions would be partial. Anyone who knew Dublin knew perfectly well that this business of licensed vintners was very much more in the hands of Catholics than Protestants; he did not know the reason of it, but such was the fact. Let anybody take a jury list and examine it for himself, and he would see that the statement he (the Attorney General for Ireland) now made was perfectly accurate. It was also the fact that many of the farming class who had been actual sufferers under the conspiracies that had existed in the country were set aside for specific reasons. He did not say that some of those who were set aside might not have made very good jurors, and have returned very fair verdicts; but they were obliged to have jurymen who were altogether above suspicion—in the condition the country was in they were obliged to have jurymen who were above suspicion. The hon. Gentleman had made the same charge against many of the other trials that took place in Dublin recently, on which large numbers of Roman Catholics had been challenged by the prisoners themselves, though there was a desire on the part of the Crown to have Roman Catholics on the juries. In the last case the number was six Catholics against six Protestants—and, on the whole, he could say it had been the anxious desire of the Executive that no man should be excluded from the jury-box on account of his religion.

    325
    ["Oh, oh!"] Well, he had taken every pains a man could take to ensure that result. He had been acting in concert with Roman Catholic colleagues throughout, and he appealed to everyone connected "with them if it was not the most anxious desire on the part of the Crown—particularly on his own part, because he was charged here with being biassed in this matter—that there should be no distinction made on the ground of religion? Anyone who knew anything about him was perfectly aware that he had as many personal friends who were Roman Catholics as Protestants, and that he had no wish to give preference to one over the other. The hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Cowen) had referred to the process of secret investigation going on in Dublin Castle, and had asked how long was it to last, saying that it would be better to have Martial Law at once. He did not know what the hon. Member meant when he said—"How long is this secret investigation at Dublin Castle to go on?"—he did not know to what the hon. Member referred, as he was not aware of any secret investigation going on. What he would say to the hon. Member was this—that so long as there was atrocities and horrible and disgraceful crime going abroad unpunished, so long as the law armed the Executive with modes of investigation and trial which were likely to prove efficacious in leading to the discoveries of outrage, so long would those powers be employed; and if it was necessary to proceed in the future as they had proceeded in the past, he would be prepared to do it without shrinking, as no doubt would his Successors as well as himself. The hon. Gentleman had said it was better that guilty men should escape than that innocent men should suffer, and he perfectly agreed in that view, and he challenged any fact that could be brought forward against the scrupulous fairness of the trials with which he had been connected. That was all he could do. He had always been actuated by a desire for fair play, and arriving at the justice of the case. It was in the firm vindication of the law that the absence of crime was to be looked for. The hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien) had spoken of the remarkable diminution of crime that took place in the months immediately succeeding the Phœnix Park assassinations. The hon. Member had
    326
    quoted James Carey's remark in reference to that matter, and it was not the first time that the hon. Member had referred to Carey in terms of eulogy.
    MR. O'BRIENsaid, that if the Parliamentary vocabulary were a little enlarged, he would answer that with the retort it deserved. If it were repeated elsewhere, he would give it a very different answer to that which he was compelled to give it in that House.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, the hon. Member had written his desire to see James Carey lifted on men's shoulders to places where he would do them and the nation no discredit; he had said that Carey had no strength but in the deep heart of the people. He (the Attorney General for Ireland) did not mean to say that the hon. Member had eulogized James Carey after the fact of the man's complicity in the Phœnix Park murders had come to light; Carey was a man who was very jealous of his public reputation. He had stated that immediately after the 6th of May—at any rate, the inference of what he had stated was that immediately after the 6th of May he was drawn from the Invincible Organization, because he believed its end had been accomplished, and that it had nothing further to do; but the work of the Invincibles went on notwithstanding that James Carey withdrew from it. There was distinct proof that it went on on several subsequent occasions; but the increase of crime that went on until the murder trials in Dublin had almost ceased after the first conviction.
    MR. O'BRIEN: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give the statistics of agrarian offences?
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Mr. PORTER)said, that his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, no doubt, knew or possessed these statistics; but he himself had not got them. He had now dealt with the statements of hon. Members as far as he recollected them, with the exception of one by the hon. Member for Mallow, to the effect that the prosecutions that had been going on in Ireland were infamous. The Executive were strictly to vindicate the law, and he could not give any promise to the hon. Member that in the future there would be any deviation on the part of the Government for an anxious desire to bring

    327
    to justice those who were really guilty, and to acquit those who were really innocent.
    MR. T. D. SULLIVANsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, in his long and able speech, had endeavoured to make things pleasant to the House of Commons. Was there ever a period in the history of the two countries when the Law Officers of the Crown were not found ready to take the same course when the Government of the country were challenged for misrule and wrong-doing? Whatever charges were brought against the Executive the Members of Her Majesty's Government in that House, and especially the Law Officers, at once came forward to show that Ireland was being ruled upon the most beneficent and just system it was possible for human ingenuity to devise. But when he looked back to the past, he knew that the verdict of history was of a far different character; and so it would be in the future. When the history of these times came to be written, notwithstanding the speeches of the Law Officers of the Crown in that House, the verdict would be the same as in the past—namely, that the people were misruled and oppressed, and that outrage and crime were the natural and inevitable consequences. Several of the statements of the right hon. Gentleman had struck him as not being very conclusive, and one of them in particular in reference to the case of Myles Joyce. The case of that unfortunate man was a very remarkable one. Let the right hon. and learned Gentleman say what he might, he (Mr. Sullivan) believed there was not an easy conscience about it in Dublin Castle. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said there was satisfactory evidence that this man, Myles Joyce, travelled five miles with the other men engaged in the murder in the dead of night. Now, he (Mr. Sullivan) believed that to be perfectly true; but what he was also convinced was perfectly true was that Myles Joyce had neither act nor part afterwards in the commission of that crime. It was quite possible for a man to go along with a party bent upon such a deed as that; but it was also possible that, repenting at the last hour, he might have had neither act nor part in it. In this case there was no evidence to show that Myles Joyce had anything to do with this
    328
    abominable deed. There might be evidence to show that he went along the road with the other men; but it was not clearly established that he was in the house, or that he took any part in the perpetration of that hideous crime. He (Mr. Sullivan) and his hon. Friends were not there pleading for immunity and protection for criminals against the consequences of crime. Nothing of the sort, and he hoped no such impression would go abroad. No men in the world had a greater interest in the preservation of peace in Ireland than the Irish people themselves. They desired to see Ireland peaceable and contented; they desired to see Ireland prosperous, virtuous, and happy; and what was driven into their hearts and souls was the conviction that she never could be so while the present system of government existed. [An Irish MEMBER: And they know it, too.] It had been complained in that House, over and over again, that the whole condition of the country was marred by the treatment the Irish people received. Everything was distorted; everything was set wrong; and it was not owing to England or to English law, but to the influence of the good Irishmen and the priesthood of Ireland that the country was not in a much sadder condition. Irish people were trying to make headway, as they had been for long years, against the evil influences which were acting upon them, and which came from England. It was complained that the name of the law was not revered and respected in Ireland. How could it be? When was it worthy of respect? Was it worthy of respect to-day? Nothing of the sort; the Irish people fully believed, for good reasons, that the law which was administered in Ireland today, although it might be called law, in very many cases could not be called justice. The law had persecuted the Irish people; the law had hunted them; the law had ground them down; it had destroyed their trade, their commerce, their Parliament, and everything they had worth keeping; and the wonder was that there was still in Ireland a people possessed of so much virtue as the Irish. The Irish people had no confidence in English law; they had no confidence in their Judges, no confidence in their juries, and there was neither regard nor affection for the Stipendary Magistrates or the Constabulary.

    329
    Why should there be? The Crown was now on the rampage in Ireland, and was carrying things with a very high hand. The Crown determined that men should be convicted and punished. Some of them might be guilty, but some were innocent—and he believed many of them were innocent—but, however that was, the Crown must have them convicted. That was the state of the case. He protested against the idea that in Ireland they desired to shelter any criminal from the consequences of crime. They grieved over the horrible outrages which had taken place in the country. It was the hearts of Irish people that were wounded more than those of Englishmen. To them the character of their country was dear; but it was not so to this country, which had been defaming them for centuries, and which would continue to defame them to the end of the earth, spreading its lies and calumnies against them. Theirs was a country of many sufferings and sorrows, and so it would continue to be as long as the iron hand and cold heart of England were the rulers of Ireland. Some day England would have to give up this brutal experiment, which had been tried so long, and which before God and man had proved such a hideous failure. His fear was that before they gave up their misrule of Ireland, England would have spoilt the people, and that when an Irish Parliament came to rule them it would find that its task had been made a hard one.
    MR. BIGGARwished to say a few words in regard to the Vote itself, and the administration of what passed for justice in Ireland. In reference to the question of economy, there was one thing which struck him very much in connection with criminal prosecutions in Ireland—namely, the system of throwing away extravagant sums of money upon lawyers. In the criminal prosecutions in Dublin it was quite common for four or five counsel to be engaged in a single case, although the prosecution itself was carried on by one or two of them. No doubt, legal gentlemen of Dublin looked upon that as a very good joke; and so it was from their point of view, although it was anything but a joke to the ratepayers. The practice was to engage four or five counsel, and to get the work done by one or two,
    330
    so that the others had a snug sinecure. Not only did these counsel get complimentary briefs, but all the expense of preparing the briefs, and so on, went into the pocket of the solicitor who was charged with the conduct of the prosecutions. There was another matter which had come under his own personal notice—namely, the system of sending down a Queen's Counsel, with a special fee, to conduct cases before the magistrates. He considered a practice of that kind wholly unnecessary, especially when it was a well-known fact that it was arranged beforehand what the decision should be. It would, therefore, be the easiest thing in the world to go through the formality of having the case conducted by an ordinary local solicitor, who for a few shillings would do all that was required, instead of sending down a special counsel from Dublin, whose fee amounted to a larger number of pounds than the shillings that would be necessary if the ordinary rule were followed. He was personally acquainted with instances of that kind in cases heard before the Mayor of "Wexford, and also before the Mayor of Waterford. Seeing that in Dublin the Government could always have a jury carefully packed, and secure as many convictions as they liked, it was preposterous, he thought, to hire high-priced counsel, and a much larger number of them than was really required by the merits of the case. He had heard part of the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland upon this Vote, and there were one or two passages in that speech which had struck him as rather peculiar, and which he desired to point out to the Committee. It seemed to him extraordinary that the Attorney General should protest with such vehemence against the existence of such a thing as jury-packing. Why, the fact was so notorious that it scarcely required even to be stated. Everybody in Ireland knew that the packing of juries was carried on in that country in the most wholesale and barefaced manner. His own opinion was, that such a thing as an honest jury in criminal prosecutions in Dublin did not exist. These juries were selected for a particular purpose, and they made up their minds before they went into the docks to find a verdict of guilty, whether the evidence was slight or overwhelming, and thus to

    331
    carry out the arrangement under which they were selected by the Crown. There was another matter to which attention had been drawn by the Attorney General—namely, the postponement of trials. Applications were frequently made for postponement on behalf of prisoners, and also by the Crown, in the interests of the Crown, and the invariable custom was for the Court to decide as the Crown wished. If an application for postponement was made on behalf of the prisoner, and the Crown objected, the postponement was not allowed; but if, on the other hand, the Crown made any objection, as a matter of course the postponement was allowed. Again, when the Crown applied for a postponement it invariably got it at once, no matter what might be the case set up. He would not inquire into the motives by which these decisions were guided, because different motives would actuate different Judges; but he did know that a good many of the minor appointments in connection with the Law Courts in Dublin, and the administration of justice, were given away to the relatives and connections of the Judges. Nepotism ran rampant in the Law Courts of Dublin; and it was beyond doubt that the Irish Judges did distribute their favours in such a way that the small game, at any rate, found its way to their own relations and friends. He believed there were some honourable exceptions on the Irish Bench. He did not mean to insinuate that all were similarly tainted. As far as he could form an opinion, there were honourable men on the Irish Bench; but, on the other hand, he believed that a certain portion of the Judges were perfectly untrustworthy, and that they had no disposition to do justice to the prisoners who came up for trial before them. Reference had been made to some of the cases which had been recently tried in Ireland, and notice had been taken of the case of Myles Joyce, who was hanged at Galway. It was well known that two of the persons who were hanged for that offence acknowledged the day before the execution that they were guilty; but they declared, at the same time, that Myles Joyce was innocent. As had been pointed out, these men had no inducement to speak untruthfully in regard to Joyce; and he thought that in a case of that sort, where a prisoner
    332
    had been condemned to death, and where representations of his innocence were made to the Crown, the Crown was bound to give the prisoner the benefit of the doubt, and, at any rate, to allow his life to be spared, so that further evidence might be called for afterwards, in order to make the matter conclusive one way or the other. But it suited the exigencies of the Government at that time to have a large number of executions, and that was the real cause why this particular execution was allowed to take place. The object of the Executive was not to find out who was guilty, but how to obtain convictions on account of the revelations which had just been made in connection with the Phænix Park murders. In his belief, those murders were a national calamity; and he had never heard any politician of the Irish National Party who did not express an opinion that the Phænix Park murders were aimed more against the interests of the agitation with which they were connected, than against the English Government. Notwithstanding, there was a great outcry got up in this country, and Her Majesty's Government thought they could make political capital by securing a large number of convictions. They, therefore, pursued this system, and hanged every person convicted, whether the evidence was conclusive or not. In the case of young Walsh, who was tried for shooting a policeman at Letterfrack, he (Mr. Biggar) had himself heard the evidence against the prisoner, and he was prepared to say that it was of the most frivolous nature. One part of it was that the mud on Walsh's stockings and shoes was of a similar character to the mud in the street where the murder took place. Everyone knew that this young man was in the habit of going down that street day after day, and naturally the mud on his boots would be of a similar kind to that of the street in which the murder took place; but, although that was the strongest evidence against Walsh, the man was convicted by a packed jury, and was within an ace of being hanged. His brother was hanged, although, in his (Mr. Biggar's) opinion, his innocence was clearly proved, because it was shown that he was elsewhere at the time the murder was committed. The only pretence for a case against the man was a juggle about the different clocks

    333
    of the district. Although it was perfectly certain that not one of the clocks in the whole of the locality was accurate, the Crown tried to show that it was possible that the man could have been at two places at the same time, although they were a considerable distance apart; and they sought to establish it by saying that one or two of the clocks in the country villages round about were right, and all the others were incorrect. It was upon such evidence that the man was hanged, although he declared his perfect innocence of the crime with which he was charged. Then, they had the case of Francis Hynes. There was no evidence against Hynes at all. The only person who said anything against him was the man who was shot, and his evidence was of anything but a conclusive nature. The statement made by him was made to a priest, who was attempting to hear his confession at a time when he was in articulus mortis, and could really make no statement whatever upon which reliance could be placed. No doubt, the man did mutter the name of Francis Hynes; but what was passing through the unfortunate man's mind at the time it was impossible to say, and certainly there was not sufficient evidence to convict the prisoner of the crime. In addition to this fact, a gross irregularity took place in regard to the jury which tried Francis Hynes. There could not be the slightest doubt that the jury were playing billiards and drinking at the Imperial Hotel during the time the trial was taking place; and he thought that ought to have been held absolutely fatal to the prosecution. What the Judge should have done was to have quashed the indictment, and put Hynes on his trial before another jury. But, in spite of all the facts laid before the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Spencer had Francis Hynes hanged, and this showed that the Lord Lieutenant was not so much engaged in administering justice as in the endeavour to make political capital out of these unfortunate murders. The informer, James Carey, had been held up to very great odium. Now, he (Mr. Biggar) had never had the pleasure of knowing that gentleman personally, and he had never said anything in his favour. He was disposed, however, now that he had an opportunity of doing so, to express the opinion that James Carey was
    334
    a rather ill-used man. No doubt, Carey was a blackguard for betraying his comrades; but it must be borne in mind that he was placed under great pressure. Carey turned informer for two reasons—first of all, he did so to save his own life; and, secondly, because he was led to understand that somebody else was going to give evidence against him, and he preferred to be the betrayer rather than the betrayed. Certainly, it was not a very high motive Carey had; but he (Mr. Biggar) contended that the motives of Carey were infinitely superior to those of the men who made use of Carey. The Lord Lieutenant, the Attorney General for Ireland, and the Chief Secretary, and, indeed, everybody connected with the Irish Government, used Carey in order to make political capital out of him. Bad as Carey was, the Irish Government were worse for making use of a man of Carey's stamp, because they used as a witness before packed juries a man whom they knew to be of the most despicable character. Not only did the Government make use of Carey to give evidence before juries whom they had packed, in order to ensure convictions whether the evidence was trustworthy or not; but he would go further and say that the men who were tried for the Phœnix Park murders were convicted by dishonest evidence, and he would tell the Committee why. The evidence of some of the witnesses was that they saw four men drive rapidly by upon an outside car whom they had never seen before, and whom they never saw again until 12 months afterwards. Nevertheless, they identified the whole of the men who were on that car. He contended that it was perfectly impossible, under such circumstances, in a large city like Dublin, to identify men whom the witnesses had never seen before, and whom they did not see again for 12 months. He, therefore, thought he was justified in saying that a jury which would convict on evidence of that sort was not disposed to act honestly. His own personal opinion was that the jury which tried these cases—including Mr. Field—were all of them guilty of deliberate perjury. They were put forward as men who had displayed great courage; whereas, in point of fact, they were acting in their own interest. They were men selected from a class who were under

    335
    police protection, and who were deriving benefit from the system of coercion adopted by the Government. He concurred that the present system was most dangerous to the administration of what passed for justice, and that it ought to be discouraged by all honest men, and especially by the House of Commons. Before he sat down he wished to refer to a case which took place last Assizes—a case in which a number of men connected with his own constituency in the county of Cavan were brought up and put on their trial at the Belfast Assizes. They were tried by Judge Harrison, a Conservative Judge, who told the jury, after hearing the evidence, that there was no case whatever against the prisoners. Nevertheless, the jury convicted them all the same. The jury had been carefully packed. He believed that Judge Harrison was no party to the packing of the jury; but it had been packed by persons who represented the Crown, and this packed jury found the prisoners guilty, notwithstanding the direction of the learned Judge that there was no ease against them. This case strongly showed that the object of the Crown was not to obtain justice, but to secure convictions. If they could get a conviction by honest means they were prepared to accept it; but rather than not obtain a conviction they were prepared to give enormous bribes to dishonest witnesses, and then to pack the jury in order to obtain a verdict. It was absurd to talk of even-handed justice between the farmer class and the landlord class. Let them take into consideration what occurred at Ballina. He should like to know if equal justice had been done in regard to the murders committed by the police at Ballina as it would have been done if the accused persons had belonged to the farmer class? If the murders had been committed by the people the prisoners would have been put upon their trial and hanged. But instead of taking that course in regard to the police, the Attorney General took good care that they were allowed to go scot-free. He believed that a similar course had been taken in regard to the Wexford case, the police having been "whitewashed," and no prosecution having taken place at all. It was the same at Ballyragget, in the county of Kilkenny, where an agent of Lord Kenmare, who was proved to have presented a pistol at a man's head and to
    336
    have committed a breach of the Arms Act, was released without a prosecution. If, instead of being the representative of Lord Kenmare, who was a Member of the so-called Liberal Government, he had been a tenant farmer, he would have been in penal servitude at the present moment, and the Government would not have been so hard to satisfy about the evidence. In this case the evidence was perfectly clear. The man was seen with a pistol in his hand presenting it at the breast of the prosecutor; but because the policeman said he had not seen the act committed, the Attorney General took the part of this creature of Lord Kenmare, this so-called Liberal Catholic Member of Her Majesty's Government, and no prosecution took place. In another case which occurred in the county of Kerry, certain innocent men were arrested because a woman, who was called at the inquest and denied strongly that the prisoners who were charged had committed the murder, when she had a prospect of a reward placed before her eyes, afterwards entirely changed her evidence, and said they were the murderers—upon which contradictory evidence the men were hanged. Under such circumstances, he could not consent to a Vote for Law and Justice as it was now administered in Ireland, and he thought that the Vote ought to be struck out of the Estimates altogether.
    Mr. MAYNEsaid, the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Cowen) had demanded of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland an explanation of the extraordinary circumstances connected with the recent trials in Dublin, in which there were unmistakable proofs of jury-packing. The hon. Member had received from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the usual answer, or perhaps what might be more properly described the usual answer with a slight difference. The right hon. and learned Gentleman explained that he was not aware of what the religion or politics of any of the persons summoned upon the jury were.
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being found present,
    MR. MAYNEcontinued. The Attorney General for Ireland had stated that he would be no party to any such proceeding as the packing of a jury,

    337
    either in Dublin or elsewhere. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said, in another part of his speech, that some of the crimes alluded to were committed by men with blackened faces. The connection between the two statements was peculiar, and he (Mr. Mayne) scarcely knew what argument the right hon. and and learned Gentleman endeavoured to build up upon that fact, unless it was this—the crimes were committed by persons who had blackened their faces, and, therefore, some sort of manipulation was necessary in connection with the jury before whom the criminals were put upon their trial. The natural inference, therefore, was that a jury ought to be selected that might be easily satisfied with the evidence as to identification adduced on behalf of the Crown. There appeared to be no other explanation of the two statements of the Attorney General. The right hon. and learned Gentleman also stated that he was unaware that any juror had ever been struck off from serving on account of his religion or politics. It was not necessary, and he could very well understand why, that Her Majesty's Attorney General for Ireland should be aware of the religion or politics of anybody upon the jury panel; but there were officials under him to manage the business who knew very well. Even if those officials did not feel quite certain about it, special steps were taken to obtain the knowledge from the Conservative Club in Dublin, who had persons connected with them who knew the religion and politics of every man on the rate book; and as the jury panel was made from the rate book, therefore, the religion and polities of every man on the jury panel in Dublin were known. Consequently, when a selection was made by the officials to whom he referred, it could be very easily understood what the grounds were on which they made their selection; but, without any proof at all, the selection absolutely made afforded sufficient evidence of itself. In a city like Dublin, where the vast majority of the inhabitants and a large majority of the gentlemen on the jury panel were Roman Catholics, the fact that a jury panel to try special cases must contain the name of Roman Catholics was a fact which required no explanation. Dublin jurors were more interested than, perhaps, any other body of jurors in the country in the administration
    338
    of justice, not only in Dublin, but all over the country, and in the preservation of law and order. Their interests, financially and otherwise, extended all over Ireland, and they could have no possible sympathy with crime in any part of the country. Therefore, if criminals against whom satisfactory evidence could be produced were brought before any section of Dublin jurors, no matter what their politics or religion might be, he believed there would be no difficulty in obtaining verdicts if the evidence was satisfactory. It had been a matter of great surprise to find that Roman Catholics had been excluded from the jury panel in the late Dublin trial; and although an explanation had been repeatedly asked for, it had never yet been given. There had been a kind of explanation given by the Attorney General—namely, that Roman Catholic jurors had been set aside not exactly because they were Roman Catholics, but because a large majority of the retail licences in Dublin were held by Roman Catholics, and it became necessary to be very particular in the selection of jurors on that account—in order that persons holding these retail spirit licences should not find their way into the jury box. Now, did the right hon. and learned Gentleman mean to assert that all the Roman Catholic jurors in Dublin were retail grocers; or did he argue on this line—that because the majority of the people dealing in spirits with retail licences happened to be Roman Catholics, that, therefore, all Roman Catholics ought to be kept out of the jury-box? That was the only explanation given by the right hon. and learned Gentleman to the inquiry made of him by the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Cowen); and he (Mr. Mayne) certainly submitted that the matter still required some further explanation. The answer of the right hon. and learned Gentleman could not be accepted as a satisfactory reply to the very important question put by the hon. Member for Newcastle. That there was some truth in it was shown by the fact that in the first series of trials, when the juries were manipulated in this manner, the principal newspaper in Ireland alluded, in a strong manner, to the peculiar tactics which were being pursued in Green Street, and, instead of giving an explanation of any kind—retail licence or otherwise—the proprietor

    339
    of the paper was arrested and put into Richmond Gaol. If a satisfactory explanation could have been given, surely that was a desirable time to have given it, in order to have quieted the angry feeling then growing up against a manipulation of the jury panel which had started into life again, although it was considered to be dead and gone for ever in Ireland. The result of all this was that, perhaps, the greatest misfortune which had been produced out of all their recent troubles in Ireland—namely, want of confidence and want of respect for the administration of the Criminal Law in Ireland had sprung up—that want of confidence and respect so ably and so fitly deplored by Lord O'Hagan when he introduced his Juries Act. The recent improper and unfair administration of the law had certainly given the Juries Act its quietus, and all the maladministration much condemned in bygone years had come to the surface again. Indeed, at no time, for a long series of years, had the want of confidence in the due administration of criminal justice in Ireland been so pronounced as it was at present. He was able to make that statement with some sort of authority. He resided in Dublin, and carried on his business there, and he mixed with almost all grades of the population. If Lord O'Hagan would introduce any other measure now to put an end to the present state of feeling that existed, as it did when he introduced his Juries Act, he might repeat almost word for word the speech he made in introducing that Act. At no time had there been a more thorough want of confidence in the administration of criminal justice than that which existed at the present moment; and it would be most unfortunate if someone did not step in now to restore confidence. Describing the manipulation of jury panels in recent times as jury-packing, was describing it by the name by which it was known in old times; but it would be better if some more appropriate name could be invented. Jury-packing was done quietly in an office before the jury were summoned. Lord O'Hagan's Act had rendered it impossible for that procedure to be persevered in any longer; and the result was that a new and ingenious method had been adopted. In a recent Act of Parliament ample provision was made for summoning a sufficient
    340
    number of jurors to attend in certain cases, and those jurors must be of a special kind, and, according to recent experience, of a very special kind. When a jury was formed in accordance with the provisions of Lord O'Hagan's Act, they were taken in rotation alphabetically, so that it was impossible at that stage to exclude a Roman Catholic, or an advanced Liberal, or persons who had retail licences. Later on, there was another provision in that Act which was intended to put beyond all doubt the impartiality of any jury that might be called to try a case. The name of every one of the 200 jurors had to be written on a separate slip of card, all the slips being of the same size and pattern. These slips were placed in a ballot-box, and drawn out in the presence of the full Court and the public. They were called out one by one; and, generally speaking, any man put on his trial for any crime might feel quite easy in his mind that the first 12 taken out, being so mixed up, would, at all events, be perfectly impartial; but the Crown had, in certain cases, an unlimited discretion as to ordering jurors to stand aside. A Crown official could reject those whom he would not permit to serve by ordering them to stand by, and then he could allow those who were opposed in religion, in politics, and in every other interest to the prisoner, to serve. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had that evening said the prisoner might challenge any jurors he pleased; but what was the use of a prisoner doing that? He could not challenge 200, or 100, or even 50; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman's under-strapper could order the whole 200 to stand by if he chose. A prisoner would be a fool to challenge jurors; it would be far better for him to take his chance, because if he did challenge them the under-strapper of the Government could still get the 12 he wished to have all the same. Was all this necessary? The right hon. and learned Gentleman had sufficient acquaintance with and experience of juries, special and otherwise, in Dublin, to justify the question whether all this was necessary in Dublin? Did he believe that if any jury were taken, even almost at random in Dublin, composed of men of any religion or politics whatever, or even of persons holding retail licences, and

    341
    that satisfactory evidence was put before them, they would find a verdict which was contrary to the facts, or to what the law and justice of the case demanded? His justification, if it might be called one, about licensed victuallers, did not hold with the persistent putting off of Thomas Leech, of Dame Street, for he was not a licensed victualler, and not even a Roman Catholic. He was one of the religious community known as the Moravian Brethren; and he was not dependent upon any class of the public, for be was a man of considerable wealth. Why was he put off? Was it because he was a conscientious man who would require to be satisfied of the guilt of the prisoners? If the prisoners were men with blackened faces, there might be some reason for keeping Mr. Leech off the jury; but the cases in Dublin were not cases of that kind. They were, in the majority of oases, persons against whom evidence seemed to be fairly clear, and in regard to which an ordinary jury could be trusted. But suppose they could not be trusted, would it not have been better that the men might have got off, and the Jury Law passed by Parliament at the instance of Lord O'Hagan have been left to enjoy the confidence of the people of Ireland which it had earned? In that case, the existing state of things would have been prevented, under which any man called to serve in a criminal case could not help feeling that some taint was put upon him if he was allowed to serve. He knew of men who had refused to go up, and had submitted to penalties rather than run the risk of being placed in the box. He put these views before the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who was responsible for much of what had taken place. He would urge the right hon. and learned Gentleman to devote as much of the remainder of his life as might be necessary to restore the confidence of the people of Ireland in the administration of the Criminal Law in that country.
    MR. DALYsaid, he had listened with very great attention to the speech of the Attorney General for Ireland, and he noticed that while the right hon. and learned Gentleman adverted in minute detail to the cases adduced by hon. Members, with the skill of a practised advocate, he avoided the weak points of the cases. While he referred, in great detail, to the observations of the first
    342
    three or four Members who spoke, when he came to consider the question put before him by the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Cowen) he skimmed the subject. The right hon. and learned Gentleman imputed to the Irish Members that they gave no assistance to the law, and had no sympathy for the law. He might add that through the way in which the law was administered in Ireland, in respect to criminal juries, it did not command sympathy or respect. When the fate of a man's life was on trial, the Constitution of the United Kingdom gave him the promise of a fair jury; but, from his own personal experience, he could state that in the manner in which the law had been administered in the South of Ireland a prisoner did not get a fair trial. The Attorney General seemed to make a great point of a prisoner being able to challenge jurors, and not doing so. The reason of that was plain upon the surface. A solicitor for the prisoner, although he might do his best to obtain equity for the prisoner, was not bound to ensure an acquittal; but the Attorney General and the Crown were bound to secure a conviction. Therefore, when a man was not known to be very adverse in opinions to the prisoner, and bore a general good character, the solicitor would pass him by; but if a man of the most estimable character as a citizen came forward, and was suspected of the least national proclivities, the Solicitor for the Crown called upon him to stand by. He was familiar with the modus operandi, because he had witnessed the progress of trials in the Court at Cork. The panel was not a long one, and it was printed; but there was attached to it a statement of the proclivities of the persons there named, and any person suspected of unfair or doubtful tendencies was told by the Solicitor for the Crown to stand by. The Crown exercised not only arbitrary power, but a certain kind of unlimited power; because, while a prisoner could only challenge up to a certain time, the Crown could require any citizens actually on the trial to stand by. The Attorney General stated—and he quite acquitted the right hon. and learned Gentleman of having any personal feeling in these matters—that, to his knowledge, no persons were excluded on account of their religion. If he would refer to the complaints made at the time of the sitting

    343
    of the first Crimes Commission in Cork, he would find that on more than one occasion 40 jurors who had been summoned were ordered to stand by; and that by a singular coincidence 38 of these were Roman Catholics. That, in a panel of little more than 200, was a startling circumstance. So great was the feeling of indignation in Cork that a public meeting was intended to be held even while the Judge was sitting, to complain of the dishonour intended to be put upon Roman Catholic jurors; but by his advice it was not held. He did not think such a feeling of indignation could be excited in Cork without just grounds; and his own personal conviction was that the jurors were selected and manipulated for these trials. The Attorney General had that evening felt himself constrained to make the admission that many of the persons who had been rejected he did not doubt would have made good jurors. He himself had perfect knowledge that many of the men excluded by reason of suspected politics or religion would have given a verdict as truly as the most thorough Orangeman that ever sat in a jury-box. Was the law entitled to respect in the face of these circumstances? He believed that the law ought to be vindicated; but he also considered that by the manipulations practised by the Crown, whilst the law in the minds of some people was vindicated, it fell into very great disrepute with the majority. The Attorney General, seeking to skim over the weak part of his defence, alluded to the fact that a great many of the jurors on the special panel in Dublin were publicans; but he knew that men were excluded in Cork from the jury-box who were not publicans, and no more dependent on the public than any other mercantile men in the Empire. A system was carried on in Ireland which, in the humblest town of England, would have raised a storm of indignation. But he had some other objections to this Vote. For example, he wanted to know what was meant by Miscellaneous Charges in the Law Expenses? It seemed to him that the country was asked to vote £100,235 for what had not vindicated the law, but had brought the law into great disrepute. If it had given advantage to any persons, it had done so to the Attorney General and the Solicitor General, who were down for £9,000;
    344
    and there was an item of £15,520 for fees to counsel. It was a melancholy fact that the Vote for the administration of the law in Ireland should contain a charge of £53,520 for prosecutors, and that the total should amount to £100,235.
    MR. HEALYsaid, he wished to point out the extraordinary inflation of this Vote which had taken place. He found that the total Vote for Ireland was £100,235. Ireland was a small country, with 5,000,000 inhabitants, and England, with 30,000,000, only required £84,006.
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, the hon. Member should take the English Votes 1 and 3, to make a comparison—the Voles for Law Charges and Criminal Prosecutions.
    MR. HEALYsaid, he would take Criminal Prosecutions and Sheriffs' Expenses, and he found that they amounted to £260,000; but the population of England was six times greater than that of Ireland. He wondered what became of the political economists when this Vote came on. Where were the hon. Members for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) and for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn)? He had expected them upon this Vote to have pointed out that here was Ireland, with few lawyers, and far fewer criminals, charged with this enormous sum. According to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, as regarded ordinary crime, no country was so pure as Ireland, and even agrarian crime was much less now than it had been at any time in the last three years. It seemed to him that political economy in that House had gone to the dogs; and so it was that when charges of this kind were brought before the House, the answer was—"Oh, it is only Ireland;" and the fact that it was Ireland was sufficient explanation of this state of things. He had not heard the whole of the Attorney General's statement; but, as he understood, the right hon. and learned Gentleman's defence was based on the infamous conduct of the Crown. In regard to Nally, his defence was that the Government had since got additional evidence of an important character. His answer to that was the answer that Gambetta made to McMahon—"I do not believe you." He did not apply that to the Attorney General, but to those who had supplied the right hon. and learned Gentleman with that information, because they

    345
    knew that their statement was to go forward on the wings of the Press; and that The Freeman's Journal, with a copy of that statement, would go into every cell, carrying fear and terror to the unfortunate prisoners. But he would tell these men, in their prison cells, to distrust that statement, even though the Attorney General made it. He did not believe that statement as coming from the Irish officials; and he ventured to say that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was not skilful enough to affect the minds of the men who were now lying at his mercy in Castlebar Gaol. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was bound to get up and make statements of this kind. For what else did he draw the £9,000 for which he was asking the Committee? The right hon. and learned Gentleman, when he had to come to the Table to ask for his salary, ought to speak with bated breath when he was meeting the Representatives of the people whom he was oppressing. What was this £9,000 for? How much of it had he got in his pocket at the present moment? He came down to make statements in" order to captivate that House; but it was his own salary that he was defending; and it would be a very surprising thing if, having pocketed £9,000, he did not come prepared to make out a very good case. £9,000 was a very large amount, and he did not know whether anyone on the Irish Benches could realize what it was; but, at all events, it was in addition to another salary which the right hon. and learned Gentleman drew under another portion of these Estimates; and he asserted that it was to this system of inflation of the Votes, under the head of fees, that caused all these bogus, fishing prosecutions. He had just received some information showing what was the action of the Attorney General for Ireland in respect to the prosecution of the men who were bayonetted and bludgeoned at Wexford. The Government, having put the men to the expense of engaging counsel for the defence, and then having postponed the case for three weeks, had now changed their mind, and, believing that they could get a conviction even under the Prevention of Crime Act, and by changing the venue, had brought the prosecution under that Act. A gentleman who was Mayor of Wexford last year stated that the Police had issued
    346
    fresh summonses under the Prevention of Crime Act, 1881.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, there was no prosecution whatever under the Prevention of Crime Act.
    MR. HEALYsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had not added that if the prosecution was under the Prevention of Crime Act he would give instructions to have that changed.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, he could, of course, hardly undertake to say that; but he believed there was no such prosecution. If there were, it was not with his knowledge; but he was perfectly certain there was not.
    MR. HEALYsaid, he was obliged to the right hon. and learned Gentleman; but he had been very guarded. These men might to-morrow got from two magistrates six months' hard labour, although the right hon. and learned Gentleman would regret it very much; and perhaps when they had spent three weeks on plank beds he would let them off the remainder. He had, however, risen chiefly to call attention to circumstances connected with his own constituency—in regard to the Crossmaglen case. There were now undergoing penal servitude a number of men of respectable class—several of them tenant farmers, and one a National schoolmaster, and, therefore, a person of intelligence—on the evidence of an informer named Duffy. He would not quote any words of his own; he would quote the words of The Dublin Express, the chief Orange organ of Lord Spencer, and the editor of which was the Irish correspondent of The Times. The Government took these men in the county of Armagh, and placed them on trial before a jury in Belfast. They brought down Judge Lawson, and the only evidence against the men was the evidence of Duffy, and that of a certain book, which he alleged was built into a wall by himself and a man named Hanlon, who had also, at first, turned informer. The Daily Express—the most rabid organ of landlordism—in an article, two months ago, upon the conviction of these men, said that if the jury could have seen their way to any other result the public would have been inclined to quarrel with the verdict. If the evidence on which the Crown relied was not sufficient

    347
    to convince the rampant editor of The Daily Express, he thought the Government ought to give it up. But in spite of the dictum of the editor of The Daily Express, those unfortunate men were then undergoing a sentence of 10 years' penal servitude, and one of them, the schoolmaster, was dying of consumption in Mountjoy Prison; and it was notorious in the district that he was not the man implicated in this matter, but that it was the uncle of the man, who was away in America. Now, he often wished that the magistrates who sent men to prison, and the Judges who gave sentences of penal servitude and plank beds, could be sent for two or three days to endure that torture themselves, as a preliminary to their taking office; and if those persons who drew large salaries—the Chief Secretaries and Attorney Generals—for preserving law and order in Ireland could get a taste of prison regimen, they would be more merciful. But of all the horrible tortures to which a man could be subject, that of being convicted on false evidence, when he knew himself to be innocent, was the worst. With regard to these Crossmaglen people, as a matter of fact the Government offered a number of them, if they would plead guilty, that they should be released on their own recognizances. [The ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND dissented.] The right hon. and learned Gentleman shook his head; he might shake it off if he liked. He asserted in that House that something was done to convey to these men that if they pleaded guilty they would be released on their own recognizances, and that the men, who preferred to throw themselves on their country—the Orange jury—were now undergoing penal servitude.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, the facts were these. After the conviction of the first prisoner the counsel for the defence asked the Crown Prosecutor to deal leniently with the others, on condition of their pleading guilty. The Crown said that they would, and the matter was to stand over until instructions came. But a person connected with the defence would not consent to no fee being taken, and said the case must go on. The result was that the unfortunate men were tried and convicted.
    MR. HEALYsaid, the statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman was correct as far as it went; but the circumstances he referred to were antecedent. But he accepted the statement, and, taking it for what it was worth, he asked what did it prove? It proved that the first batch of men were convicted by Orange juries, and the second as he had described. The Government put forward a certain set of men; they made a vague charge against them; they were found guilty; then they came to another set of men, and said to them—"Your predecessors were found guilty." And to justify what was done to the preceding lot the subsequent batch of men were to be induced to plead guilty. He was so suspicious of anything that the ordinary Crown officials said, that if Mr. Bolton and Mr. Anderson made a statement on oath of the facts in connection with this case he would disbelieve them. Hon. Members looked shocked; but who was Mr. Bolton? A most blackguard and profligate ruffian. The right hon. and learned Gentleman could not contradict him now. Let him get up and say at that Table that Mr. George Bolton was not the most blackguard and profligate ruffian in the service of the Crown.
    COLONEL KING-HARMANrose to Order. He asked whether the hon. Member was right in using the words "blackguard and profligate ruffian" in regard to any gentleman connected with the Government of Ireland?
    MR. CALLANrose to Order. Before the question was answered he wished to know whether the hon. Gentleman was not in Order in repeating, in emphatic language, the dictum of an English Judge?
    MR. HEALYsaid, he would enforce his words by pointing out that they were practically the language of an English Judge in connection with Mr. Bolton.
    THE CHAIRMANsaid, he was not aware of the status of the gentleman of whom the hon. Member was speaking; but he must say that such language applied to anyone was very strong.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, the Chairman had stated that he was not aware of the status of Mr. Bolton. He was a public servant of the Crown, and one who had no connection whatever

    349
    with the circumstance mentioned by the hon. Member for Monaghan.
    THE CHAIRMANsaid, if the hon. Member made the observation with respect to an officer of the Crown, he thought the language was indecorous, and should be recalled.
    MR. HEALYsaid, there was one thing he would not do—he would not be bullied by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Dublin County (Colonel King-Harman).
    THE CHAIRMANsaid, the hon. Gentleman must address himself to the Chair.
    MR. HEALYsaid, he would do so. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland stated that Mr. Bolton was a public servant in Ireland. He regretted to say that he was; but he would not have been so long if an English Judge could have had his way—an English Judge who accused him of having, by means of a marriage settlement, cheated his wife, and of having committed adultery with an other woman, and of having had a series of illegitimate children by two different women. That was the man——
    MR. R. N. FOWLERrose to Order. He asked whether it was in Order that such a charge should be brought in that House against a gentleman in the Public Service?
    THE CHAIRMANsaid, he had already stated his opinion that if the language of the hon. Member applied to a gentleman in a responsible position under the Crown, it was highly indecorous. He thought the hon. Member was going beyond the Question before the Committee in entering into such matters.
    MR. HARRINGTONasked whether it was not in Order for an hon. Member to discuss the conduct of officers of the Crown?
    THE CHAIRMAN: Undoubtedly; but in proper language.
    MR. HEALYsaid, the gentleman, or rather the official, in question—for he could not call him a gentleman—got his salary as Crown Prosecutor under this Vote, and acted as Crown Prosecutor in many places; in fact, he was almost ubiquitous when there was any dirty work to be done. He could not consider his official position apart from his private capacity, This was the man whom an English Judge described as a person unworthy to be kept on the Rolls as a
    350
    solicitor—as unworthy to be kept in the service of the Crown. It might be that the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Dublin County (Colonel King-Harman) was not aware of these facts; but there was a great deal that he did not know, and he would learn a great deal in his career in that House, if he remained in it, especially if he attended carefully to what was said by Members below the Gangway. In discussing the conduct of Mr. Bolton, he wished to show that the convictions, obtained through the instrumentality of a man to whom an English Judge had applied language perhaps the strongest ever uttered on the Judicial Bench, were not clear. It was an unfortunate thing for persons of the high character of the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite to have to rub shoulders with a person like Mr. Bolton, and to have to defend him in that House. If the actions of a person of such repute in this country were involved, they would not find the English Attorney General defending those actions. English officials always tried to keep clean hands; but Irish officials were willing to steep their hands in anything in defence of the system they were obliged to maintain. It was upon these grounds that he impeached the Vote. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had given no explanation of the jury-packing and changes of venue; he had not explained why men from Monaghan and Armagh were brought to Belfast, where a "true-blue" or Orange jury could be obtained.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER): It was not a special jury. A common jury was empannelled in every case tried at Belfast.
    MR. HEALYsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman would, perhaps, deny the change of venue? The right hon. and learned Gentleman must have a very weak case indeed if he could not turn his flank on some point; he tried to do it in this instance by the statement that no cases were tried at Belfast by special juries. Very well; then he would give him another case—the case of the Emergency men who were tried for the Morroe outrages, and they were not convicted. Why? Because Mr. Peter O'Brien, who ought to have been earning his salary in Green Street, was brought down specially to

    351
    Cork, where he had no right to be at all, and he would not challenge a single individual, though these men, having the right, challenged all the Catholics of the jury, and were acquitted after a disagreement. When the prejudices of the ruling classes were concerned a special jury was empannelled; but when Emergency men went round with arms and blackened faces, and committed acts for which they were brought up, then, either by means of the Grand Jury or some other machinery, they were sure to get off. He asserted this as an axiom with reference to Ireland—that the Chief Secretary might shoot a man in the street, simply for amusement, and he would not be convicted, because, in the first place, as was done in the case of a policeman, if a Coroner's Jury returned a verdict of wilful murder the Attorney General would put his power into operation and quash the inquisition; and, secondly, if it were not quashed, and the Crown sent up the case, as his hon. Friend had pointed out, the Grand Jury would ignore the Bill. Thus, against that numerous class of men in Ireland—namely, the Emergency men and bailiffs who strayed about the country with revolvers in their hands—no justice was to be had. This state of thing was the realization of the old proverb that one man might steal a horse, but another might not look over a hedge. The Emergency men and the bailiffs might do what they liked, and no one seemed to have any power or control over them. The right hon. and learned Gentleman who replied to his Question of Friday last, said that the men convicted in the Castleisland case were not convicted by direction of the Judge. Now, he presumed the right hon. and learned Gentleman would accept upon that point the reports from The Cork Daily Herald of the 21st, 23rd, and 24th of July last, to which he would ask his attention. Seven or eight men were charged, and two were convicted; the prosecutor swore he could not recognize a single one of the men who fired at him. The right hon. and learned Gentleman stated that these men were not found guilty by direction of the Judge. Now, the report of the case with which he had fortified himself said the jury were about to retire when a juror, Mr. Harris, asked for a printed copy of the depositions, and asked if upon that they might find
    352
    a verdict. His Lordship (Judge O'Brien) replied—" Most certainly; and I so advise and direct you." And yet the right hon. and learned Gentleman got up and said at the Table of the House that the men were not convicted by direction of the Judge.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER): The Question was as to whether the Judge directed a verdict, which anyone who knows anything of legal procedure must be aware means the withdrawal of the case from the jury.
    MR. HEALYsaid, he would make the right hon. and learned Gentleman a present of the cheerful ambiguity of the Judge's remarks. But what was the effect of that language upon the minds of the jurymen? With trained lawyers in the House the right hon. and learned Gentleman might make good his plea; everyone who had studied works on special pleading would know that. If the Judge had not said what he meant, why did he not make it clear what his language was intended to convey? Then the right hon. and learned Gentleman had made an excuse with regard to the date of the adjournment of the trial. He (Mr. Healy) made the charge that at Cork these cases were adjourned on the fourth day of the trial, whereupon up jumped the right hon. and learned Gentleman and said it was not the fourth day, but the eighth day of the trial. Technically, the right hon. and learned Gentleman was correct; but, strictly, he (Mr. Healy) was right, because, although it was the eighth day of the Assize, it was only the fourth day of the criminal business. No doubt, the right hon. and learned Gentleman felt uncomfortable under these statements; but he regretted to say that they were plain and unvarnished truths. He would call the attention of the Committee to the character of the evidence on which the men were found guilty. Seven men were brought up from the county of Kerry to Cork, which might be called a change of venue, for Cork was not in Kerry, nor was Kerry in Cork. They were brought up on the evidence of a man named Walsh, who made a deposition identifying some of them. This man was cross-examined by Mr. Atkinson, and he then said he did not know the man who shot him; he had never seen him before that morning. Mr. Atkinson then asked him to look

    353
    round and say if he could see him then; and the witness, looking at the dock for the third time, said—"I do not, my Lord." The man who was shot was sitting on the witness table, and, being asked if he could recognize the men, said, "No." If he were disposed to trouble the Committee he would read the report of the case in The Cork Herald; but he would simply say that a more flagitious case in the annals of criminal procedure in Ireland was not to be found. The men were found guilty; but did the Judge believe they were found guilty properly? If he did, what sentence ought he to have passed on them? Castleisland, it should be remembered, was the most disturbed district in Ireland; let it be remembered that a series of outrages had taken place in that district, and that the Crown had strained every nerve to strike terror into the population. The men were convicted, and one would have thought they would have been sentenced to penal servitude for life, or, at least, to a term of 20 years' imprisonment; but how much did they get? Two years' imprisonment with hard labour; clearly showing that the Judge who tried them, and who directed the jury to find them guilty, did not believe in the verdict which he directed the jury to find. Mr. Justice O'Brien, too, it should be remembered, was not believed to be a very tender Judge who looked to the side of the prisoner. He put it to the Attorney General for Ireland whether, if he were a Judge on the Bench, and a number of men were brought before him charged with shooting a caretaker on a farm, he would believe that two years' hard labour was an adequate sentence? Why, even in England, if you kicked your wife to death you got two years' hard labour, although here that was thought to be the smallest offence known to the law. But granted that, he said that two years' hard labour was an extremely lenient sentence, clearly showing that the Judge did not believe the men guilty. Two were found guilty; but what became of the other live? The adjournment took place, as they knew, on the fourth day of the criminal business in Cork. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said it was the eighth day of the Assize. He (Mr. Healy) did not believe that more than 36 men had been put in the jury box out of a panel of 200. Well, the trials were adjourned, and the
    354
    men were sent back to Tralee and allowed to remain in gaol for 12 days, certainly not because they were believed to be guilty, for in that case they would have been tried in Cork. They remained in Tralee Gaol until he put a Question in the House of Commons, and then they were released. A Question in that House made Irish officials jump. He said that life would be intolerable in Ireland if Irish Members had not a certain amount of check on the proceedings in Ireland through the discussions on the Estimates, owing to which they were able to let some light into the souls and consciences of English Members. Even though they might march into the Division Lobby to support the Vote, he ventured to say there were few of them who had not their doubts on the subject.
    MR. MAGNIACrose to Order. He asked whether it was in Order that a Member should make personal charges against hon. Gentlemen sitting on that side of the House as to the conscientious discharge of their duties?
    MR. HEALYsaid, the hon. Member was mistaken; he had made no personal charge on hon. Gentlemen opposite. He simply said they had souls and consciences. If the hon. Member did not belong to that category he would be happy to except him. However, having concluded his remarks when the hon. Gentleman interrupted him, he had only to thank the Committee for having so kindly listened to what he had to say.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, it was one of the most painful incidents of recent occurrences in Ireland that those who, in a difficult crisis, had endeavoured to discharge responsible duties as Judges, prosecutors, and witnesses, which many of them had done with great danger to their lives, should, in addition, have to listen to their conduct being aspersed and their motives impugned. The hon. Member who had just spoken (Mr. Healy), availing himself to the full of the freedom which the House accorded to its Members, had used the strongest adjectives and the most vigorous form of invective against those whose arduous task it had been to assert the law, in a great crisis, against persons, whom everyone who had studied the cases knew to be guilty. [" Oh, oh!"] If hon. Members below the Gangway objected, they could wait until he had finished what he intended to say. Within the limits

    355
    of moderation, which his own self respect suggested, he should make use of that right which belonged to him, to occupy the time of the Committee for a limited period, while he expressed, upon the present subject, those feelings which he believed to be just and proper. The hon. Member had said something about letting in a gleam of light upon the consciences and souls of hon. Members. That was a very nice expression for the curious form of light which the hon. Gentleman introduced; but he (Mr. Gibson) thought the attitude of the hon. Member might very well be judged from another expression which he used—that of making the Crown officials jump. One of the Crown officials selected by the hon. Member for attack was Mr. Bolton. He (Mr. Gibson) would be entirely cowardly, and utterly unworthy of standing in that House, knowing, as he did, Mr. Bolton perhaps longer than did anyone present, if he listened in silence to the charges made against him. Long before he had anything to say in that House, long before he had any connection with official life, his experience of Mr. Bolton on the Leinster Circuit was that he was firm in his prosecutions, but also fair. That was his (Mr. Gibson's) opinion, when he was engaged with all the energy and ability he possessed in defence of the prisoners. Later on, when circumstances placed him in official relation with Mr. Bolton, it became his duty to review his prosecutions—during the three and-a-half years he was in the Office which his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland now held with such conspicuous advantage to the public service, he had never known a single case in which Mr. Bolton had not conducted the prosecutions in a way which might stand review and criticism by any impartial tribunal. Now, the case selected by the hon. Member for special reference with regard to Mr. Bolton occurred in 1879. At that time none of the occurrences had taken place which had brought his name into prominence.
    MR. HEALYsaid, he referred to the trial which took place in England three months ago.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, he was perfectly familiar with the entire matter. The trial in England was about a will; and that will, and the incidents that took place, were only important to the hon.
    356
    Member's point of view in so far as they referred to what took place in 1879. All those incidents were brought to the notice of the Lord Chancellor, that distinguished man, Dr. Ball, who calmly and impartially, as befitted his habit of mind and the high position which he filled, and after consulting with his Colleagues, arrived at the conclusion that there was nothing in the facts brought to his knowledge which required interference on the part of the Executive Government. But the crime of Mr. Bolton was more recent than that; it was within the last two years that it had developed. When the troubles in Ireland increased, and the services of a man of exceptional ability were required, the Executive appealed to Mr. Bolton, and gained his assistance; and the exercise of his ability; his nerve, and his experience was to be found in very many of the recent trials in Ireland. So that really the most conspicuous offence of Mr. Bolton was that he had efficiently and vigorously served the Crown at the time when the Crown needed efficient and vigorous assistance. Now, passing away from Mr. Bolton, the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and the Attorney General for Ireland had answered several questions on the subject of these trials, and had answered them fully and completely. The Attorney General for Ireland, who fulfilled the difficult and arduous position of Public Prosecutor in Ireland, and who, it must be clear, was directly responsible for such a charge, had answered the questions openly, frankly, and fearlessly; his appearance was not that of a; man desirous of keeping back anything; and he (Mr. Gibson) ventured to think that, later on, he would be prepared to give full and detailed information with respect to any specific trial brought under the notice of the House. But when the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), in no way deficient in acuteness, was brought to task for the recklessness and boldness of his charges, when he was going on making charges in the hope that he would presently hit upon something, he (Mr. Gibson) noted that, on three occasions, he rushed rashly into a position from which he had at once to recede. In the Crossmaglen case, he insisted that special juries were summoned, until the Attorney General for Ireland rose in

    357
    his place, and showed that the matter was past argument, because there were no special juries summoned, whereupon the hon. Member for Monaghan, with au indifference that reached the point of sublimity, said it was a matter of no consequence. If the Attorney General for Ireland had not been in his place to insist upon the denial, in spite of the assertion of the hon. Member, he (Mr. Gibson) should like to know whether his statement would not have gone forth to the country as constituting a grave charge against the Government which could not be refuted? the hon. Member had another point—namely, that one of the Judges in Ireland directed a conviction in a criminal case—[Mr. HEALY: I will read the report again.] No; he would not trouble the hon. Member; he had a fair recollection of his clear and vigorous language in making his statement. The charge was that a Judge in Ireland had so far forgotten his duty as to direct a conviction in a criminal case; that was stated specifically; and when the charge was grappled with, as it was at once, the hon. Member said it was a very small matter. The point of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's reply was that the Judge had not directed a conviction; that he used certain words, simply directing the jury on a matter of law. He said that, on particular evidence, if they believed it, on which they asked guidance, they were entitled, as a matter of law, to convict. There was no room for doubt about the matter, which was as clear as crystal; and the Judge who would not have given that answer would have been considered fitted to sit on the Bench but for a very short time. He ventured to say there was not a single hon. Member in that House who could not see with absolute distinctness what it was the Judge was asked by the jury, and what was the legal guidance given by the Judge to the jury. He (Mr. Gibson) could not help thinking that the gleam of light the hon. Member had spoken of was a little deficient in strength; because, in respect of this charge, the hon. Member again fell back on an excuse which they were familiar with in the ordinary transactions of life—he said it was a very small matter. The final charge was one more remarkable still; it related to a very important case that came before Mr. Justice O'Brien. At the risk of winning an easy cheer from a certain
    358
    quarter of the House, he was glad to say that Mr. Justice O'Brien was a friend of his, and he would add that he believed him to be as able and upright a man as ever adorned the Irish Bench. The charge was, that when he had the power of inflicting a sentence of penal servitude for 20 years, or for life, he could only bring his courage to the point of inflicting two years' imprisonment with hard labour. Let it be remembered that the charge now was, that the trials in Ireland had been conducted with such a ruthless spirit, and with so little regard to justice, that the poor innocent prisoners, instead of getting a maximum sentence of penal servitude, were let off with a very much smaller punishment. The Judges being given by law a wise discretion, which enabled them to give a sentence, either of penal servitude, or of imprisonment, it was certainly rather hard to complain that the Judge who tried the case, and who was acquainted with all the facts and with all the evidence, should have dispensed with the graver punishment. He was bound to recognize the great acuteness of the hon. Member; he failed to see how the specific points which he brought up, and which he subsequently had to abandon, justified the harsh language which he used. The hon. Member spoke of crimes against law and order, as if he were entitled to command cheers from the Committee. He (Mr. Gibson) would like to know what would become of civil society if there were no punishment for crimes against law and order, which the hon. Member paraphrased as crimes against the prejudices of that House? What did the prejudices of that House mean in the mouth of the hon. Member? Did he mean by that what the House of Commons had, by overwhelming majorities, declared to be the law of the land? Did he mean that the laws passed in that House, and by the House of Lords, and sanctioned by the Queen, were prejudices when they were used to assert law and order? [Mr. HEALY rose in his place.] He did not wish to be catechized by the hon. Member; if he had mis-stated his words, or misrepresented his meaning, he would yield to him at once; but if the hon. Member wanted only to interpolate an extremely brilliant reply, he must leave him to sum up when he had finished speaking. The next case referred to struck him as being

    359
    the most remarkable of all. There were two men charged with going about disguised at night, and demanding arms and money. When the case came before the magistrates it was dismissed; the attention of the Crown being directed to it, the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and his right hon. and learned Friend desired the matter to be further investigated; they sent up two Special Magistrates, and by their action the men were returned for trial at the Cork Assizes, where the Crown Counsel, not satisfied with the result of the first trial, which was due to the disagreement of the jury, put the men forward for a second trial. He could see no case against the Crown that they had not held the balance fairly with respect to the trial of these persons charged with a violation of the law. There were other points which he could refer to; but he did not think it necessary to go into them at that moment. He did not for a moment dispute the right of any hon. Members from Ireland to institute a searching criticism into the way in which prosecutions in Ireland were conducted. He had never objected to that, and he was certain no one in that House would object to the fullest and most ample criticism of the circumstances of all the trials which had taken place. But he said that such an examination should be conducted in a calm, reasonable, and judicial manner. He felt sure that hereafter the impartial verdict would be that, in a time of great danger and unexampled crime, when a vigorous and just administration of the law was absolutely necessary, the officials of the Government, both in Ireland and in that House, had been actuated by an anxious desire to do right, and to avoid, even in appearance, injustice and unfairness.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he had no desire to discuss these matters in anything but the calm spirit which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) had recommended to the Committee; but he was bound to say that, if he were the Liberal Secretary of State for the Home Department or the Liberal Attorney General, he should have some suspicion that his administration was conspicuously a failure from the generous eulogies poured upon it by the Conservative speakers. There was
    360
    not a single Conservative gathering which took place in Ireland, whether it were an Orange display in Ulster, or a Conservative banquet in Dublin, but the names of the Chief Secretary and Earl Spencer, the Viceroy, were received with prolonged cheering, which contrasted strangely with the pronounced hisses with which the name of the Prime Minister was received. He had lately been reading a report of a Conservative gathering in Ireland—namely, a meeting of the Constitutional Club; and he found that the highest encomium that they were able to bestow upon the Lord Lieutenant was that he was an Orange Viceroy, doing Orange work in spite of the Liberal Administration. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had made light of some of the statements of the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy); and he would take one or two of the right hon. and learned. Gentleman's points in passing, though they did not seem to bear very much upon the matter before the House. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had referred to the Murroe outrage, though he had not referred to the fact that the Government did not enter upon that prosecution until they had been driven into it by Questions put in the House of Commons. The prisoners in that case were tried in Cork. They were Emergency men; but were they tried by Catholic tenants? No; Catholic tenants who were accused of crime and tried in Dublin had their cases submitted, in almost every instance, to 12 Emergency jurors; but what was sauce for the Catholic goose was not sauce for the Emergency gander. Seeing that Catholic prisoners were tried by persons of a different life, of different creed, and of a different class, it was only just that, when Emergency men were to be tried, the juries should have been composed of 12 Catholic tenants. The right hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken had paid a high compliment to the demeanour of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, and he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) acknowledged at once the right hon. and learned Gentleman's qualities in that direction; but he would go from his manner to his matter, and say that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had been guilty of as unfair—he would not say dishonourable—a piece of strategy

    361
    against the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien) as had ever been witnessed in that House. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had quoted two extracts from the paper edited by the hon. Member for Mallow, referring to James Carey. Being interrupted by the hon. Member for Mallow, the right hon. and learned Gentleman added that these things were written and published long before Carey's connection with the Phœnix Park murders was known or thought of. Why, then, had the right hon. and learned Gentleman quoted these extracts, unless it were to excite prejudice and hatred against his hon. Friend (Mr. O'Brien), by recalling statements which were made when, so far as the people of Dublin knew, the murder was not dreamt of? The forgiveness of Carey, and Carey's being put in the witness-box, was one of the grossest acts of infamy on record; and he would tell the Committee why Carey was put in the box. It was not that his evidence was required to convict the other prisoners—they could have been convicted without his evidence; but the fact was, Carey was wanted to besmirch the Party who sat on those (the Home Rule) Benches. What had happened when Carey was put into the witness-box? Why, he had said, in his evidence, that the Invincible Society was started at a time when all Constitutional liberty was at an end in Ireland, when the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), Mr. Dillon, and other Leaders of the Constitutional movement were in prison; he had said the Society had its origin in a feeling of something like despair at the non-success attending Constitutional efforts to improve the condition of the country; he had said that the Invincible Society was created by Mr. Forster's policy. It was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford who ought to have been put upon his trial upon the evidence of Carey. For a fortnight every newspaper article, and every speech made in the country by Members of the Government, even by the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War (the Marquess of Hartington), who sometimes occupied the position of Leader of that House, rung with the insinuation that the hon. Member for the City of Cork was connected with these vile assassins; and, to his (Mr. T. P. O'Connor's) mind,
    362
    never was there a more atrocious, a more cowardly, or a more wicked set of tactics adopted by one class of political politicians against another. What were the admissions of the right hon. and learned Gentleman? Why, he had had to admit that some of the persons whom the Government had put upon their trial for murder had been acquitted by the juries. The right hon. and learned Gentleman got up and said—"Thank God for that," and asked what could be a more reasonable action than for a common prosecutor to bring a charge of murder against a man if there was evidence upon which to found that charge. But the Committee must remember that a charge of that kind, even if rebutted, left a stigma upon a man all his life. Had not the Irish Members, therefore, a right to charge the Government with neglect of duty; with not having more carefully sifted the evidence, before putting such stigmas upon the character of Irishmen? The man M'Carthy, and his wife, had been brought up on a charge of murder and remanded time after time—three Assizes were allowed to pass over, and at the end of a year's imprisonment the Government were unable to bring home the charge. At that very moment two other persons were in custody charged with the murder; and what were they doing with these two persons? They were adopting a similar course, remanding them as they had remanded M'Carthy and his companions. Eight times they were remanded, the evidence on the eighth remand being the same as on the first. Why did they remand prisoners like this? The rational explanation was that when a remand was asked for, additional evidence would be forthcoming on the next hearing; but here they remanded men week after week, and month after month; at the end of that time having no further evidence to bring forward than was produced at the first hearing. The Government had a perfect right to track out crime and punish it, and no Member of the Irish Party denied them that right. So far as he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) was concerned, he heartily wished the Government success in any legitimate efforts to bring malefactors to justice. He would congratulate the Government, and cheer them on in work of that kind; but in the matter to which he was referring,

    363
    their conduct was what it ought not to be. They had no right, he maintained, to obtain convictions by torturing prisoners. When they had these men in solitary confinement, month after month, with these terrible charges hanging over them, unproved, when they had them interviewed by their policemen and their doctors—if they did employ doctors, as his hon. Friend said they did, for the purpose of putting the prisoners through a daily torture—they could not be surprised at the Government being able to get persons to swear against people who were innocent. The Executive, by their mode of conducting these prosecutions, were reviving the torture of the Dark Ages—or, rather, were introducing an ancient principle in a modern form. They were torturing untried prisoners in the face of one of the most solemn declarations ever embodied in the Statute Law. The 39th section of the Prisons' Act of 1877 emphatically declared that a clear difference should be made between the treatment of persons unconvicted of crime, and in law presumably innocent, during the period of their detention in prison for their safe custody, and the treatment of prisoners convicted of crime, during the period of their detention for the purpose of punishment. That Act provided for the making of Prison Rules for the treatment of untried prisoners. In spite of that Act, they had kept prisoners unconvicted of crime for 12 months in prison, and deprived them of the privileges conferred upon them by both Houses of Parliament, and all that in the name of law and order. What would the hon. Gentleman the Member for the County of Clare (Mr. O'Shea) say to that? He was not a Member of the Party to which he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) belonged. He was not remarkable for vehement hostility to the present Government, and yet what did he say? Why, he said that the country was getting sick of the "fishing prosecutions." That was a most apt description of the policy of the Government; they first imprisoned the man, and then defined his offence. The presumption of law used to be that a man was innocent until he was proved to be guilty; but the Government had reversed the whole process, and their officials presumed people to be guilty before they had one jot of evidence against them, and kept them in gaol
    364
    until they had induced some miserable wretch, by fear of death, or by offer of bribery, to give evidence against someone else. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had attempted to answer the charge brought by Members of the Irish Party with regard to the packing of juries. In common with the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken (Mr. Gibson), he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), must compliment the right hon. and learned Gentleman on his demeanour in reference to this question. It did seem rather strange—but his candour had allowed him to go that far—that he should have admitted that the juries were taken from the same religion. On this matter, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had given a grudging testimony of the truth. It was not the complaint of the Irish Members that all these persons were taken from the same religion. Some Protestants had been asked to stand aside, it might be thought for decency's sake; but it was nothing of the kind—it was not for decency's sake; but because these people did not belong to the Orange Party. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had given two reasons in support of the method on which juries had been formed. In the first place, he had said they had been bound to exclude from the panels licensed victuallers, the large majority of whom were Catholics. Could anyone in his senses believe that because a man sold whisky he should not be allowed to act as a juryman, and to try a case? There was a distiller on four of these juries, so that the new moral code of the Irish Attorney General was, that a man who sold whisky by retail could not be safely trusted to act upon a jury, while a man who sold it wholesale was an excellent man to act upon a jury—so excellent, indeed, that he could sit upon the trial of four cases. What was the second reason of the right hon. and learned Gentleman? Why, that prisoners had not exhausted their right of challenge. Was there ever a more unfair statement, even for an Irish Attorney General, speaking in reference to State trials? What was the use of a prisoner, or his representative, challenging 20 jurors, when, if they were challenged, the Government had 20 more; or when, if they were challenged, they still had another 20 out

    365
    of the 80, 90, or 100 jurors at their disposal? What would have been the use of exercising the right of challenge, even had they the right of ordering 40 or 60 to stand aside, instead of 20? What state of things was it, when a Law Officer, responsible for the peace of Ireland, could get up, without a feeling of shame, and without a blush, and present so flimsy, and so miserable, and so false au excuse as that? What was the impression that they produced in Ireland by these trials?—because, after all, the object of punishment was to produce a state of permanent peaceful-ness in the country. What was the impression produced upon the people, when these miserable, unfortunate creatures—many of them unable to speak English—were brought up before Judges and juries, such as were appointed to try them—when they were brought up before four members of Orange institutions, or the "Boycotted" landlords associations? What did the people think? Why, that these unfortunate prisoners had just as much chance of justice and mercy at the hands of those who tried them as a cow had in the shambles. The Executive had degraded the Court of Justice to the level of an Orange lodge. When Lord Spencer took up the task of governing Ireland, he had before him a task of great difficulty; and his right hand, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, had then a splendid opportunity of establishing law and order on the sure basis of popular feeling. The noble Earl had shown a most commendable public spirit and great bravery by taking the position he did; and he and the Chief Secretary for Ireland had a splendid opportunity of giving Ireland permanent peace and permanent tranquillity, and of establishing law and order on the secure basis of popular elements. The country was in a state of horror and disgust over crime. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) knew there was a large premium put upon crime in Ireland, especially when there was a Liberal Administration in power, because it always seemed necessary, according to the dicta of their own statesmen, that a certain amount of horrible crime should precede any measure of reform. He said, therefore, that in spite of the large premium upon crime, the heart of Ireland was full of disgust with crime, and especially with some of
    366
    its recent and most wicked examples. Did not the Prime Minister himself acknowledge the unanimity of horror with which the people of Ireland regarded the Phœnix Park tragedy? Were not the people horrified and disgusted at the Maamtrasna murders—had not these terrible occurrences wrung the feelings of those who had the welfare of their country at heart? Lord Spencer, therefore, had public sympathy on his side; and what did he do? He said that crime should be put down; that was the first thing he said; but then he also stated that it should be put down anyhow—he said—"We must not choose our means; but we must put it down." Packed juries had been resorted to. He did not bring the charge of such injustice against Lord Spencer of having ordered that method of proceeding; but, certainly, his Lordship would not hold his ear too wide open to cries of mercy, and not only to cries of mercy, but to cries for justice. He was determined to obtain convictions anyhow; and having obtained convictions, no amount of entreaty, no amount of representation—aye, and no amount of proof—would induce him to spare the life of a man who had been declared to be guilty, and by this means the noble Lord was believed by some to have succeeded in producing an appearance of tranquillity in Ireland. To his (Mr. T. P. O'Connor's) mind, it was the operation of the Land Act, and the feeling of horror and disgust of the Irish people, to which he had alluded, which had a great deal more to do with tranquillity in Ireland than the efforts adopted by Lord Spencer. It was one of the gravest charges against English rule in Ireland that they had always governed the people by dividing them, by setting class against class, and religion against religion. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had thought that that awful and terrible system had been done away with; but he was wrong; they had revived all these old sentiments, all these old differences; and what was the result? They had revived in Ireland a system of torture which was abolished in every other civilized country, a system of torture on a par with the mediaeval practice of the Star Chamber. They had revived the very worst system of jury-packing, which had never had a more earnest or a more eloquent denunciator than the uncle of

    367
    the present Chief Secretary for Ireland; above all things they had postponed indefinitely the advent of that day when people, regarding justice as their safeguard and protector, would give it the strength of their confidence and their support.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, that after the eloquent speech which they had just heard from the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), he would wish to recall the attention of the Committee to a more sober style of argument, and—he spoke with all respect for the opinions of hon. Members—one more befitting the nature of the question before the Committee. He had come down to the House to-day prepared for a very different style of discussion to that which had taken place. However, it had been for hon. Gentlemen who raised the discussion to dictate the manner in which it should be conducted. He had followed, with the greatest interest, the arguments of hon. Members, and he thought the debate had turned into one upon crime. They had heard from several hon. Members that they were anxious that criminals should be punished; but he had yet to learn that any individual criminal, whom the Irish Members thought ought to have been punished, had not been punished. Their remarks upon crime had consisted entirely of one long palliation of everyone who had been accused of crime, except the comparatively small number of accused persons who had eventually given evidence against others—palliation, in fact, of everyone who had been convicted of crime; and accusations couched in very severe, and he thought very unjust, terms against everyone who had been concerned in bringing criminals to justice, from the Judge to the jurymen in the box, and to all the counsel and witnesses who had been concerned. He had not been able to sit for 15 months opposite to those hon. Members without being very much interested in watching the direction of their thoughts, and without obtaining some sort of personal insight into the views of the different hon. Members to whom he was sometimes opposed, and with whom he sometimes agreed. He had listened to this debate with, he must own, a rather melancholy interest, and had endeavoured to extract from it what were the opinions of hon. Gentlemen on
    368
    the question of crime. He wanted to know why they were so very angry with the efforts of the Irish Executive to put down crime? The hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) had made two speeches to-night; and, in the second, he gave expression to one or two sentences which he (the Chief Secretary for Ireland) must confess rather took his breath away, upon the subject of crime; for if the hon. Member really held the opinions he had then put forward, he did not wonder that the hon. Member was angry, and irreconcilably angry, with the Government. The hon. Member said that whenever a man committed a crime, the Irish Government were very severe upon him; and he described a crime against law and order as a crime against the prejudices of the ruling classes. That sentence hardly required comment; but a few minutes afterwards the hon. Member, in an incidental way, referred to the outrages that had been committed in the South of Ireland, and said they might be described as having been occasioned by Amendments to the Land Act brought forward by Whigs below the Gangway. If the hon. Member seriously thought that any Amendment whatever to the Land Act could be any justification, or even a tenable excuse, for crime or outrage, all he (Mr. Trevelyan) could say was that he felt that all common ground of argument was gone. In his first speech, the hon. Member put forward a very simple theory, but still a theory. He said crime had practically ceased throughout Ireland. He allowed that the old crimes had not been punished to any great extent—at any rate, that a large number of them had not been punished; but then he went on to say that in every civilized country after a war was over an amnesty was granted. Did the hon. Member seriously reflect upon what this argument led him to? He (the Chief Secretary for Ireland) could just conceive, although he was not sure that he was justified in saying so, a state of things in which a civil war should take the form of a desperate conflict between the masses of the people in some districts and the police and military; and that, although there might be no battle in the field, there might be raids.
    MR. HEALYsaid, he had been referring to what was done in England in

    369
    regard to the Sheffield outrages, which were practically condoned by the Government.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, the hon. Member did not give that case as an instance at the time; but he gave as an instance what was much more like a civil war. He gave as an instance the American War, and said there was a good deal of killing and burning in that war. But that war was conducted according to the ordinary principles of warfare, and between two Parties who were recognized belligerents; but in regard to this warfare in Ireland, even though it was an irregular warfare between landlords and tenants, and the landlords were backed up by the police, he should have a great deal to say before assenting to a general amnesty. He could not forget that the first 10 men who were punished capitally for murder were punished not for killing landlords or policemen, but for killing poor peasants. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) talked of Lord Spencer setting class against class, and religion against religion. It was to protect the homes of the small farmers and peasants that Lord Spencer had exercised severity—severity very much exaggerated; because, wherever there was opportunity without danger to the State and to the personal safety of the individual, Lord Spencer on every occasion remitted capital punishment. Setting class against class, and religion against religion! Not only were those persons for whose death punishment was exacted on the gallows poor peasants, but they were likewise Roman Catholics; and it happened that the very first Protestant whose death was made the subject of inquiry under the new Act was a farmer named East, and for his death a Roman Catholic of his own rank was arraigned, but was acquitted. The hon. Member for Monaghan, referring to himself, had said he pitied any hon. Member of humane mind who took part in such a system. It might, or it might not, be a pleasant duty to hold the place he (the Chief Secretary for Ireland) now occupied. He believed hon. Members could imagine what it had been to have to sit next to a trusted Colleague like his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland, and hear him attacked as he had been that night. It was not so pleasant a
    370
    place as one in which one had to make arrangements for the military and naval defences of the country, or conduct the administration of the Colonies or India; but he could not imagine a service which a man of honour and humanity would consider it more his duty to take up than, in spite of all this abuse, to make the life of a poor Irishman who was at variance with the people around him a life of comparative security, compared with what it had been. The Government were charged by the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) with having used exceptional means to bring Myles Joyce to justice. What earthly political or religious motive could they have had to bring him to justice? The hon. Member for Monaghan cheered that statement in a very marked manner; but Myles Joyce had not taken any part in this civil war. He was accused of having killed a peasant like himself The hon. Member for Westmeath said the motives of the person who he admitted had committed that murder were unknown to that day, and were probably not agrarian; but, in spite of that, he thought it necessary to try that case over again in the House of Commons, and when he had done so, and when he had brought forward and analyzed the evidence given by witnesses whom they had never seen, and whom they could not cross-examine—evidence which they had to take on the ipse dixit of the hon. Member—an ipse dixit given, no doubt, with every desire to be fair——
    MR. HARRINGTONsaid, he had referred to documents in the possession of the Viceroy.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, that still it was evidence brought forward without the possibility of cross-examination; and, after all this was stated in a manner in which no judicial case ought to be stated, the Committee learned that the Government had absolutely no motive in that case whatever, except to protect the lives of the poorest Irishmen. The hon. Member had tried that case over again, and other hon. Members who followed him had tried it over again, and had tried other cases over again, in the House of Commons. He must say he thought that a very dangerous precedent. He knew it was strictly Parliamentary, and that no hon. Member, however strong his language, had exceeded the bounds of what was strictly

    371
    Parliamentary; but, on the other hand, he could not think it tended to the credit of Parliament, and he was quite sure it was not to the advantage of justice, that in that Assembly, which was not a Court of Law at all where men sat judicially, where witnesses were not present to be heard, and where nobody knew anything except such fragments of the case as hon. Members might choose to put forward, and where they never heard anything except ex parte statements on judicial cases. Under those circumstances, how could they undertake to hear over again all these cases that had been tried by Courts of Law, on the flimsy pretext of deciding whether or not they should vote certain judicial salaries? He must refer to some remarks made by the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien), because, if they were justified, then the Government would have very little to say as to what had been taking place during the last few months. He had not the Returns of outrages at hand; but the remarks he would make would be borne out by the Returns, and hon. Members would find that those general remarks were substantially correct. The hon. Member for Mallow said the outrages had diminished throughout May, June, and July—through the months that followed the Phœnix Park massacre. To show the hon. Gentleman that he did not wish to be unfair, he would not only concede that, but he would tell him the exact proportions. In March last year there were 531 outrages; in July there were 231, They had diminished by an exact series of 75 per month. Crime generally had diminished; but the hon. Member for Mallow was quite mistaken in thinking that murder was diminishing. So far from that, it was increasing. He could recall at this moment two terrible murders at that period—the murder of Mr. Bourke, and of Mr. Lane and his protector. But the general fact was that murders not only had not diminished, but had increased up to a certain date. They increased up to August last year. In the first eight months of last year there were 25 agrarian murders; since August there had been only two; and in August the first man was capitally punished for murder. Now, he would tell the hon. Member for Mallow the general drift of the figures. Since August the outrages had
    372
    gone on steadily falling; and the general result was that, whereas at the time the hon. Member had mentioned there were 200 outrages a month, for several months the average had been very much less than 100. In the first six months of this year there had been fewer outrages than there were in the month of January last year. Last year, up to October there were 25 murders; since October there had been only one. Last year there were 56 cases of firing at the person; in the first six months of this year there were only 3. Last August there were about 200 outrages; but this month, in the first 12 days, there had been 24 outrages, of which 16 were threatening letters. The machinery by which that had been brought about—in great part he was proud to allow that it had been brought about by healing measures—but this result had been effected by machinery which might be represented in that House as cruel, and the people who had worked it might be represented in an odious light, but which he was satisfied the country at large regarded as, on the whole, for the public advantage. They believed that life was now safer in Ireland than it was 12 months ago; that persons were very much less liable to outrage and to the tyranny of their more violent neighbours; that people were now allowed to follow what vocation they liked, to labour for anybody who paid them, and to take any farm that was vacant much more freely and with less fear of consequences than in the old days. These were the objects of the Government—these were the objects they believed they had attained; and although occasionally mistakes might have been made, though in such a large field and with such a number of agents there might have been occasional severities, and there might have been occasional injustice, and, perhaps, more inconvenience to individuals, still, taking Ireland as a whole, he did not believe anything had been done beyond what was absolutely necessary for the purpose of punishing crime and outrage, and restoring peace to the country.
    MR. PARNELLsaid, he regretted to perceive that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had copied almost exactly the phrases and method of approaching Irish questions which used to belong to the right

    373
    hon. Gentleman his Predecessor (Mr. W. E. Forster). The right hon. Member for Bradford would have stated just as well—perhaps not quite so eloquently—but with just as much appearance of belief in what he was saying as the right hon. Gentleman had now done, that the objects of the Government had been, so far as the administration of the Prevention of Crime Act went, to protect the humbler people—the peasantry of Ireland—in their every day pursuits and in their legal rights. He (Mr. Parnell) did not believe that that Act was enacted, or ever would have been enacted, for the purpose of protecting the humbler classes in Ireland, and he did not believe that it had been used for their protection. He believed that that Act had been used, in an unexampled way, for the oppression of the humbler classes of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman accused Irish Members of always denouncing everybody who had been instrumental in bringing anyone to justice. He (Mr. Parnell) denied that statement; and the right hon. Gentleman, instead of making such a sweeping assertion, would, he thought, have occupied his time a little better, if he (Mr. Parnell) might venture to express his opinion, by bringing forward some proof of that sweeping statement. Irish Members that day brought forward cases of hardship to individuals of a most extraordinary character. They had pointed out examples of people in Ireland who had been kept month after month in solitary confinement awaiting their trial, all the while subject to horrible mental torture by the hints and innuendoes of their gaolers of evidence, in many cases false, that was being given behind their backs, which would result in their execution, or sentence to long terms of imprisonment. He (Mr. Parnell) could not imagine any description of torture worse than the mental torture which he knew many innocent people who had been awaiting their trial had been subject to during the last 12 months. His hon. Friend (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had mentioned the case of a man who had spent the last four years of his life in Irish prisons awaiting his trial, and who had been acquitted by the jury on the only occasion on which the Government thought fit to bring him to trial. Many other cases had been mentioned; but no reply had been given—no reply had
    374
    been attempted, either by the Chief Secretary for Ireland or the Attorney General for Ireland. He (Mr. Parnell) wanted to know what was the defence of the Government in regard to the cases of conspiracy to murder in Clare, in Galway, in Mayo, and in King's County? In every single case large numbers of men had been arrested. The reporters of the newspapers were instructed to say that one of the number had turned informer. Rumours of a most extraordinary character had been sedulously promulgated by the Press, and these had been laid before the prisoners themselves; and yet, notwithstanding this, and all the power of the Crown and the vast resources which, under the Prevention of Crime Act, and all the extraordinary machinery for the prevention of crime which they were able to bring to bear to that end in Ireland, the case for the Crown had practically broken down, although the men charged were bandied about from one Petty Sessions to another, remanded time after time, and when their cases reached the Assize Court they were postponed to some future time which, in all probability, would never arrive. The right hon. Member for Bradford imprisoned 1,000 persons in Ireland, whom he did not intend to bring to trial, under the late Coercion Act. Public opinion in this country rose up and revolted against the use made of that Act; and he (Mr. Parnell) asserted deliberately that the use which had been made of that Act, in his judgment, was not one-tenth part so atrocious as the use which the Government were making of the ordinary law at that moment, by holding large numbers of men in prison against whom they had no evidence, and whom they did not intend to bring to trial, thus practically suspending the Habeas Corpus Act. He wanted to know what was going to be done in the case of the men who had been committed for trial recently in Ireland; who were brought up at the last Assizes, with reference to whom no evidence had been brought forward, and who had been for months suffering all the horrors of solitary confinement as prisoners—in the words of the Act of 1877—the law presumed to be innocent; whom the officials of the Crown in Ireland were treating as if they were guilty, and whom they were striving to make

    375
    the public mind believe they were guilty of the crimes alleged against them. What was going to be done in the case of the King's County prisoners, who were arrested many months ago? Was not the only evidence the Government had against them the evidence of a woman who was well known to the police as a prostitute? Was not the only evidence they had against the persons charged with conspiracy in Mayo the evidence of a wretched informer, who admitted that he had been hired to commit several assassinations? He wanted to know if the only evidence the Government had in the case of the Clare prisoners was the evidence of another informer, who had been convicted and who was sentenced to penal servitude for life for taking part in a disgraceful moonlight attack against an unoffending farmer, and who got a charge of buckshot as he ran away? These were questions which arose in the administration of law in Ireland. Irish Members had shown that the Act, great as it was and extensive as were its powers, was being grossly misused, and that the Government, not satisfied with all the machinery of packed jury panels and secret inquiries, had actually re-enacted in its worst form, and without the sanction of Parliament, the old provisions of the Peace Preservation Act, the administration of which, in a much milder and more lenient way, brought discredit upon, and caused the loss of Office by, the right hon. Member for Bradford. The Irish Members were acting on behalf of the poorer and the humbler classes in Ireland. He had carefully watched the administration of justice under Lord Spencer, and he did not believe that any person in a humble position who was not well known to the English public, and the public abroad, was at present safe against unfounded and false accusations, if the local police or other local authorities in Ireland chose to bring false accusations against him. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had asked them why they attacked the administration of the Government in Ireland. They did not attack the administration of the Irish Government because criminals had been detected and brought to justice. Many criminals had been detected and most properly brought to justice and punished. But they attacked
    376
    that administration because public opinion in Ireland perfectly well knew that more than one innocent person had been condemned to death, and actually executed; and because they knew that, at the present moment, there were many persons suffering the horrible penalties of penal servitude for offences which they no more committed than the right hon. Gentleman himself. It was because they felt that there was no protection for individuals in Ireland who were obscure—who were weak and defenceless. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the case of Careen, and prided himself upon the fact that Careen's was the first case in which a man was brought to trial for murdering a Protestant. But the right hon. Gentleman forgot to mention that Careen was twice tried before a special jury in Dublin; that he was kept in gaol for nine or ten months before he received his second trial and his eventual acquittal; that, at the first trial, 80 jurors, out of a panel of 200, were ordered to stand aside; that the jury then disagreed; that, at the next trial, so convinced were the Crown of the guilt of the unfortunate man, 40 jurors—special jurors drawn from the select special panels of Dublin—and the lawyers of the Crown did their very best to hang the man; but, notwithstanding that, because the man had a fair Judge, who put the case fairly and with impartiality before the jury, as an. English Judge would have done, the man was acquitted and was now at large. There were, perhaps, other reasons also why the man was able to present his case to the mind of the jury in such a way as to enable bettor justice to be done to himself. He (Mr. Parnell) might, perhaps, be allowed to mention that this was one of the very few cases in which he advanced money out of the fund that was under his control for the defence of prisoners. But he was so convinced of Careen's innocence that he not only fed him while he was in gaol, but advanced money to a solicitor to work up his case, and to collect evidence which could not have been collected otherwise, owing to the change of venue, and to the poverty of the man. He believed it was owing to that fact that Careen had an advantage which many other prisoners, who were without funds, and on whose behalf the disposers of the prisoners' fund did not interfere, did not possess, and

    377
    consequently Careen was able to obtain his acquittal. Had it not been that the particular Judge who tried the case put the matter fairly before the jury—had it not been for that, and for the other circumstances which he (Mr. Parnell) had mentioned, he believed that Careen would have been strangled to death within the walls of a prison. There was an old maxim that it was better that 99 guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should be executed; but last year—at the close of the Session of 1882—he could not help seeing that there was a feeling in this country that it would be far better that two or three innocent persons should be executed, rather than that any more guilty persons should escape. He believed that public opinion in this country was so alarmed by the assassinations in the Phœnix Park and the attempt to murder the juror Field, that a feeling got abroad that even though it were necessary to execute an innocent man some person should be executed, in order to strike terror into the hearts of evildoers in Ireland. Now, he (Mr. Parnell) did not believe that the execution of innocent persons at all intimidated the guilty—he thought, on the contrary, that the guilty person, when he saw that an innocent man had been executed for what he had really clone, would be so much the more emboldened to go on and repeat his crime. He would ask the Government one question. Did they think that by the passing of the Prevention of Crime Act, or by its administration, they had advanced one single inch nearer to that which ought to be the endeavour of all Governments in any country—did they think they had advanced one single step nearer to gaining the respect and assistance of the Irish people in the maintenance of law and order? He felt convinced that it was to the administration of the Land Act, to the Arrears Act, to the good harvests, that they had been having for the last year or two, and very much also to the good prices which had been obtained for cattle, that in a largo degree was to be attributed the comparative restoration of law and order in Ireland. But as to the respect and reverence of the people for the law—the respect which sprung from the belief that the law was being justly administered, and that it was as much on the side of the great mass of
    378
    the people as it was on the side of the minority of the country—he believed that the present Irish Administration had done more to retard that respect which he had hoped would have commenced, and, therefore, more to bring about the assassinations in Phœnix Park than any Government would be able to undo for a great many years to come. In past times they had tried coercion over and over again. It was true that this was the only time in which they had not depended entirely upon coercion for the results which they hoped to obtain; they had also made certain concessions. It was true that coercion might intimidate for awhile; but they could not govern by intimidation. The examples which were being set over all the country—the unjust accusations which were being brought against individuals—the unjust and cruel sentences which were being inflicted upon innocent persons—all this would, undoubtedly, do very much to discredit the good results which were dependent on the measures of concession. He submitted that the Committee ought to have some definite reply to the distinct charges which had been brought against the Irish Government in respect of the individual cases which had now been brought under notice, and that it would be neither fitting nor proper to pass this Vote until the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had explained why the Habeas Corpus Act had been disregarded in Ireland, and why the cruelties and horrors which had been described had been daily inflicted upon many persons.
    MR. HARRINGTONsaid, he had listened with very great surprise to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; for he had thought, after the very grave charges which had been made against the right hon. Gentleman there that evening, and after the long and, he would venture to say, convincing array of facts that had been laid before the Committee—he had thought that the right hon. Gentleman would, at least, have made some effort to meet separately the charges which had been made against the Administration in Ireland. There was one very remarkable omission from the observations which the right hon. Gentleman addressed to the Committee in reply to those charges, and that was

    379
    with respect to that system of jury-packing which was going on in Ireland under the right hon. Gentleman's administration. When the right hon. Gentleman appealed to hon. Members to assist him in upholding the law, he was very careful to ride over, as quickly as he could, the machinery which he had put in force in Ireland for the administration of the law. The right hon. Gentleman's memory might be short upon those points; but, fortunately, there were other hon. Members whose memories were not so short, and they were determined that, before the House rose, the Committee should be placed in possession of some of the iniquities which were perpetrated in Ireland in the name of law, and, as was declared, for the purpose, forsooth, of making the law respected there. Upon one of the cases that attention had been drawn to that evening the statements of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland and those of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary were completely at variance—he referred to the case of that unfortunate man, Myles Joyce. When he (Mr. Harrington) stated that the Lord Lieutenant had in his possession evidence which, if he had perused it, would have borne to him convincing proof of the innocence of the man who was executed, the Attorney General for Ireland said that those statements, not given in Court, but handed in afterwards, were such as the Lord Lieutenant should not act upon. But the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, when questioned some time since in that House with regard to those very statements, made quite a different assertion about them, for he said that those statements did not set forth the innocence of the man Myles Joyce. That evening, in reply to his (Mr. Harrington's) observations, the right hon. Gentleman had got up and told the Committee—" We have not the evidence before us; we have not the facts with regard to this case." The right hon. Gentleman, therefore, declared that it was impossible for the Committee to form an opinion upon the case. But why had they not the evidence before them? Simply because the right hon. Gentleman, or his Colleague in Dublin Castle, was determined to keep it back, and would not allow the House to have the means of forming
    380
    an opinion. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had declared that the statements made were such as could not be acted upon. But they were not mere newspaper reports or verbal statements—they were authentic depositions made upon oath by men who, the next day, were going to face their God; and such depositions would have infinitely more weight with the masses of the people in Ireland than any denial of a right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench. The right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland had told them that the Crown was especially careful, in the case of this unfortunate man, and of the others who were tried with him, that they should have a fair trial. But how was the Crown particularly careful when, two days before the trial, two of the men who were charged with the murder became informers, and when that unfortunate man, who did not know a word of English, and had no one in Court to interpret the evidence, except a policeman employed by the Crown as interpreter—when that unfortunate man applied by counsel for an adjournment of his trial, that adjournment which the Crown so frequently applied for themselves, even when the evidence was complete, was denied him, and he was hurried on to trial and to execution. One of the sets of cases tried by the Special Commission in Dublin was particularly deserving of the notice of the House, as it showed something of the system of jury-packing employed by the Crown in Ireland; and he might mention in passing, with reference to the very high character which the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland had given to the Judge who presided over those trials, that almost every newspaper in Great Britain of Liberal views condemned the language which that Judge used on an occasion when one man had been found guilty, and—some other prisoners being set on their trial—he declared that the man who had been found guilty was the least guilty of them all. He (Mr. Harrington) would now give a list of the jury who were empannelled to try these cases. The jury was selected from the special jury, and here were the names and religions of the men who tried the cases during that Special Commission. Seven cases were placed before the Commission, and some of them were more and

    381
    some less important and serious. The names and religions of the jurors were these:—
    Frederick Blood, Protestant; Henry C. Bloxam, Protestant; John F. Boake, Protestant; Henry Booth, Methodist; George Booth, Methodist; Richard Booth, Methodist; Joshua Bewley, Protestant; Samuel H. Close, Protestant; Francis J. Coghlan, Protestant; John Colclough, Protestant; George J. Cockle, Protestant; William Glen, Protestant; W. R. F. Godloy, Protestant; John Hatchell, Protestant; Robert Hatton, Protestant; Henry Hayes, Protestant; Alfred G. Jones, Protestant; James King, Catholic; Charles King, Protestant; Charles Kendall, Protestant; John Logue, Protestant; W. F. Lennon, Catholic; Charles Martelli, Protestant; Robert C. Mason, Protestant; Frederick Maple, Protestant; Joseph Manly, Protestant; John Martin, Protestant; John Millar, Protestant; David North, Protestant; Joseph R. O'Reilly, Catholic; James P. O'Reilly, Catholic; William Owen, Protestant; Francis Ormsby, Protestant; George O'Neill, Catholic; William B. Prescott, Protestant; H. A. Phillipson, Protestant; Thomas J. Plunket, Catholic; Patrick J. Plunket, Catholic; James Talbot Power, Catholic; John Rigby, Protestant; Michael Roe, Catholic; Thomas W. Russell, Protestant; Henry Shaw, Protestant; Robert Shaw, Protestant; Henry Smith, Protestant; Isaac J. Small-man, Protestant; Arthur Rotheram, Protestant; William G. Sloane, Protestant; Charles Uniacke Townsend, Protestant; R. S. Tresillian, Protestant; John Alfred Trench, Protestant; Benjamin Warren, Protestant; Robert Whyte, Protestant; William Whyte, Junior, Protestant; Captain Kearney White, Protestant; and Henry Warren, Protestant.
    Those were the jurors selected by the Crown to try the cases at one of the Special Commissions in Dublin; and in the face of that state of facts, which he defied the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to contradict, the right hon. Gentleman stood up and did not offer to the Committee one single word in justification or defence of such a system of jury-packing. Nay, more; when such a state of things was arraigned by the Irish papers, which declared
    382
    that, instead of winning respect for law, it was weakening the administration of the law and demoralizing the people of Ireland, the authorities sent into prison the hon. Member for Carlow, the proprietor of The Freeman's Journal (Mr. Gray), and put upon his trial, for a criminal libel, the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien). And when the hon. Member for Mallow was put upon his trial, even though he declared that, as he had challenged the system of jury-packing, he would not challenge a single juror, or do anything to give his sanction to the system—though he challenged no juror, however hostile, the Crown packed the jury until they succeeded in getting into the jury box 10 Protestants and two Catholics, one of those two being a Catholic who had found a verdict of guilty for them on the preceding day. There was one other fact which had been mentioned by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) to which he (Mr. Harrington wished to draw attention. He always found that when lawyers were attacked other lawyers were sure to be lying around to take their part—it was so in that House and everywhere else; they were highly gregarious, and they rushed to assist each other. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, in referring to an observation made by the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), with regard to the direction of a jury in a case on trial, gave the Committee a glimpse of what was done in these cases. The hon. Member for Monaghan pointed out that the Judge directed a verdict of guilty virtually by the direction which he gave to the jury; and the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin drew attention, in his own legal manner, to the fact that that direction was in accordance with the usual custom when such a question was asked by a jury. But he (Mr. Harrington) would point out that the question asked in the case was this—whether they were justified in the verdict upon the depositions? It was necessary for the Committee to know that the deposition with regard to which the jury asked the question in this case was a contradiction of the evidence given by the man on the trial who had originally made the deposition. Here, then, was the point and force of the criticism made by the hon.

    383
    Member for Monaghan. This man had originally made a deposition incriminating the prisoner who was on his trial; but when the case was actually tried in Court at the Assizes, the man went back in that deposition, and stated that he could not recognize the man who fired; and when the jury asked—"Are we to disregard the evidence given before us here now, and to find a verdict on the deposition alone?" the Judge answered, "Yes;" and a verdict of guilty was returned. It was impossible, therefore, for the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin or anybody else to say that this was anything other than a simple direction to the jury to find a verdict of guilty against the poor man who was on his trial.
    COLONEL NOLANsaid, he wished to explain the reason why he was unwilling to give the Government the money they asked for. The Government gave him, practically, no influence whatever in the administration of affairs in Ireland. He knew that in one case, about four months ago, he and certain other hon. Members were listened to, when they sent a Memorial to the Lord Lieutenant in the interests of three or four prisoners; but, with that exception, he had been perfectly helpless as a Member of Parliament, and he was anxious to say that, because he wished his constituents to know it, and he thought other hon. Members could say the same. If they stopped the Supplies until they got proper treatment, that would have a very powerful effect. That point had not been sufficiently attended to by many Irish Members in Parliament, and that was his reason for voting in the present case against this grant of money. The whole reason for that want of influence was to be found in the constitution of the Irish Government. Instead of having a Chief Secretary here with full powers, they were really governed from the House of Lords. If they went to speak to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, that right hon. Gentleman paid the greatest attention to them; but they could soon see that the central power was elsewhere, and the Chief Secretary for Ireland, not being in the Cabinet, had no sufficient influence or authority. The Irish Members ought to have considerable influence, if not in the administration of justice, at all events in the revision of sentences. When it was found
    384
    that they recommended any good cases to the mercy of the Crown, their representations should be attended to. He was sorry that more Irish Members would not vote against this. He knew there were dozens of men who would not vote there to-night, but who had been treated just as he had been, and whose views had not been a bit attended to, although they had done their best to bring them forward.
    MR. CALLANsaid, he deeply regretted that a debate on a Vote for Law Charges and Criminal Prosecutions should have developed into a discussion on crimes in Ireland, as he thought it was better to keep the charges connected with the administration of the Irish Executive apart, and not mix them up with other matters. He did not wish to refer to any of the trials or to any of the Judges, except to pay a tribute of respect to a firm, conscientious, just, and honourable man, Mr. Justice O'Brien. He would only refer to one trial, which he wished to have cleared up, as it seemed to him to be a most infamous transaction, which had reflected more disgrace and discredit upon Earl Spencer than any other act of which he had ever been the known author—the acceptance of information from James Carey, the Crown informer. It was well known that the Phœnix Park murderers could have been brought to justice without the intervention of Mr. James Carey. Why, then, was his evidence accepted by the Lord Lieutenant? There was a rumour, and he hoped it was a true one, that this step was forced on the Irish Executive by a Sub-Committee of the Cabinet; and he must say it was the Secretary of State for the Home Department, to whom all such things were attributed, who got, and perhaps who deserved, the credit of selecting James Carey as an informer, for the purpose of endeavouring to bring into the mesh, as the right hon. Gentleman thought, certain Members of that House. But he (Mr. Callan) wished principally to refer to the packing of juries, of which he knew something, and he would give an instance which occurred in his own presence at the Assizes this year in County Louth. A Catholic was ordered to stand aside; a licensed vintner, who was a Protestant and who lived four doors off, was sworn. That was a fact, and nothing had been

    385
    done about it. Would the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland say that he would not be a party to packing juries by excluding Catholics? The right hon. and learned Gentleman bad been present at some of the most infamous cases of exclusion of Catholics from juries. He was present when a most infamous case occurred, and be (Mr. Callan) would speak of the matter in very moderate language; because, just 12 months ago, when he referred to it, a Member of the Government asserted that one of the first signs of the return of peace in Ireland was that it was possible to form juries who, when the evidence was plain and without contradiction, returned verdicts in accordance with the facts. He said—
    "As soon, however, as that took place, a certain section of the Irish Press and certain Members from Ireland set to work to renew the agitation against the administration of justice, in order to secure for crime that immunity it had previously enjoyed."
    He (Mr. Callan) gave, at the time, to that statement the proper term it deserved. He was suspended from the service of the House for doing so; and, when attention was called to his language, the Chairman (Sir Lyon Playfair) said it did not deserve censure. Having, however, in view what occurred 12 months ago, he would not do otherwise, on the present occasion, than employ Parliamentary language. The first trial to which he wished to direct attention was that of John O'Connell and three others on the 10th of August. At that trial a number of Catholics were ordered to stand aside. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland was present.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER): I was present; but I had nothing to do with the empannelling of the jury.
    MR. CALLANsaid, that 20 men were ordered to stand aside—18 Catholics and two Protestants. One of the men was Thomas Phillips, tailor, of Dame Street. The next day the Hynes' trial took place, and The Freeman's Journal wrote—
    "Yesterday, at the Commission Court, the first jury trial took place. John O'Connell and three others, all natives of Kerry, were placed in the dock, charged with having attacked a house on the 17th of March. Under the ordinary law, the men would have to be tried in Kerry; but the Attorney General removed all the cases to Dublin, and the Crown exercised their right to
    386
    challenge on a wholesale scale; and no less than 19 persons, some amongst our most respectable citizens, were ordered to stand aside. The facts of the case are reported in another column. All the prisoners were acquitted."
    In that article there was no reference to religion. Speaking of the article, the right hon. and learned Attorney General said it was a most improper interference with the administration of justice; and he added, stamping his foot, that it was intolerable it should be permitted. The very day that article was published, the Hynes' case was tried; and what took place at that trial? There were 26 jurors ordered to stand aside, 22 of whom were Catholics, and the jury sworn was constituted exclusively of Protestants. On the next day The Freeman's Journal said they were unwilling to credit the rumour that the Crown had resolved that juries exclusively, or almost exclusively Protestant, should determine, in some cases the liberty, and in other cases the lives, of the prisoners on trial in Green Street; but they could not understand the fact that in the Hynes' trial 22 Catholics were ordered to stand aside, and that the jury was composed of Protestants only. He (Mr. Callan) believed, as firmly as be believed that God was in Heaven, that the men were shunted aside simply and solely because they were Roman Catholics, and such was the opinion of the Irish people. The action of the Crown in this case very naturally caused considerable indignation in Catholic circles. The matter certainly required explanation. On Monday, the 14th of August—the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) having on the Saturday drawn attention in The Freeman's Journal to the wholesale exclusion of Catholics from the juries—Kelly was tried for shooting at a man at Mullingar, and upon his jury were empannelled five Catholics, who had been ordered to stand aside on the Thursday and Friday before. These men were considered by the Law Officers of the Crown unfit to try a case of midnight marauding and murder; but they were thought competent to try a case of attempt to murder. He believed the jury found a verdict of guilty, and that the prisoner was sentenced to imprisonment for life. The next trial took place on the 18th of August, and, again, five Catholics were permitted to serve on the jury. At the following trial, on the 19th

    387
    of August, four Catholics were allowed to sit on the jury. But by this time the owner of The Freeman's Journal, the hon. Member for Carlow, had been sent to Richmond Prison for the part he had played in criticizing the action of the Law Officers of the Crown. Then came Patrick "Walsh's first trial, and they heard, for the first time, something about retail licences. The holder of one retail licence, however, was allowed to go on the jury, although Catholics were ordered to stand aside. On Walsh's trial he could not say who was ordered to stand aside, because the names were not called over. To what he was now going to say he requested the attention of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in whom he had some confidence, and of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, in whom he had no confidence at all. Now, Patrick Walsh's trial took place, and Mr. George Bolton was the Crown Solicitor in charge of the empannelling of the jury. There were two men sitting together—Thomas Phillips, tailor, of Dame Street, and Michael O'Laughlin, butcher, of South Richmond Street. O'Laughlin was first called, and he was ordered to stand by. "Lucky fellow," said Phillips to O'Laughlin, "there is no chance of my getting off." Phillips, however, was astonished when he was ordered to stand by. Immediately one of the clerks of the Conservative Association in Dublin rushed over to Bolton, and said something to him. It was evident a mistake had been made; indeed, he (Mr. Callan) believed Phillips had been mistaken for someone else. Mr. Bolton took care to rectify the mistake, for, at the next trial, Michael O'Laughlin was ordered to stand by; but Thomas Phillips, who had been three times challenged, was sworn a good man and true, George Bolton having discovered his error. Well, they were told that at Walsh's first trial there were no licensed victuallers on the jury. The reason alleged by the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland was that a large number of Catholics were publicans. It was a common thing in Ireland to call a licensed victualler, who happened to be a Catholic, a publican; but if a licensed victualler was a sound and respectable Protestant, he was called a merchant. It was amusing
    388
    to find that Edward Johnson, of 43, Grafton Street, hotel keeper and Protestant, was allowed to go on the jury; while Michael Callan, an hotel keeper and a Roman Catholic, was ordered to stand by. Both were the holders of retail licences, and they were equally respectable. At the next trial a Protestant grocer was sworn on the jury; but nine Catholic grocers were ordered to stand by. Could that be a mere accident? The right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland came down to the House and asserted he would be no party to packing a jury. He (Mr. Callan) supposed the right hon. and learned Gentleman's chaste and virtuous friend, George Bolton, would say exactly the same thing. Why was not the same system pursued in the Phœnix Park trials? Because the Judge, William O'Brien, was a Catholic, and he knew the tendency there was to pack juries. The learned Judge himself had said that the greatest difficulty he had to contend with in Green Street, whenever a Party trial came on, was to prevent the Crown Solicitors from endeavouring to pack the jury. It was all very well for the right hon. and learned Attorney General and the Crown officials to say they would not be parties to jury packing; but there had been jury-packing, and they were responsible, because they had not tried to prevent it, although it took place in their presence. The infamous case of jury-packing in which Phillips and O'Laughlin were concerned took place in the presence of the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland, and the man at fault was George Bolton, the chaste and virtuous friend of the Irish Executive; but not one word of censure had ever been passed upon him. He (Mr. Callan) never would believe, so long as Catholics were systematically excluded by the under-strappers of the Government, that the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland was not a party to the packing of juries. In spite of the protestations of the hon. and learned Gentleman, he was firmly of opinion that he could prevent these malpractices, if he so desired.
    MR. PARNELLsaid, that, as a protest against the Vote, and in consequence of the entire absence of any defence by the Government against the charges

    389
    brought by the Irish Members in reference to the administration of justice in Ireland, he begged to move the reduction of the Vote by £9,000 under Sub-head E, being the fees to the Attorney General, the Solicitor General, and the Law Advisers in Ireland for directing Crown prosecutions and other contentious Business.
    Motion made, and Question put,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £29,235, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1884, of Criminal Prosecutions and other Law Charges in Ireland, including certain Allowances under the Act 15 and 16 Vic. c. 83."—(Mr parnell.)
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 24; Noes 93: Majority 69.—(Div. List, No. 287.)
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    (2.) £55,651, to complete the sum for the Supreme Court of Judicature in Ireland.
    (3.) £6,813, to complete the sum for the Court of Bankruptcy, Ireland.
    MR. CALLANsaid, he should like to direct the attention of the Prime Minister to the first item under Sub-head "A" with respect to salaries. During the past few weeks they had had their attention very closely drawn to Bankruptcy proceedings in Ireland; and some of them, himself amongst the number, had studied the question very carefully. As the result of his investigation, he had found that at present the business of the Court was so small that it was insufficient to occupy the time of one Judge. It was a matter of surprise to everyone who possessed any knowledge of the Irish Bar that the Hon. Frederick Walsh should have accepted the office of Judge of this Court, though, no doubt, the acceptance had been in anticipation of a better appointment, such as that of Mr. Justice Harrison, who, having given evidence of his capacity in the Court of Bankruptcy, had been promoted to the Supreme Court. No doubt, the example set in the one case would be followed in the other. Mr. Walsh had shown ample capacity, and was a trained Equity lawyer. As there was no prospect of an increase of business in the Court, and as, if the Bankruptcy Bill was found to work well in England, it would, in all
    390
    probability, be extended to Ireland in the course of a few years, and there would only be business in the Bankruptcy Court of Ireland for one Judge one day a-week, he (Mr. Callan) would ask whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland would take into consideration—and he would appeal to the magnanimity of the right hon. and learned Gentleman—the desirability of recommending for the next vacancy on the Irish Bench one of the Judges of the Bankruptcy Court in Ireland. In this way some thousands a-year might be saved to Her Majesty's Exchequer.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER): Does the hon. Gentleman appeal to me?
    MR. CALLANsaid, he would not appeal to the right hon. and learned Gentleman under the circumstances, as it would be invidious to expect him to relinquish his natural promotion. He would appeal to the Prime Minister.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, he had some experience of the Bankruptcy Court in Ireland; and he could assure hon. Members that it would be impossible to do without two Judges.
    MR. FINDLATERsaid, he agreed with what had fallen from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland with regard to the necessity of having two Judges in the Court of Bankruptcy in Ireland. They could not do without them.
    Vote agreed to.

    (4.) £815, to complete the sum for the Admiralty Court Registry, Ireland.

    (5.) £10,927, to complete the sum for the Registry of Deeds, Ireland.

    (6.) £1,464, to complete the sum for the Registry of Judgments, Ireland.

    (7.) £60,720, to complete the sum for County Court Officers, &c. Ireland.

    (8.) £72,498, to complete the sum for the Dublin Metropolitan Police.

    (9.) £51,968, to complete the sum for Reformatory and Industrial Schools, Ireland.

    (10.) £4,345, to complete the sum for the Dundrum Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Ireland.

    CLASS IV.—EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND ART.
    (11.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £241,690, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1884, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Science and Art Department, and of the Establishments connected therewith."
    MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, he hoped Her Majesty's Government did not propose to go on with this Vote at that hour of the night. It was a Vote of immense importance, and he intended to propose an Amendment to it. It would be most unreasonable to go on with it now, especially having regard to the recent statement of the Prime Minister, that, in view of the great facilities the Government possessed in the future, these Votes would not be discussed late at night. Seeing that the Government had now the whole day for Supply, it surely was unreasonable that Votes of this kind should be taken after midnight. He had no hesitation in moving to report Progress, especially when he heard that it was the intention of the Government to take the National Debt Bill to-night. He made the Motion in the interest of the public service. He had no objection to affording all facilities to the Government which were reasonable; but, on the present occasion, he did not think it was reasonable that the House should be asked to go on with Supply.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Cavendish Bentinck.)
    MR. COURTNEYexpressed a hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would allow the Vote to be taken. He (Mr. Courtney) knew the right hon. and learned Gentleman took an interest in one part of the Science and Art Department Vote—namely, that relating to purchases. The period of the evening was, however, still quite early; and he trusted the Committee would allow further progress to be made with the Votes.
    MR. LABOUCHERE: Where is the Minister who represents the Department?
    MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, he remembered a Member of the Government saying that half-past 11 o'clock was a late hour to commence the discussion of very important Votes. He should not withdraw his Motion, because of the lateness of the hour, and because they had already voted away thousands of pounds of the public money.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 15; Noes 74: Majority 59.—(Div. List, No. 288.)
    Original Question again proposed.
    MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, he felt it his duty to make some observations, to show in what a small degree the performances of the Government corresponded with their promises. He had endeavoured to obtain for them more than merely answers to Questions. He had called attention to the frescoes in the South Kensington Museum, which had already been mentioned once, when a most unsatisfactory answer was given by the Representative of Her Majesty's Government in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella), who especially represented the Department interested. He (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) was glad to see the right hon. Gentleman now in his place, because he believed he would be able to give fuller information than had been accorded by his Colleagues. He (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) believed that £3,000 was the Estimate for this work—although he did not now wish to trouble the Committee by going into detail upon it.
    MR. COURTNEY: To what does the right hon. and learned Gentleman now refer?
    MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCK: To the £3,000 for the painting by Sir Frederick Leighton.
    MR. COURTNEY: It is not in this Vote.
    MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCK: Then I shall not proceed.
    MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he had not voted with the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck), because at that period of the Session he thought it just as well that they should go on to a late hour. He did not think, however, that, as a rule, persons who looked on these matters with the eyes of economy cared about going on

    393
    with the Votes at that late hour of the night (1.45 A.M.). He should have been glad, if they could have had sufficient time to discuss the Vote, to have devoted three hours of the proceedings to it; but, at any rate, it should not be allowed to pass without the Government giving some explanation of what went on at South Kensington. His primary objection to that Museum was that it existed at all. It was a mistake—at least to his mind—to build it in a fashionable part of the Metropolis. They had the British Museum, and it would have been much more satisfactory if, wanting increased space, they had enlarged that Museum, instead of constructing another in the same town—another competing Museum. When he mentioned competition, he did not mean to say that there was competition in regard to the price of articles, one Museum competing against the other; but what he meant was that when a particularly good article was obtained by one Museum, a sort of amour propre suggested to the other that it should procure a similar article. That was the case with South Kensington Museum in regard to the Limoges crockery ware. [Mr. CAINE: Enamels.] Well, Limoges enamels. Why were they wanted for South Kensington? Simply because South Kensington might have as good a collection as the British Museum. Then as to the Rembrandt etchings. There was a fine collection of those at the British Museum, and what did South Kensington say? Why—"We must have as fine a collection," going by quantity rather than quality. What was the use of having these double collections? It appeared to him (Mr. Labouchere) to be a mistake, and it would be a great advantage if both the British Museum and the South Kensington Museum were not only in name, but in reality, under the same management. Such a system as that would most probably put a stop to these duplicate collections. Another objection he had to South Kensington Museum was because it cultivated a taste for bric à brac; and everyone knew that when a person got a passion for that sort of thing there was no satisfying it—that it became a perfect mania. The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council (Mr. Mundella) having been at the head of the South Kensington Museum, of course
    394
    had this mania. He (Mr. Labouchere) knew that that was the case, for he had talked to the right hon. Gentleman about this "æsthetic nonsense;" and the right hon. Gentleman had said to him—"What! would you have the country without a Cabinet?" He should not like to speak of the Cabinet as anything rococo—speaking in a Parliamentary sense; and as to the other cabinets, he should not object to them, if their collection in any way benefited Art; but it did not. When they told him that it was necessary, from artistic considerations, to purchase cabinets of Louis Quinze or Louis Quatorze he took the liberty of doubting the assertion—it was of no benefit either to Art or Science. All that happened through their exhibition was this—people went to see them, and, knowing that for such things there was a ready sale amongst the rich, they imitated them and sold them as old specimens. The other day the Museum authorities gave £900 and odd for a cabinet which he was informed had been manufactured out of the pieces of an old sedan chair. Who was it that bought these things, and who was it that sold them? Was it not done by asking the dealers to go into the market, and buy on commission? Did the right hon. Gentleman not suppose that the dealers and commission agents hung together—was he not aware that it was pretty well known what South Kensington Museum had its eyes on, and that the amount asked for an article was brought up to what South Kensington was likely to give? He had no doubt a great deal spent by South Kensington in making purchases was reasonably spent; but, at the same time, he thought it would be well if they had more than one specimen of a thing, to give Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester or some other large town the benefit of the duplicate, instead of keeping it in a second Museum in the same town. Who were benefited by armour? Then, there were snuff-boxes and other things, which a rich man might buy, because he did not know what to do with his money; but, owing to competition, a great deal more was paid for them than they were worth. The right hon. Gentleman would, perhaps, say the purchases had been made most judiciously, and that the articles could be sold at a profit. Very likely that might be so; but there was no intention to sell them,

    395
    What things were bought should be things that were useful to Art and intrinsically beautiful; but, even then, he should complain of there being these two Museums. Another consideration was, that most of these things were paid for out of taxes; but most of the taxpayers were not able to go to these Museums, except on Sunday; and be wished that, instead of spending this money, and talking Art-culture, and all that sort of nonsense, the right hon. Gentleman would devote himself to opening the Museums on Sunday. If he would do that, and buy things which people would be benefited by seeing, be would confer some advantage upon the country. But the right hon. Gentleman was going from bad to worse. He was getting silly with this bric-à-brac mania of buying things because they were old. Then, as to pottery, there was a large collection; but it was notoriously bad. Where was it bought, and why was so large a sum of money given for it? The right hon. Gentleman gave shelter to every species of Art loans; but he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would decide that these things should be turned out, and let some useful Works of Art take their place. There was a great deal to be said in favour of having one instead of two Museums; and a great deal more to be said in favour of buying things that were useful or beautiful, and not merely things that were competed for by wealthy men.
    MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, he could not agree with the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere); for, if it meant anything, or had any solid foundation, it would apply to all Works of Art, and particularly to works of the ancient schools, which must form part of any Museum of Art. The point be wished to urge was in connection with British painting, and here he would join with the hon. Member, and inquire who was responsible for the purchase of these paintings? He thought it a great evil that this duty should be placed in the hands of more than one body. There were the Trustees of the National Gallery on the one band, and the Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery on the other. He believed the Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery had no power to purchase the works of living and British artists. He did not find fault with the South Kensington Museum,
    396
    for he felt that the authorities of that Museum had made an admirable collection with as little expense to the country as possible; but it was of public importance to know who were the people who were responsible for the purchase of paintings, and where some paintings purchased this year had been obtained—paintings which had been severely criticized by persons who were more instructed in the Fine Arts than he was. It was desirable that the right hon. Gentleman should give this information, and he should move the reduction of the Vote by £1,000.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £240,690, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1884, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Science and Art Department, and of the Establishments connected therewith."—(Mr. Cavendish Bentinck.)
    MR. STUART-WORTLEYasked for some information as to the new arrangements for the Patents Museum, and said he hoped the conditions under which the working classes could see the Museum would be the same as hitherto.
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, that, when the Patents Bill was passed, the contents of that Museum would be transferred to the authorities of the South Kensington Museum. There they would be shown to great advantage, and that Museum was the only Museum in England which was kept open every day in the year, except Sunday, and until 8 in the evening, so that everything was done to make the Museum as useful and as popular as possible. With regard to the observations of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), he was one of the few people—and the few were getting very much fewer every day—whose primary objection to South Kensington Museum was that it existed at all. In his last Report, the Secretary to the Museum had summarized the whole of the cost of the work done; and he wished hon. Members would take the pains to look into the subject of Science and Art. The influence of that Museum on the Art and industries of this country had been something marvellous. It bad affected every kind of industrial art, and there was nothing else in the country that had done what this Museum had done. Hon. Members talked of the enormous

    397
    cost of bric-à-brac; but everything purchased for the Museum was not purchased because it was rare, but with a view to illustrating the industrial arts of this country. Such articles were circulated throughout the country in thousands of copies. The hon. Member for Limerick would ask what had been done for that City and for Cork; but one other hon. Member had stated that the South Kensington Museum had completely changed the jet industry, and several Irish Members, and among them the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), had spoken of the great advantages that had resulted from the lace exhibition, and had appealed to him to arrange for a small Museum in Ireland, and for the Director of that Department to go over and instruct the people. He (Mr. Mundella) could himself speak as to what was going on in the large towns of England, such as Nottingham, with its lace manufacture, and his own constituency (Sheffield), where this Museum had had marvellous influence. Every shop in London gave evidence of the change that had come over Art in this country, and it was extraordinary how few people seemed to realize that. The hon. Member for Northampton had said there were two Museums competing with each other; but there was nothing of the sort, for they strictly avoided competition. With respect to purchases, not a shilling had been spent without the greatest care and sense of responsibility. In the first place, the Art Collector was asked to consider every object, and there were a number of experts to examine every article and sign their estimate of its value; and the Lord President, and himself, and Sir Francis Sandford met once a-week to see what purchases had been made. They rejected everything that was not first rate, and the whole cost had been £300,000, and for that they had got what could be sold for 10 times the amount. The despair of many people was that they could not purchase these things at the same price as the Museum could. There were two gifts last year, which were worth all the money that had been spent since the Museum was opened; one of them being the Jones Collection, which itself was worth £300,000. Their system of circulation had been examined by the French Government, and the South Kensington Museum could not be competed with by any other countries, because they could
    398
    not get the objects which it had secured. With regard to British paintings, there were 1,400 water colours, and no collection had ever been better purchased.
    MR. DILLWYNsaid, a good deal of money had been spent on objects that seemed to him to be of very little advantage; and he wished to call attention to the extraordinary amount paid to the Professors in the Science Departments. It was proposed to create a Metropolitan School of Art and Science, applicable to industries; but he should like first to have a Committee of Inquiry into the whole expenditure for Professors, many of whom held more than one office. Then it was proposed to remove the Jones Collection altogether to South Kensington; but that would entail a very large expenditure. At the Jermyn Street School the scale of pay was very moderate—Lecturers receiving about £200 a-year, Teachers of Mechanical Drawing £100, Chemical Lecturers £300—altogether not a very large sum, and the work was well done and available to everyone. But at South Kensington he found there were five Professors at £800 a-year, one at £300, and another at £200; so that it would be at once seen that the scale of pay at South Kensington was much more extravagant than at Jermyn Street. He wished the Committee would look into this question of expenditure. He (Mr. Dillwyn) agreed with the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere); and he was one of the few who, according to the right hon. Gentleman, did not very greatly approve of the South Kensington Museum; and he did not believe so much in the improvement of Art which had taken place in the country being due to that Institution. He thought it was much more duo to English people mixing with foreigners; in fact, he did not think the test of South Kensington was any very good test at all. He would urge strongly the necessity of an inquiry being made into this expenditure; and he was satisfied that if that was done by an independent Committee, and not by a Committee for mutual admiration, great good would result.
    SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he wished to ask why there was an increase of £12,799 in this Vote this year? What the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Dillwyn) had said as to the

    399
    enormous expenditure seemed to be true. In the Science and Art Department the Assistant Secretary received £1,200 a-year plus his pay as a Director of Science, which was £700 a-year. An Assistant Secretary, who was also a Director of Science, might be a very valuable man; but this seemed to him an exorbitant salary, if he received the two amounts together. Did he receive both salaries?
    MR. MUNDELLA: No. He combines the two.
    SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, at the same time the total Vote had risen by £12,799; and of that £1,507 were for the administration of loans, and £6,663 for the Museum division—and that irrespective of purchases and circulation, which required £1,000 extra; whereas the Schools of Science and Art, which were very valuable, were only accountable for £3,000 of this increase. He should like to know the reason of this discrepancy.
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, the £3,000 were for increased payments for results by Science students in the country. Then there was £6,974, which included all the grants and all the expenses connected with them for the Art Department, the Museum, and the administration. That was where the increase in the Art Schools went on every year. There were now over 900,000 persons studying Art in connection with South Kensington. This would go on every year—there was no doubt about it—by increasing grants, which would extend to the whole of the United Kingdom. The total cost of the whole Science and Art Department of the country was much less than that of some other countries he could name.
    MR. CAINEsaid, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) would arrange for this Vote to come on at 5 o'clock next Session instead of half-past 1. If he did so, and enabled the Committee to debate it properly, there was so much to be said by hon. Members who represented constituencies which owed so much to the South Kensington Museum that there would be no difficulty in satisfying the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) of the usefulness and advantages of that Institution. The hon. Member had said he had been to the South Kensington Museum; but it could only be supposed, from his statement as to the two Museums
    400
    being in competition, that he had not spent more than half-an-hour in the building. It was clear that the hon. Member's acquaintance with the subject of his observations was not very extensive, when he spoke of "Limoges pottery," and of not knowing where a certain section was to be found. The Henri Deux pottery had been of the utmost value in enabling us in this country to study an interesting branch of Art. The study of this pottery had been of the greatest service to those interested in the English potteries. He (Mr. Caine) had no hesitation in saying that South Kensington had done more to revive industries in this country during the past 15 years than any other Art Institution.
    MR. DAWSONsaid, he wished to ask a question as to the position in which the Science and Art Department of Ireland stood at the present moment. They had been waiting for years in Ireland to hear of some practical step being taken in this matter. The Lord Lieutenant had been in communication with the Corporation of the City of Dublin and other public bodies; and he had been asked to adopt some suggestion which had been made as to the Committee for examining designs, and also to give the Science and Art Department an autonomous and independent management. Looking at what had been said about South Kensington by some English Members, it would not be surprising if the Irish Members did not hold it in the highest estimation. At any rate, the Lord Lieutenant had been asked to give them an independent Museum with an independent control. The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council (Mr. Mundella) had constantly stated, when this question had been mooted, that if they had autonomous and independent management in Ireland, they would lose the benefit they derived from South Kensington, and that they would not take away from South Kensington as much as South Kensington would be obliged to take away from Dublin, in the shape of rare and valuable articles. Whether that would be the case or not, the right hon. Gentleman knew the opinion held and expressed by the members of the Royal Irish Academy and the other public bodies in Ireland. A Committee of citizens and scientific men had met

    401
    together at the Mansion House in Dublin, had shown great anxiety on this, and had asked the Government to give them an independent control of their Art Museum. The Lord Lieutenant, however, had not declared what step the Government were going to take in regard to this autonomous management. He would ask Her Majesty's Government to state now whether or not they would allow that separate independent management, on which principle alone the Dublin Museum could prosper.
    MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, he wished to point out—["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Members seemed to be impatient, which was owing to the unfair policy of breaking through the Rules of the House by going on with the Votes at that hour. He wished to point out that the question he had put as to the purchase of pictures had not been answered. Who was responsible for those purchases? It was most most important to the taxpayers that they should know who was responsible. In the case of the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery they knew perfectly well who were responsible; and if objection was taken to what was done the responsibility could be at once brought home. It had been pointed out that South Kensington Museum was responsible for the purchase of modern pictures; but it had not been stated what individual or individuals actually made the choice and authorized the expenditure. He wished to know from the right hon. Gentleman who was responsible, and whether the advice of experts was taken?
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, the advice of experts was always taken. In his time they had received advice from Pointer, and they had received advice from Armstrong, Leighton, and others—the best experts they could consult. With regard to the question put by the hon. Member below the Gangway opposite (Mr. Dawson), the question as to the Dublin Museum had been settled by the Lord Lieutenant and a Committee, on the lines on which they were all agreed, in a most satisfactory manner. Autonomy was not contemplated. If it were granted, Ireland would lose the advantage in regard to duplicates' circulation which she got now from her connection with South Kensington. The system at present adopted was this—If
    402
    they had an agent in Persia, Cyprus, or elsewhere, procuring specimens for them, they said to him—"If you can procure for us three specimens of a certain article, do so; we want one for South Kensington, one for Edinburgh, and one for Dublin." Dublin thus derived constant advantage from her connection with South Kensington, and by the system of interchange; and it could hardly be called interchange, as the giving was all on one side.
    SIR JOHN LUBBOCKsaid, the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) had stated that the scientific Professors were overpaid. He could not agree with that at all. One of them received £300 a-year, and another £200; and, considering that they were amongst the most eminent scientific authorities in the country, he thought the charge could hardly hold good that they were overpaid. As to competition between the South Kensington and the British Museums, which the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) had referred to, he (Sir John Lubbock) could confirm the reply which had already been given on the subject, to the effect that steps had been taken to avoid any such thing.
    MR. BUCHANANsaid, he wished to know when the new works in connection with the Museum of Science and Art in Edinburgh would be begun, the money for which was voted last year? He should also be glad if the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) would give him some explanation in regard to the Scotch Geological Survey. The right hon. Gentleman, in reply to a Question which he (Mr. Buchanan) had addressed to him some time ago, had stated that the staff engaged upon that survey was still very much below par; and he (Mr. Buchanan) trusted the right hon. Gentleman would reconsider what he had said as to postponing the increase of the Staff.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, a great deal had been stated on the subject of the South Kensington Museum; but there was a great deal included in the Vote about which nothing had been said—the Bethnal Green Museum, for instance. He agreed with what had been said, in answer to the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), as to the value of the South Kensington Museum, and should be glad to see the Bethnal

    403
    Green Museum made as useful. No doubt, there was a very large collection of very useful objects to be seen at Bethnal Green Museum; but there was a remarkable absence of artistic objects. He did not mean to say that there was an entire absence of such objects; but anyone who chose to visit that Museum would see that it was almost entirely confined to useful articles, and those, however desirable, were not all that was wanted in a Museum. Anyone who knew the remarkable interest evinced by the people of the East End of London in collections sent amongst them—such as the Wallace Collection of Pictures—would regret that there were not more opportunities given to those people to see such things. Could not the authorities of South Kensington Museum arrange to occasionally send over some of their objects of Art and utility to Bethnal Green Museum? If they could, the result would be greatly beneficial to the people of the East End.
    MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he had to complain that anyone who failed to see any special beauty in those æsthetic objects to which he had referred earlier on, and who ventured to protest against their idolatry, was regarded as a Philistine and a barbarian. Well he (Mr. Labouchere) confessed he was a barbarian in these matters—he saw nothing to admire in Queen Anne Mansions, hideous papers, old plates, china monstrosities, aesthetic colours, and all such nonsense. The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council (Mr. Mundella) wished to develop the South Kensington Museum, which was to develop all this pernicious nonsense. If the right hon. Gentleman set himself to collect for South Kensington articles really useful and really beautiful, he (Mr. Labouchere) should not object. ["Agreed!"] Yes; "agreed" if the Committee wished it—but agreed to report Progress. If the Committee would not discuss the vote fairly he should be obliged to move to report Progress. The right hon. Gentleman had practically endorsed his view, for what had he said when he (Mr. Labouchere) had complained of this Old Curiosity Shop at South Kensington—this collection of sedan chairs, snuff-boxes, old cabinets, and Heaven knew what nonsense besides? Why, he had said—"Have we not jet objects at the Museum, and is
    404
    not that a benefit to the jet manufacturers at Whitby?" That was all very well; but of what use to the manufacturers of jet, or the manufacturers of anything else, were these old cabinets which were treasured up at the South Kensington Museum? What Art was there in these things, and what object could the authorities possibly have in keeping such a lot of old china, which was neither useful nor beautiful, on their hands? These things were only valuable because there were so few of them—thank goodness! One Museum had an old and very ugly plate, and the other Museum must have one like it, because there were but 20 or 30 in the world. So far as he was concerned, he should always protest against this monstrous waste of money on the part of Gentlemen who came forward here and bragged and blustered about the advance of Art and what they had done for South Kensington. So far as he was concerned, whatever these Gentlemen had done for South Kensington, South. Kensington had done nothing for the country. If the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) wished the collections in South Kensington to be useful to the country, let him send them—those which were really worth sending—round the country to other Exhibitions, so that the people in the manufacturing districts might derive from them that benefit which was to be derived. Let him devote all the money at the command of the Department to the purchase of articles of this kind—let him have Museums and artistic and industrial collections; but do not, for goodness sake, let him go on wasting the money of the country in such idle and foolish purchases as many of those they saw being made at South Kensington.
    MR. DAWSONsaid, it would be very ungrateful if he were to overlook the fact that the Lord Lieutenant, in a very fair manner, had called together, for the first time in Ireland, a Council of representative men. They had met in Dublin Castle, and had come to a decision as to the new building, its dimensions, and the purchase of land. These points had been agreed to without prejudice to the greater question, still undecided, as to the Irish management of the Institution. Well, he would say this to the right hon. Gentleman—let him put what collections he liked in Dublin, however

    405
    rare; let him appoint what Professors he wished, however eminent, to have charge of those collections, if the Institution was not under Irish management, or under management in harmony with the views of the Irish nation, inside the doors of that Institution the Irish people would not go, and thus the object of these collections—which was the storing up and interchange of specimens for the education of the people—would be defeated. The education of the people, and, in that way, the support of Art and Science, was the main object in keeping up this Institution in Dublin; and—as experience had shown—that object would not be obtained so long as the Institution was under the management of the South Kensington Museum, which had no sympathy whatever with Ireland, and in whom the Irish people had no confidence whatever. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin (Dr. Lyons) would corroborate what he (Mr. Dawson) had said when he stated that at a public meeting of all classes in Dublin—of Conservatives, Liberals, and Nationalists, and persons of all religions, including the two Members for the University—a resolution was carried unanimously, telling the Government that all they could do would be useless, if they did not put this Institution under Irish management. He did not understand the narrowness of the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman. Were they to be told that, because they had an autonomy—if such were granted—that, therefore, the State would not treat them as it treated Edinburgh and South Kensington—that if duplicates were found of any object at Berlin, Vienna, or elsewhere, Dublin would not receive one of them? He (Mr. Dawson) was personally acquainted with that which the right hon. Gentleman could easily gather from the Blue Books, if he perused them attentively—namely, the friction and disagreement which took place between the authorities of South Kensington and the Science and Art Department in Dublin. Were not the Blue Books full of squabbles; and had not the Lord Lieutenant (Earl Spencer), over and over again, been obliged to exercise his authority to quell these tumults? Would not the Committee be surprised to hear that he (Mr. Dawson) had gone into the Royal Dublin Society, and had found the clock standing with the hands still where the students
    406
    were reading, and, on making inquiries, had been informed that the clock could not be moved until an order was received from South Kensington to enable it to be done? That was a typical case; and he appealed to his hon. Friend the Member for Dublin whether the intelligent citizens of the Irish Metropolis did not concur in asking for the Irish management of this Institution? Was it right that scientific gentlemen, in the position of those of Ireland, should be told that they were not to be masters of their own Institution of Science and Art, but were to take from my lords in South Kensington, whom nobody in Ireland knew—some subordinates whose names probably they had never heard of—all their instructions? He (Mr. Dawson) would tell the right hon. Gentleman that this matter was by no means ended; that the question would have to be answered; and that, unless the Institution was put under Irish management, it would, however excellent it might be, like the other Institutions of Ireland under similar conditions, prove a failure, failing to teach the Irish people that Science and Art which it professed to teach.
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, that, in reply to the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Buchanan), he had to state that, to the best of his belief, the new works in connection with the Museum of Science and Art in Edinburgh were now entirely out of the hands of the Department, and in the hands of the Office of Works. With regard to the Geological Survey, two additional assistants had been put on to get out the English survey as rapidly as possible; and it was expected that by the end of the year the 1-inch scale would be completed for England, and then the staff on the English survey would be put on the Scotch survey to get it out rapidly. With regard to the result of the exhibition of old furniture at South Kensington, it was a fact that the furniture trade of England was now a model to French cabinet makers, who came over to this country to study English styles.
    MR. WARTONsaid, that one thing in the statement of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) which had delighted him very much was that the Department now looked closely after every shilling of expense. At the bottom of page 333 they found a group of

    407
    subjects—"Purchases for Museums, £28,200." In the first 10 of these items there was not a variation of a single shilling between the two years—this year and last year. In the 11th item, however, there was an increase of £1,000—the item being, "Carriage of Materials, &c." It had increased from £4,000 to £5,000. There was no explanation given of this in the Estimates. What, therefore, did this increase mean; seeing that every shilling of expenditure was looked after so carefully? He found, in another place, that the grant for examples had increased from £3,200 to £3,700. Then, as to Solar Physics and Scientific Research—["Oh, oh!"] He should not be deterred by the groans of the Judge Advocate General, who seemed to have changed his place so that he might indulge in these inarticulate interruptions without observation—from commenting upon such points in the Estimates as he considered called for comment. He found that there was charged for Scientific Research £500. What did that cover?
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, that the reason Item 11 had increased, whilst the first 10 items remained stationary, was that so much was allowed for the purchase of Works of Art, and so much was spent; but the "Carriage of Materials &c." meant the increased cost of the circulation of those objects throughout the country, and that was going on from year to year. No grant increased so much as this—none increased so much in the demand that was made upon it. The Department at South Kensington could hardly meet the demands made upon them by local Schools of Art; and a Committee had been appointed to regulate the matter, and was doing excellent work. As to the grant for examples, which had increased £500, that was in regard to examples circulated amongst Schools of Art. As Schools of Art increased, so did the grant for examples. The schools paid something themselves on examples; and what were given under these Votes were simply grants in aid.
    MR. DILLWYNasked for some explanation of the salaries paid to the Professors.
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, that when the Government came into Office the Professors were receiving payment by fee. That was regarded as a very unsatisfactory system; and they, therefore, insisted
    408
    that it should come to an end. The question of the salaries to be paid to the Professors was carefully gone into, and a fair amount decided upon. The fees were now paid into the Treasury, and the salaries were paid, as they ought to be, by annual sums. He (Mr. Mundella) did not think that any Professor was overpaid. Certainly, he did not imagine anyone would begrudge the payment of £800 a-year to Professor Huxley. The Professor managed the whole of the Science teaching, and he did his work admirably.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.
    Committee to sit again upon Wednesday.

  NATIONAL DEBT (re-committed) BILL.— [BILL 287.]
  (The Chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Courtney.)
  NATIONAL DEBT (re-committed) BILL.— [BILL 287.]

    COMMITTEE (ON RE-COMMITMENT).
    Order for Committee read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
    SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, he would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers), who was in charge of the Bill, to say whether this was grave legislation or not; whether it was seemly that, at 25 minutes to 3 in the morning, the proposition should be made that they should go into Committee upon a Bill of such importance as this? Surely the right hon. Gentleman did not mean that they should now go into Committee. Let him (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) explain to the House what the Motion meant. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers) introduced the Bill about a couple of months ago; and he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) ventured to say that the measure was either drafted by draftsmen who did not understand accounts, or it was drafted by an accountant who did not understand drafting, or it was drafted by an accountant and a draftsman who did not understand one another. He ventured to say that nine-tenths of the Members of the House were unable to make out what the drafts-

    409
    man was driving at until the Government, in another Paper, gave them an inkling of it. He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman, at such an hour that they could not expect that a report of the proceedings would appear in the papers, should move that the Speaker leave the Chair. Before they arrived at the second reading of the Bill, the Premier stated gravely to the House that he would not proceed with the measure, if he believed there were serious objections to it in many quarters of the House. It was not then open to him (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) to make use of the argument which he could now employ; but he had now no hesitation in saying that there was no one in favour of the Bill except a few hon. Gentlemen sitting immediately behind the Treasury Bench. As a matter of fact, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as many of the staunchest Liberals, was opposed in every way to the Act of Parliament to which the Bill professed to be a logical sequence; whilst on the Opposition side of the House, the only Member who had offered even a lukewarm support to the Bill was the hon. Baronet the Member for Chippenham (Sir Gabriel Goldney), who did say a word or two in favour of proceeding with the measure. The Bill was in no sense called for; it would deal with a state of facts which would not arise until 1885; and it was intended, if passed into law, to fetter the action of that House for the next 20 years; while, as brought in in the first instance, it had been intended to fetter the discretion of the House for ever. He would do the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer the justice to say that he had extended to them a small amount of mercy in conceding that the Act should only operate up to 1904. The right hon. Gentleman, however, had not made any statement as to what length of time, under the operation of such a Bill as this, it would take to pay off the National Debt. The measure was one which might be fairly described as a Bill to saddle the Income Tax on the country for the next 40 or 50 years. It might be described as a Bill requiring the present inhabitants of the country to pay somewhere about £750,000,000 or £770,000,000 sterling. Let them take the first sum which the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to deal with—
    410
    the Annuities amounting to £3,600,000. If the right hon. Gentleman stopped there in his scheme of appropriation, that sum, annually reserved and invested, would, during the lifetime of one man, pay off the whole of the National Debt. £3,600,000 a-year, applied for the purpose of the extinction of the National Debt, would pay off, at the highest price we need to pay, something like £200,000,000 in 37 years; and the £3,600,000, with the interest of the £200,000,000 of Consols, would pay off in 30 more years the whole of the principal of the National Debt. He asked, would not that be a fair and sufficient measure to take to pay off a Debt which had been the accumulation of centuries—a Debt which it had been the custom of that House to deal with from time to time by small appropriations to a Sinking Fund? He asked whether it would not be better to conduct themselves upon lines of moderation, and be content to put by some £3,600,000 a-year out of present taxation, instead of embarking upon the elaborate scheme suggested by the Government. When the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government spoke as if there was no opposition in the House to the Bill, he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) supposed that the right hon. Gentleman assumed that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) would be withdrawn. It was evident that the right hon. Gentleman scarcely calculated at that time upon the opposition of the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Illingworth); and, moreover, he could scarcely have calculated upon the opposition of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler). He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) asked whether now, at a quarter to 3 in the morning, and on the 14th of August, there were not strong reasons for withdrawing the Bill altogether? The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister was not present to hear any arguments that might be advanced against the measure; and he did not do him (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) the honour to hear what he had to say in opposing the second reading of the Bill. The measure was surely not wanted in the country; but if it were passed into law, and acted upon, it would lay the foundation of a fund which would be seized upon by Parliament whenever occasion arose, or temptation occurred to expend

    411
    the money. The people of England would not relish paying the Income Tax in order that they might, out of their industry, in the case of the working classes, and out of their life tenancies, in the cases of the propertied class, pay off a Debt charged upon the inheritance. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Members who interrupted ought to bear in mind that he had exhibited a great deal of patience while their Business was proceeding. He could assure the House that the interruption with which he was being menaced would only make it necessary for him to dilate at greater length upon the Bill than he had otherwise intended. He wished it particularly to be understood that he did not, in the least degree, disclaim the advisableness of taking real measures to reduce the National Debt; his opposition was directed against a scheme bound to break down in consequence of its singular unfairness. The right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) introduced a Bill in 1875, and that Bill was the law at present. Nothing, however, was needful to be done till 1885; and, seeing that they were always entitled, at one year's notice, to pay off the Consols, he did not know what objection there could be to postponing the consideration of the Bill till next Session, when they could deal with it at their leisure. He trusted that the House would agree to the postponement of the debate; and he would move that the House should resolve itself into a Committee on that day three months.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words, "this House will, upon this day three months, resolve itself into the said Committee,"—(Sir Joseph M'Kenna,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. WARTONsaid, it really was too late in the Session to proceed with a Bill of such great importance as that now before the House—a Bill which would really have the effect of tying down our financial system for 20 years to come. The occasion for the Bill would only arise two years hence, and it was surely hardly prudent for the Government to anticipate matters by two years. At
    412
    the present moment, the Revenue was £4,000,000 less than they could reasonably have expected it to be three years ago; and with a diminishing Revenue it was certainly unwise for the Government to propose what really would amount to a very heavy burden upon the people. Who could tell that the present pacific state of Europe could continue? The Egyptian Question was by no means settled. In fact, in plain words, what sensible man could forecast the future? It was utterly imprudent to anticipate what would be the condition of the Revenue two years hence. Under the Act of 1875, the reduction of the National Debt was proceeding steadily and regularly; and it was perfectly clear that, in about three or four years' time, the Debt would be reduced to about £700,000,000. It was more than likely that in 47 years' time, if they were to proceed at the present rate, the whole of the Debt would be cleared off. Ho, however, was disposed to ask the House whether it was of the utmost importance that the Debt should be paid off? Consols formed a sound investment for trustees and others; and, indeed, in many ways it was well that the country should have a Debt. Our Debt made us the bankers of the world, for, as a matter of fact, there were many Sovereigns who would not invest money in their own funds, while they would do so in the funds of this country. He trusted that the House would agree to the proposition of the hon. Member for Youghal (Sir Joseph M'Kenna).
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, that all he need remark was that the House had, by a large majority, passed the second reading of the Bill. He had adopted the suggestion then made to insert words in order to limit the operation of the rolling-up Annuities to a fixed number of years; and, having done that, he did not think he was acting at all unreasonably in asking the House to proceed with the Bill at the present time. The hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) had raised the question whether it was a good thing to pay off the Debt at all. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) thought that was a matter which, at this stage, the House would hardly be inclined to discuss. He trusted the House would assent to the proposal to go into Committee.
    MR. J. G. HUBBARDsaid, that at 3 o'clock in the morning on the 14th of August they were asked to go into Committee on this Bill—a Bill which was to fix for 20 years to come a burden of taxation upon the taxpayers for the redemption of Debt, that redemption of Debt amounting to something like £160,000,000 sterling. Such a burden ought not to be imposed upon the people except after most careful consideration. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers) seemed to consider that he had done all he need do in adopting the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote). It was true that right hon. Gentleman did make a suggestion which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had adopted. But it must be remembered that, in 1875, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer opposed the measure of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer for the redemption of the National Debt as utterly wrong and mischievous. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers) at that time opposed, with the utmost vigour, the measure which he now proposed, because it came from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon; and he was so clear and express in his declaration that, not satisfied with discountenancing the Bill altogether as impracticable, he stated that "the measure of redemption which the Bill proposed was an impossibility." These words were uttered in 1875 by the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the present Bill (Mr. Childers). He (Mr. Hubbard) had no wish to call to account public men because they changed their opinions. Public men had changed their opinions very often indeed; but, in a question of this kind, there was a principle involved which must be either right or wrong. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was either right or wrong when he said that the measure of redemption provided for in the Bill of 1875 was an impossibility; and in asking the House to pass this Bill he was asking the House to pass a measure the aims of which he himself had granted were impossible. He (Mr. Hubbard) spoke upon the Bill with no little experience. He ought to be as familiar with financial questions as any man in
    414
    the House, for they had been his almost daily study for 40 years past. He knew what the Stock Market was, and they had all seen, within the last seven years, how the price of Consols had varied. He desired the extinction of the National Debt quite as much as his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but he wanted the thing to be done in a business-like way. He considered that £7,000,000 a-year was as large a sum as they could, with prudence, impose as a burden upon the taxpayers of the country. He had lately taken the opinion on this point of some very eminent members of the Stock Exchange; and they certainly believed that if more than £7,000,000 a-year were employed in the extinction of the Debt the price of Consols would be inconveniently driven up. What were they going to do? If they attempted to increase the redemption of the Debt to £8,000,000, £9,000,000, £10,000,000, £12,000,000, or £13,000,000, where would Consols be? Long before they reached that point the old system would be broken down, and then people would exclaim—" What a short-sighted principle it was; "and they would say also—" What a pity that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1883, did not adopt the plan suggested in 1875." He (Mr. Hubbard) thought that an opinion out of Office was worth a great deal more than an opinion when in Office. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had a good deal of natural sagacity in these matters; but there were certain influences always at work on these questions, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was required to be a great financial conjuror if he was to satisfy everybody. The Bill really consisted of a mass of contradictions. It adopted two absolutely conflicting principles, and tried to make them work together. [" Oh, oh!"] There would, however, be no use in wearying an impatient House with minute criticisms on the subject. He, however, protested against this mode of legislation. In an exhausted House, and with an almost empty Reporters' Gallery, they proposed to fasten taxes to the amount of £120,000,000 upon the people. He agreed with the object the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had in view, because he was in favour of the redemption of the Debt; but, whatever was done, he

    415
    maintained that it ought to be done upon a reasonable, a business-like, and a sound basis.
    SIR JOHN LUBBOCKsaid, the House listened with respect to everything that fell from the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hubbard; but he (Sir John Lubbock) would now appeal to the right hon. Gentleman and to hon. Gentlemen opposite generally to allow the House to go into Committee, and to pass the Bill. The Motion was not opposed by the Leaders of the Conservative Party, and it was supported by the great majority of the Members of the House and the people of the country. As there was so much practical agreement on the subject, he hoped they would be allowed to go into Committee.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 51; Noes 23: Majority 28.—(Div. List, No. 289.)
    Question again proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
    SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, that at that time of the morning it was out of all reason for the Government to try and force this Bill through Committee. It was now after 3 o'clock, and it was only on account of the mismanagement of Business by the Government that they were reduced to the position of having to consider a Bill of such importance at that time of the morning. He, therefore, thought it advisable that he should move that the debate be now adjourned.
    Motion made, and Question put, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Sir H. Drummond Wolff.)
    The House divided:—Ayes 14; Noes 56: Majority 42.—(Div. List, No. 290.)
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clause 1 agreed to.
    Clause 2 (Conversion of part of the perpetual annuities held by National Debt Commissioners on account of trustee and post office savings banks into terminable annuities).
    MR. J. G. HUBBARD,in moving, as an Amendment, in page 2, line 29, to leave out the word "three," in order to insert the word "six," said, that if the Bill were re-cast, in pursuance of his
    416
    Amendment, instead of being a composite Bill, it would go on one principle throughout, and the redemption of the National Debt would proceed regularly by the operation of Terminable Annuities. The provisions he proposed would require no renewal, but would operate until the Chancellor of the Exchequer of some distant day found a necessity for discontinuing them. His object was to work out the extinction of the Debt regularly, and that would be the certain effect of his Amendment.
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 29, to leave out the word "three," in order to insert the word "six,"—(Mr. J. G. Hubbard,)—instead thereof.
    Question proposed "That the word 'three' stand part of the Clause."
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, the proposal of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Hubbard) was briefly this—to repeal the Act of 1875, and for its provisions to substitute others establishing a system of Terminable Annuities, which would operate so as year by year to reduce the £28,000,000 which the Act of 1875 set aside for the service of the National Debt. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) fully realized the simplicity of the right hon. Gentleman's plan; but he was not prepared to repeal the Act of 1875, and therefore he was not in a position to accept the Amendment.
    SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAA said, he supported the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard) except with regard to the amount. He considered that the right hon. Gentleman had proposed too large an annual redemption. If, however, the right hon. Gentleman proceeded to a Division, he should vote with him.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 54; Noes 12: Majority 42.—(Div. List, No. 291.)
    Bill reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time To-morrow.

  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  (Mr. Mundella, The Lord Advocate, Mr. Solicitor General for Scotland.)
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.

    [BILL 226.] COMMITTEE.
    [Progress 10th August.]
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
    Clause 3 (Definitions).
    Amendment proposed, in page 1, to leave out lines 12 and 13 as follows:—
    "The term 'efficient school' in this Act means any public or State-aided school in Scotland."—(Mr. Mundella.)
    Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.
    Words struck out, accordingly.
    MR. J. A. CAMPBELLsaid, he had an Amendment on the Paper in page 1, to leave out "State-aided," in line 13, and insert "other inspected." This Amendment, however, since the adoption of the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella), was unnecessary, and he should not move it.
    Clause farther amended, and agreed to.
    Clause 4 (Amendment of s. 69 of the Education (Scotland) Act, 1872.)
    MR. DICK-PEDDIEsaid, that even at this late hour, he must trespass on the attention of the Committee for a short time, while he stated his objections to the provisions of this Bill in the clause now under consideration. He might remind the Committee to what the Bill owed its origin. In March of this year his hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire (Mr. Cochran-Patrick) directed the attention of the House to the want of harmony between the Scotch Education Act of 1872 and the Factory and Workshop Act of 1878. He showed, among other things, that while under the Education Act the school age terminated at 13 years, so that' all children, when they attained that age, passed out of the control of the boards, under the Factory and Workshop Act no child under the age of 13 could be employed as a full tuner, and that no child above 13 and under 14 could be so employed, unless he complied with one of two alternative conditions: he must either have passed a certain Standard of education, fixed by the Education Department at the Fifth Standard, or he must have a certificate of due attendance at a certified school, such due attendance having been fixed by the Education Department at 250 attendances during each of five years, not necessarily consecutive,
    418
    and at not more than two schools in each year. It happened frequently that a child who had reached the age of 13 had neither of these qualifications for employment. The consequence was that while he had in virtue of his age passed out of the control of the school board he was not eligible for employment under the Factory and Workshop Act. This state of matters led to very serious evils. Many children had either to occupy themselves with any desultory work they could find or to go about idle. The evil of that was very great to children at a critical age when habits were being formed for life. It was also attended with great evil to their parents, who found themselves deprived of the benefit of the labour of their children, when their children had reached an age at which their parents might fairly have looked for relief from the burden of their support. He need hardly point out to the Committee how serious this was to many parents. If they remembered the class to which most of those belonged whom the provisions of the Education and Factory Acts affected, hon. Members would see how serious must be the loss to them of having their children left in idleness on their hands. A working man with a large family to support, for whom he had, at great privation, provided education, found himself not only still further burdened with their support, when they should have been doing much towards supporting themselves, but burdened with the cost of school fees. To bring the Education and Factory Acts into harmony was the chief motive of the Bill. Now, there were two alternatives, either of which it was in the power of the Government to adopt; they might either have altered the provisions of the Factory Act, so as to admit all children who had attained the age of 13 to take employment as full timers, or they might have altered the Education Acts, so as to have enabled school boards to lay hold of all children between 13 and 14 until they were able to fulfil the conditions of employment provided by the Factory and Workshop Act. The former was the course approved of by some of the most important school boards in the country. It had been recommended by the school boards of Glasgow and of Paisley. Indeed, the latter board had gone the length of recommending that children

    419
    beyond the age of 12 years who had passed the Fifth Standard should be capable of being employed as full timers. The school board of one of the burghs which he (Mr. Dick-Peddie) had the honour to represent—namely, Kilmarnock—had also by resolution (of which he held a copy in his hand) recommended that all children above 13 should be allowed to be employed as full timers. That he believed to be the opinion of the working classes generally in Scotland, and he concurred in that opinion. It appeared to him that 13 was the age at which, in framing the Education Act, it had been considered by the State that elementary education should be completed; and it was right that, when that age was attained, a child should be free from the control of the State in the matter of education, whether it had attained the Standard of education it should have attained or not. He thought, too, that as the Factory Acts themselves recognized that 13 was the age at which a child became physically fit for full employment, no hindrance should be placed in the way of his accepting such employment, unless some great public end was to be gained by such hindrance. Now, he could not see that any such justification existed for the hindrance which the Factory Act now interposed. That hindrance imposed a great burden on parents ill able to bear it. It did not much benefit the child; or, rather, the children who derived any important benefit from it were few, for it was the fact that many of the children who could not pass the Fifth Standard at 13 years of age were, either by reason of less quickness, or of want of application, not likely to pass that Standard even if kept one or two or even more years at school. To retain them at school might be defended as a punishment to them for their shortcomings. But if their inability to pass was due to inferiority of intelligence, that was not a ground for punishment; if it were the result of carelessness and want of application it might be reasonable to impose some punishment on the child; but then it must be remembered that the punishment fell not so much on the child as on the parent. The Government had not adopted the course of altering the Factory Act; but they had endeavoured to effect a reconciliation between that Act and the Education
    420
    Act, by giving the school board a hold on the child who could not pass the Fifth Standard. But they had gone beyond the severity of the Factory Act, because they proposed, in this clause, to deprive the child of the alternative of obtaining employment as a full timer by obtaining a certificate of due attendance. They thus put the child in even a worse position than at present; instead of giving relief from the oppressive provision of the Factory Act. That he greatly regretted. The course adopted by the Government would, he knew, cause great disappointment to many, and would be felt as entailing on them a serious burden. He trusted his right hon. Friend (Mr. Mundella) would reconsider the matter, and get quit of the objectionable provision. He believed that the proposed provision was unworkable, and that it would be impossible for school boards to enforce compulsory education on children above 13 years of age. To attempt to do so would only create irritation and a reaction of feeling against compulsory education. Education could not go too far, but compulsion could easily be overdone, especially when education was not free. He begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 2, line 5, after "Act," insert "or a certificate of previous due attendance at a certified efficient school. The standard of due attendance shall be such as may be from time to time fixed for the purposes of the Factory and Workshops Act, 1878, under section 26 of the said Act, by the Secretary of State, and with the consent of the Education Department."—(Mr. Dick-Peddie.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, his hon. Friend's (Mr. Dick-Peddie's) complaint was really against the Factory Acts, and many people had been to him urging him to altogether supersede the clause in the Factory Acts which prevented a child being employed as a full timer at the age of 13 years. Whether it was a reasonable provision or not, he was sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department would not allow him, in an Act dealing only with Scotland, to interfere with the Factory and Workshops Act, which applied to the whole of the Three Kingdoms. He could not,

    421
    in a local Act, touch that part of the question. The hon. Member said—" You are laying an increased burden on the working classes;" but he (Mr. Mundella) denied that the provisions of the present Bill would lay a feather's weight on any child who was at work. The object of the section was merely to put two classes of children on the same footing. The Factory Acts required children of a certain age who were at work to attend school half-time; but if they were not at work, and were purely wastrels about the streets, the school authorities had no control over them. The object of the Bill was simply to put the child who was not at work on the same footing as the child who was. That, he thought, was a very reasonable provision. As to the due attendance order, these children never could avail themselves of it. They knew, from their English experience, that these children could not attend school for five years, giving 250 attendances a-year. He (Mr. Mundella) hoped the hon. Member would not expect him, at that hour of the morning, to accept the Amendment. He was sure there would be no complaint in the future as to the working of it.
    MR. DICK-PEDDIEsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had failed to properly understand the purport of the Amendment, which had no reference to half-timers. He did not wish to interfere with those children. The right hon. Gentleman must know perfectly well that there were many children who had never been half-timers at all who had attended school regularly until they were 13, and had been unable to pass the Standard. It was for these children that he wished to modify the provision.
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, he could assure the hon. Member (Mr. Diek-Peddie) that he did not know "perfectly well," as the hon. Member seemed to suppose, that there were many children of the age of 13 who attended school who were unable to pass the required Standard. The evidence was all the other way, and showed that children who attended school regularly were able to pass at that ago. As a general rule, taking the average of Scotch children, they passed the Fifth Standard at the age of 12.
    MR. DICK-PEDDIEsaid, that at that hour of the morning it was impossible properly to discuss the Amendment, therefore he would withdraw it;
    422
    but, if he had time, he could satisfy the right hon. Gentleman that he was quite ignorant of the state of matters in Scotland in regard to this subject.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause agreed to.
    Clauses 5 and 6 agreed to, with Amendments.
    Clause 7 agreed to.
    Clauses 8 to 10 agreed to, with Amendments.
    Clause 11 (Duty of school board to take proceedings under this Act).
    On the Motion of Mr. MUNDELLA, the following Amendment made:—In page 3, line 28, leave out "efficient," and insert "public or inspected."
    Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
    MR. HENDERSON,who had an Amendment to omit the whole clause, asked the right hon. Gentleman to explain its meaning and object, as an explanation might perhaps obviate the necessity for his (Mr. Henderson's) opposition to it.
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, this clause was a copy of the clause in the English Act, extending the Bill to Scotland, and the words were almost identical. That clause had worked exceedingly well for several years; and it was necessary in this Bill to show that where an Inspector of Factories or Schools, or a teacher, or a school attendance officer, or a clergyman of the parish, gave notice that such children were not attending school the school officers should follow up the matter.
    MR. HENDERSONsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had not explained the clause to his satisfaction. It appeared to him that it was quite a new method of legislation for Scotland that a school board, on the intimation of any person, should take certain proceedings, and that if they did not do so, they should state their reasons with their Minutes. It was quite true that in the English Bill a school board might be informed by any person; but the obligation was not laid upon them of recording their reasons on the Minutes. He did not wish to prolong the discussion, or imperil the passing of the Bill; but, at the same time, he felt that there was great objection to the creation of a new system in Scotland. He did not suppose

    423
    that the right hon. Gentleman meant it, or that the clause should be acted upon to any great extent; but the clause did empower any layman to give information to a school board that some one was not educating his children in a proper manner; and upon that intimation, however ill-qualified the person might be to judge of the question whether the children were being educated in accordance with the various Acts or not, the parent was to lie under the stigma of such an accusation, and the board was to be bound to make inquiry into the state of the education of the children; and however false the information might be it might still cause considerable ill-feeling. It was a clause which he thought would be repugnant to the feelings of the people of Scotland; and he did not see that it was of such importance as the right hon. Gentleman seemed to believe, because the Act of 1870 required school board officers to ascertain the educational state of every child in their districts, and if they did not do their duty then the Board would be held to blame. They were bound to see that the officers did their duty; and if a clergyman, or a teacher, was the only person interested in the matter, and it was upon him that the right hon. Gentleman depended for giving information. why should he not be named in the Rill? The words "any person" seemed too wide, and under any circumstances they might be the means of creating a great deal of ill-feeling. He should like to hear the opinions of other Members before the Division was taken upon the clause.
    MR. WILLIAMSONhoped the clause would be maintained, believing it would be most useful. When he was in Scotland he found a number of children playing about during school hours, and he had felt it his duty to give information.
    MR. DICK-PEDDIEsaid, he entirely concurred in the objection of his hon. Friend the Member for Dundee to the clause. No great harm would be done by the Board inquiring into cases reported to them; but if they were to be bound to take proceedings against the parents in all cases in which information might be given them, or to record their reasons for not doing so, serious injustice might be done to persons who had really been guilty of no neglect of
    424
    their children, but had been informed against out of spite or malice. The clause was utterly unnecessary, and he should support the opposition to it.
    MR. A. GRANTsaid, he was very much inclined to support the objection to the clause, as he believed it would create a large amount of bad feeling in the community. That was very undesirable. It had been remarked that this was only importing into Scotland what had hitherto been the law in England; but it must be remembered that Scotland stood in a very different position from England. In every parish they had a school board, who had an officer, whose duty it was to do what was laid down in this clause; but in England there was not a school board in every parish. On the whole, he thought this clause might be perfectly well dispensed with.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)said, that provisions of this nature were intended as a kindness to the children, and not as a penalty. It was suggested that the school board officer was adequate; but, in large towns particularly, there might be children playing about the doors, without being seen, and it seemed reasonable that anyone who had cognizance that they were not attending school should mention the matter. No stigma would appear in the books, because what would be given would be reasons why proceedings were not taken. It would be a great misfortune if the clause was not passed.
    MR. J. A. CAMPBELLsaid, he thought the clause might be useful in country parishes as well as in towns. There was, perhaps, no part of the work of Scotch school boards as to which they heard more frequent complaints than the enforcing of attendance. If boards showed a slowness to act upon the compulsory powers given to them, it was, in many cases, because their officers were not so active as they might be.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:— Ayes 45; Noes 3: Majority 42.—(Div. List, No. 292.)
    Clause, as amended, agreed to.
    Clause 12 agreed to, with Amendments.
    Clause 13 (Mode of procedure and expenses of prosecutions).
    On the Motion of Mr. MUNDELLA, the following Amendments made:—In page 4, line 15, after "penalties," insert "or for the purpose of obtaining any order; "Clause 13, page 4, after line 28, insert as a new paragraph:—
    "Where a prosecution, as in this section mentioned, is instituted by a school board before a Court of Summary Jurisdiction, no member of such school board shall be qualified to act as a member of such court."
    MR. WILLIAMSON,in proposing the Amendment of which he had given Notice, said, the municipal boundaries in Scotland were not, in a good many cases, co-extensive with the school board area. In these extra burghal areas the burgh magistrates had no jurisdiction, and it was desirable they should have for the special purposes of this Bill. Although there was a little technical difficulty in admitting his Amendment, still if the Committee thought it a valuable and useful one he hoped they would accept it.
    Amendment proposed, at end of Clause to add—
    "In the case of Royal or Parliamentary Burghs having School Board are as extending beyond the municipal boundaries, but having their school buildings within the same, the provost or baillie of such burghs may, for the special purposes of this Bill, have jurisdiction over defaulting parents residing within the entire School Board area."—(Mr. Williamson.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
    SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he did not know what legal difficulties there might be in inserting this Amendment; but if it was inserted he thought it would be a great advantage to the communities interested. He should be glad to hear that there was no legal difficulty; and he was confident that in the smaller boroughs the Amendment would be of great advantage.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)said, he was afraid the difficulty was more than one of technicality. It was one of substance; because the proposal was one to confer upon an elected baillie of a burgh jurisdiction over a country district outside the burgh. That was a formidable proposal, and contrary to the principles of jurisdiction.
    MR. WILLIAMSON: For the special purpose of this Act.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)said, the proposal was to give elected baillies jurisdiction over rural districts. It seemed to him that there was ample provision for reaching defaulting parents in other ways.
    MR. WILLIAMSONsaid, he would withdraw the Amendment, but he regretted having to do so. Country people had no power of choosing the Justices, any more than the neighbouring burgh magistrates.
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, he should have been glad to agree to the Amendment of the hon. Member if he could; but he thought his right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate had shown that there was a serious objection.
    MR. WILLIAMSONsaid, the objection would vanish if the Amendment were accepted.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause, as amended, agreed to.
    Clause 14 agreed to.
    New Clause, to follow Clause 7—
    (Meaning of passing a standard.)
    "Passing a standard within the meaning of the two immediately preceding sections signifies passing in each of the three subjects of reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic, as prescribed for the respective standards of examination by the Minutes of the Scotch Education Department regulating the administration of the Parliamentary Grant for Education in Scotland for the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three, or for any subsequent year,"—(Mr. Mundella,)
    —brought up, and read a first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
    MR. DICK-PEDDIEasked, why it was necessary to define the Standard?
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, the reason was that several school boards and employers and others had complained of the present arrangement. The Glasgow and Edinburgh School Boards had pressed for a plain definition in the Bill.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.
    MR. HENDERSONsaid, that at the request of the hon. Member for Forfar (Mr. J. W. Barclay), he would move the clause standing in his name with respect to the remission of fees. As the Committee were aware, under the Act of

    427
    1870 those children, whose parents were unable to pay school fees, were referred to Parochial Boards in Scotland, as they were to Boards of Guardians in England. Great difficulty was experienced in Scotland with respect to getting those boards to pay such fees; and, in consequence, the clause was practically inoperative. But the Act of 1878 gave the School Board power to remit fees; but very remarkable consequences ensued. He believed that in most of the districts the boards gave relief in every case which was certified by the School Board officer as being a deserving case, and it would be seen from the Return of the amounts which the boards had granted, that they had increased every year by leaps and bounds. Still, there was always a stigma attaching to parents who had applied to the Parochial Boards for relief of this kind, and the effect had been to create a new class of paupers in the country. The independent spirit of the Scotch people had, to a certain extent, been broken down; and he was assured that workmen of a class, who never before had applied to the boards, were now coming in in greater numbers every year, and he could distinctly trace the rise of a new class of paupers as the result of this provision. He had long been thoroughly convinced that there was no worse method of relieving these children than by sending them to the Parochial Boards. It was degrading in the extreme, and its effect was to greatly demoralize the people, and to create a new class of paupers in the country. The clause proposed by his hon. Friend the Member for Forfar did not disturb the existing system where the School Board chose to refer the application to the parochial authority to deal with in the manner laid down in the Statute; but if they were of opinion that, in any district, this method of relief would have an injurious effect, they could dispense with it. The sending of parents to Parochial Boards for the fees for their children's education, had had a most injurious effect in most of the large towns. If any opposition had arisen to the proposed clause it came from the school boards, who were unwilling to undertake the duty of discriminating between those who were and who were not the proper persons to be relieved. But no valid excuse could be made for them; it was a duty they were far better able to
    428
    discharge than Parochial Boards, for they could fix a better standard of relief than the Poor Law Boards, who applied a very severe standard. When relief was asked from a Parochial Board, they simply considered subsistence for men, women, and children; they did not contemplate anything beyond that. He, therefore, moved the clause standing in the name of the hon. Member for Forfar.
    Now Clause:—
    (Remission of Fees.)
    "The sixty-ninth section of 'The Education (Scotland) Act, 1872,' is hereby amended, to the effect that a parent alleging that he is unable from poverty to pay the school fees of any child may, instead of applying to the Parochial Board, apply to the School Board of the district in which he resides to be exempted from payment of school fees, and the School Board may either remit such fees, or part thereof, for such time as they think fit, or may transmit the application to the Parochial Board, who shall dispose thereof in terms of the said sixty-ninth section; but such remission of fees shall be without prejudice to the emoluments of such teachers as may have the school fees as part of their emoluments,"—(Mr. Henderson,)
    —brought up, and read a first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, he was sorry to interpose before the Scotch Members who desired to speak upon this proposal, and he would say very briefly why he could not accept the clause; and he hoped the hon. Member (Mr. Henderson) would not consider it necessary to press it to a Division. For his own part, he was in favour of giving school boards the same power they had in England, and he believed that, ultimately, it would be found to work well; but he would ask the hon. Member not to invite a vote now. In time public opinion would come round to the views he advocated; but that opinion was against them now, and that opinion was strongly expressed when there were rumours that it was intended to give this power to remit fees, and the Department had to protest such was not the case, and circulated copies of the Bill to allay the strong feeling against the introduction of a new principle. It was a most contentious question; and if this new principle were proceeded with now half the Members for Scotland would rise to protest against it being carried, and a fair discussion could not be expected

    429
    at such a late hour. He hoped his hon. Friend would he content with having ventilated the subject, and would withdraw the clause.
    MR. WARTONsaid, he did most earnestly hope that the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Henderson) would not withdraw the clause. It was all very well to talk of the hour being late; but whose fault was that? It was the fault of the Government, who did not arrange their Business properly, unreasonably pressing on measures with indecent haste. It was perfectly scandalous that the House should be kept sitting in such a manner through the fault of the Government alone. He sympathized with the view of the hon. Member for Dundee, and hoped he would press his point. The right hon. Gentleman conducting the Bill did not really object to the clause, for it had his concurrence; but because the Bill had been circulated in its crude state, and before the House had settled it, throughout Scotland, the Committee were to be bound by its second-reading state before it had passed Committee. Such an abdication of its functions by the House he had never heard of. Had the Committee full power to deliberate, or were they victims of the hasty action of the Department in sending the Bill round Scotland? Such an action was most unconstitutional; though, of course, constitutionalism could not be expected from a Liberal Ministry. They sent the Bill round; but what business had they to do that? Why send round the Bill for the opinion of school boards? Were not the Committee there to judge for themselves? He hoped the hon. Member for Dundee would divide on the clause; or it would be better still to report Progress at once, and adjourn the discussion to a more reasonable hour.
    Motion made, and Question "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again,"—(Mr. Warton,)—put, and negatived.
    MR. HENDERSONsaid, after what had been stated, and in the interest of the clause, he thought it was undesirable to divide the Committee, and he, therefore, begged leave to withdraw it.
    Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
    Bill reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

  EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL.— [BILL 283.]
  (Mr. Herbert Gladstone, Mr. Courtney.)
  EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL.— [BILL 283.]

    COMMITTEE.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
    Schedule.
    MR. WARTON,before the Schedule was passed, desired to know whether the Ballot Act Continuance and Amendment Act was of a temporary character; and, whether the Sunday Closing (Ireland) Bill was continued on the same lines as before?
    MR. HERBERT GLADSTONEsaid, that was so.
    Schedule agreed to.
    Bill reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time To-morrow.

  MEDALS BILL.— [BILL 188.]
  (Mr. Courtney, Secretary Sir William Harcourt, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
  MEDALS BILL.— [BILL 188.]

    COMMITTEE. [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [3rd July], "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair" (for Committee on the Medals Bill).
    Question again proposed.
    Debate resumed.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

  CHOLERA HOSPITALS (IRELAND) BILL.
  (Colonel Nolan, Mr. O'Kelly, Mr. Findlater, Mr. O'Brien, Mr. Macfarlane.)
  CHOLERA HOSPITALS (IRELAND) BILL.

    [BILL 282.] CONSIDERATION.
    Order for Consideration, as amended, read.
    Bill, as amended, considered.
    Amendment proposed, after Clause 6, to insert the following new Clause:—
    (Duration of powers of local authorities.)
    "The powers conferred upon sanitary authorities by this Act shall not be exercised after the first of May, 1884."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
    Amendment agreed to; Clause inserted accordingly.
    Amendment proposed, to insert the following new Clause:—
    (Short title.)
    "This Act may be cited for all purposes as the Cholera Hospitals (Ireland) Act, 1883." (Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
    Amendment agreed to; Clause inserted accordingly.
    Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 5, after "medical officer," to insert" of health."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
    Amendment agreed to; words inserted accordingly.
    Amendment proposed, in line 8, after "consent," to insert "in writing."——(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    COLONEL NOLANsaid, he would rather these words were left out, so that the telegraph might be made use of; but if the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland insisted upon them he was content.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, he thought they were quite necessary.
    Question put, and agreed to; words inserted accordingly.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out Clause 7.—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
    Amendment agreed to; Clause left out accordingly.
    Bill read the third time, and passed.

    PUBLIC WORKS LOANS [ADVANCES, &C.]
    Committee to consider of authorising further advances to the Public Works Loan Commissioners, and to the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, for the promotion of public works; and to the Land Commission in Ireland for the purposes of advances or purchases of estates, and for assisting emigration; and to consider of authorising the postponement of the payment of a loan, and the composition and remission of certain debts, and of amending "The Public Works Loans (Ireland) Act, 1877" (Queen's Recommendation signified), To-morrow.
  MOTIONS.

    EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND ART (ADMINISTRATION OF VOTES).
    Ordered, That Mr. SCLATER-BOOTH and Mr. JESSE COLLINGS be added to the Select Committee
    432
    on Education, Science and Art (Administration of Votes).—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)

    ARRESTS FOR DRUNKENNESS (SCOTLAND).
    Address for "Return showing the number of persons arrested for drunkenness during the year 1882 in each burgh and county in Scotland (a.) during the 24 hours of the week between 6 a.m. on Saturdays and 6 a.m. on Sundays; (b.) during the 24 hours of the week between 6 a.m. on Sundays and 6 a.m. on Mondays; and (c.) during the 120 hours of the week betwen 6 a.m. on Mondays and 6 a.m. on Saturdays."—(Dr. Cameron.)

    NAVY AND ARMY EXPENDITURE, 1881–2.
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    1. Resolved, Whereas it appears from the Navy Appropriation Account for the year ended 31st March 1882, as follows, viz.:—

    (a.) That the sums expended for certain Navy Services exceeded the Grants for those Services, and that the deficits on such Grants amounted together to £113,878 12 s. 10 d (including £27 12 s. 0d. disallowed by a Committee of this House), as shown in column (a) of the Schedule hereto appended;

    (b.) That the sums received in respect of Appropriations in Aid of the Grants for certain Services fell short of the sums estimated, and that such deficiencies amounted together to £7,215 19 s. 10 d. as shown in column (b) of the said appended Schedule;

    (c.) That the sums received in respect of Appropriations in Aid of the Grants for certain Services exceeded the amounts estimated by the total sum of £47,927 5s. 3d. as shown in column (c) of the said appended Schedule;

    (d.) That surpluses arose on the Grants for certain Services, and that such surpluses amounted together to £148,164 7s. 9d. as shown in column (d) of the said appended Schedule.

    2. Resolved, And whereas, in order to provide for the first two above-mentioned sums (a) and (b), amounting together to £121,094 12 s. 8d. the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury have temporarily authorised the application of the third above-mentioned sum (c) of £47,927 5s. 3d. and of £73,167 7s. 5d. out of the last above-mentioned sum (d).
    3. Resolved, That the application of such sums be sanctioned to the extent of £121,067 0s. 8d. (the sum of £27 12 s. having been disallowed by a Committee of this House, as before mentioned).

    SCHEDULE.

    No.

    Navy Services, 1881–2, Votes.

    (a) Deficits on Votes.

    (b) Deficiencies of Appropriations in Aid.

    (c) Excess of Appropriations in Aid.

    (d) Surpluses on Vote.

    £

    s.

    d.

    £

    s.

    d.

    £

    s.

    d.

    £

    s.

    d.

    1

    Wages, &c. to Seamen and Marines

    5,434

    17

    0

    26,838

    4

    9

    2

    Victuals and Clothing for ditto

    4,417

    4

    4

    7,690

    2

    8

    3

    Admiralty Office

    2,577

    14

    11

    4

    Coast Guard Service and Naval Reserves

    6,478

    0

    7

    5

    Scientific Branch.

    6,880

    4

    1

    6

    Dockyards and Naval Yards, &c.

    16,979

    0

    3

    7

    Victualling Yards, &c

    1,227

    5

    8

    8

    Medical Establishments, &c.

    1,004

    3

    7

    9

    Marine Divisions

    1,406

    12

    2

    10.

    Sec. 1

    Naval Stores

    74,013

    10

    2

    24,691

    18

    11

    Sec. 2

    Machinery, Ships built by Contract, &c.

    50,030

    19

    1

    11

    New Works, Buildings, and Repairs

    22,325

    12

    9

    12

    Medicines and Medical Stores

    1,781

    2

    10

    10,418

    12

    5

    13

    Martial Law, &c.

    419

    12

    9

    14

    Miscellaneous Services.

    5,689

    1

    3

    15

    Half Pay, &c.

    15,021

    14

    10

    16

    Sec. 1.

    Military Pensions and Allowances

    5,557

    17

    3

    (27 12 0 disallowed.)

    Sec. 2

    Civil Pensions and Allowances

    4,469

    19

    7

    17

    Army Department—Conveyance of Troops

    18,818

    2

    0

    1,127

    14

    3

    Amount written off as irrecoverable

    1,886

    17

    7

    113,878

    12

    10

    7,215

    19

    10

    47,927

    5

    3

    148,164

    7

    9

    27

    12

    0

    73,167

    7

    5

    £121,094 12 8

    £121,094

    12

    8

    Disallowed

    27 12 0

    £121,067 0 8

    Total Surpluses on Votes

    148,164

    7

    9

    Less amount applied to make good deficiencies

    73,167

    7

    5

    Surplus as shown on Appropriation Account

    74,997

    0

    4

    Disallowance

    27

    12

    0

    Net Surplus to be surrendered

    £75,024

    12

    4

    4. Resolved, Whereas it appears from the Army Appropriation Account for the year ended 31st March 1882, as follows, viz.:—

    (a.) That the sums expended for certain Army Services exceeded the Grants for those Services, and that the deficits on such Grants amounted together to £271,907 15 s. 6d. (including £15 9s. 4d. disallowed by a Committee of this House), as shown in column (a) of the Schedule hereto appended;

    (b.) That the Sums received in respect of Appropriations in Aid of the Grants for certain Services fell short of the sums estimated, and that such deficiencies amounted together to £54,109 10 s. 6d. as shown in column (b) of the said appended Schedule;

    (c.) That the sums received in respect of Appropriations in Aid of the Grants for

    SCHEDULE.

    (a)

    (b)

    (c)

    (d)

    No.

    Army Services, 1881–2, Votes.

    Deficits on Votes.

    Deficiencies of Appropriations in Aid.

    Excess of Appropriations in Aid.

    Surpluses on Votes.

    £

    s.

    d.

    £

    s.

    d.

    £

    s.

    d.

    £

    s.

    d.

    1

    Pay of the General Staff, Regimental Pay and Allowances, and other Charges

    32,675

    19

    3

    6,756

    4

    7

    2

    Divine Service

    2,898

    13

    3

    3

    Administration of Military Law

    5,046

    14

    7

    4

    Medical Establishment and Services

    1,067

    13

    11

    5

    Militia Pay and Allowances

    18,898

    13

    8

    21,386

    7

    1

    6

    Yeomanry Cavalry

    8,471

    7

    11

    7

    Volunteer Corps

    615

    5

    10

    8

    Army Reserve (including Enrolled Pensioners)

    13,548

    4

    4

    9

    Commissariat, Transport, and Ordnance Store Establishments, Wages, &c.

    31,026

    2

    9

    1

    14

    0

    10

    Provisions, Forage, Fuel and Light, Transport, &o.

    36,227

    14

    7

    56,144

    6

    0

    (7 19 4 disallowed.)

    11

    Clothing Establishments, Services, and Supplies

    35,210

    16

    10

    18,447

    16

    10

    12

    Supply, Manufacture, and Repair of Warlike and other Stores for Land and Sea Service

    116,808

    19

    1

    43,623

    2

    2

    13

    Superintending Establishments of and Expenditure for Works, Buildings, and Repairs at Home and Abroad

    10,796

    6

    8

    14

    Establishments for Military Education

    193

    12

    11

    15

    Miscellaneous Effective Services

    11,720

    8

    6

    Carried forward

    233,234

    10

    1

    54,109

    10

    6

    106,525

    6

    9

    77,696

    17

    5

    certain other Services exceeded the amounts estimated by the total sum of £106,525 6s. 9d. as shown in column (c) of the said appended Schedule;
    (d.) That surpluses arose on the Grants for certain Services, and that such surpluses amounted together to £175,279 7s. 5d. as shown in column (d) of the said appended Schedule.
    5. Resolved, And whereas in order to provide as far as possible for the first two above-mentioned sums (a) and (b), amounting together to £326,017 6s. the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury have temporarily authorised the application of the third above-mentioned sum (c) of £106,525 6s. 9d. and of the last above-mentioned sum (d), viz.: £175,279 7s. 5d.
    6. Resolved, That the said application of such sums be sanctioned.

    No.

    Army Services, 1881–2, Votes.

    (a) Deficits on Votes.

    (b) Deficiencies of Appropriations in Aid.

    (c) Excess of Appropriations in Aid.

    (d) Surpluses on Votes.

    £

    s.

    d.

    £

    s.

    d.

    £

    s.

    d.

    £

    s.

    d.

    Brought forward

    233,234

    10

    1

    54,109

    10

    6

    106,525

    6

    9

    77,696

    17

    5

    16

    War Office

    17,718

    10

    3

    (7 10 0 disallowed.)

    17

    Rewards for Distinguished Services, &c.

    5,632

    9

    1

    18

    Half Pay

    1,697

    7

    2

    19

    Retired Full Pay, Retired Pay, Pensions and Gratuities, &c. including Payments allowed by Army Purchase Commissioners

    57,909

    8

    7

    20

    Widows' Pensions

    13,856

    17

    11

    21

    Pensions for Wounds

    2,313

    17

    6

    22

    Chelsea and Kilmainham Hospitals

    1,702

    17

    4

    23

    Out-Pensions

    30,323

    12

    5

    24

    Superannuation Allowances

    2,014

    2

    7

    25

    Militia, Yeomanry Cavalry, and Volunteer Forces

    2,125

    8

    4

    Amount written off as irrecoverable

    961

    4

    3

    271,907

    15

    6

    54,109

    10

    6

    106,525

    6

    9

    175,279

    7

    5

    15

    9

    4

    Total Deficit on Votes and Appropriations in Aid

    £326,017 6 0

    Deduct total Surplus

    281,804 14 2

    £281,804 14 2

    Deficit as shown on Appropriation Account

    44,212 11 10

    Disallowances

    15 9 4

    Net Deficit

    £44,197 2 6

    Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.
    House adjourned at a quarter before Five o'clock in the morning.