§
(1.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £4,927, 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 of the Officers and Attendants of the Household of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and other Expenses.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, he would move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £1,000, with the view of drawing the attention of the Committee to the circumstances under which the extra police tax had been levied on the district of Edenderry, in the King's County. He had had a long correspondence on the subject with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Dublin, some time ago; and he had given Notice to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland that he should bring the case before the House upon this Estimate. A short time previous to November last three outrages occurred in this district. They were outrages of a somewhat peculiar character—three burnings, or attempted 1119 burnings, in the neighbourhood of Edenderry, and they had been preceded by the issue of threatening letters and notices posted on the gates and doors of separate holdings, and also on the gates and doors of the residence of a gentleman living in that neighbourhood. The police were naturally anxious to ascertain the author of these threatening letters, when the outrage to which he referred—namely, the burnings, or attempted burnings, occurred, and in spite of the activity of the police no information came to light in regard to them. The three holdings upon which the burnings took place were the holdings of small farmers who were upon what might be termed the popular side in Irish politics. Among the threatening letters was one to Mr. Carew, of Kildangan. This gentleman had never taken part in politics in the ordinary sense; but he had, nevertheless, shown very strong sympathy with the poorer class of tenantry on his estate during the last three years. That fact evidently offended gentlemen living in the neighbourhood, who took a different view. When these outrages occurred previous to November last, Mr. Carew had received several threatening letters, and threatening notices had been posted on the gates of his lodge, and on other parts of his property. The district was proclaimed by order of the Lord Lieutenant, and one of the most extraordinary features of the case was the way in which the Proclamation was carried out. Mr. Carew, of Kildangan, had been subjected to a considerable amount of ill-feeling, owing to the strong sympathy he had shown to the poor people of the neighbourhood. To his (Mr. Molloy's) knowledge, Mr. Carew had been spending something like £2,000 a year, simply for the purpose of finding occupation for the poor people in the district. When the Proclamation was made, certain townlands were proclaimed, on which extra police were to be put; and upon every townland upon which Mr. Carew had property these extra police were placed. Instead of taking the zone in which the outrages were committed, on three sides of the district no police were placed at all; but the regular course of Mr. Carew's property was followed, although some parts of it were some miles away from the place where the outrage was committed. It was quite clear from that what 1120 the object of this proceeding on the part of the authorities in the neighbourhood was. On one of Mr. Carew's townlands there was only a herd; and it, therefore, could not be said that there were no means of discovering any crime committed in the townland, or of obtaining evidence; because, if any outrage of any kind was committed on that townland, all that was necessary to do was to arrest the herd and his assistant, because there was no other living being upon it. As far back as 1882 Mr. Carew wrote a letter to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. That letter was a very long one; and, therefore, he (Mr. Molloy) would only give the substance of it. Having detailed in full the facts before alluded to, Mr. Carew asked the Lord Lieutenant to cause an investigation to be made in regard to the Proclamation, and the reason why the extra police had been quartered upon his property. He received from some official at the Castle the usual stereotyped acknowledgment of his letter, with an intimation that it would be attended to. Hon. Members knew pretty well what these official letters were; but he (Mr. Molloy) might state beforehand that, as far as his opinion went, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland had no more knowledge of the facts of the case than he (Mr. Molloy) had. Nor did he think that the Chief Secretary for Ireland had any knowledge of the facts, because he was not in the country during the time, and the only knowledge he could have obtained personally was through the correspondence. Although he (Mr. Molloy) proposed to move the reduction of the Vote to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he wished it to be clearly understood that those who were really to blame in the matter were the officials in Dublin Castle. Who they were he did not know; they were very much a secret body, and he had not been able to ascertain who they were. On the 17th November, 1882, Mr. Carew laid the whole of the facts before the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and received the usual official acknowledgment of the receipt of his letter. Probably it would astonish the Committee when he said that no further notice was taken of the serious charges contained in that letter, until he (Mr. Molloy) began to move in the matter, as late as the month of March of the present year, and nearly five months after the receipt of the 1121 letter. But, during the winter, a very important incident occurred, in connection with which an investigation was asked for. A woman, having a small holding in the neighbourhood, was accused of theft, and she was sent to prison for that theft. While in prison she made a written confession that she was the author of these threatening letters, and that she had been instigated and assisted in sending them out by a blacksmith who lived in the neighbourhood. On this confession of crime on the part of the woman, she was ordered to be prosecuted by the Government for sending threatening letters. He now came to the most extraordinary feature in the case, and one which seemed to him, unless some explanation could be given of it, to be the most disgraceful feature of the whole transaction. It must be borne in mind that the district had been proclaimed; that extra police had been placed there; and that they had been placed on all the townlands which belonged to a single individual—Mr. Carew, of Kildangan, no doubt on account of the sympathy that gentleman entertained for the people. When the trial of this woman was brought on in the usual course in the Assizes, with a written confession in existence that she was the author of the threatening letters, and that she had been helped and assisted and instigated in the matter by another individual, and there was a possibility of finding out who the real instigators were, the Government took a most extraordinary course of action. What would the Committee think of the action of the Government when he told them that, when the trial came on, by the express orders of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, it was stopped at the very beginning? The learned Judge who presided on the Bench asked what was the meaning of stopping the trial, and the only answer given by the counsel was that such were his instructions. He had received a telegram, instructing him, on the part of the Attorney General, not to proceed further with the prosecution. He (Mr. Molloy) should have thought that it would have been the duty of the Law Officers of the Crown and the Castle authorities—the district having been disturbed by these threatening letters and these outrages—especially after the 1122 author of the letters had avowed and had confessed her crime in writing, that the trial should have been proceeded with. Nevertheless, the trial was stopped by an order from Dublin Castle, from the Attorney General, and he (Mr. Molloy) begged to assert that fact in the most clear and distinct manner. If any explanation could be given of the case he should be glad to hear it, although it appeared to him to be one of those cases in which explanation would really amount to very little. These facts were stated in the fullest manner in the letter to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by Mr. Carew, of Kildangan; but no answer had been received. Not the slightest notice was taken of Mr. Carew's important statement, or of his application for an investigation. The matter then was placed in his (Mr. Molloy's) hands in March, this year, and he at once wrote to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and subsequently to Dublin Castle. That correspondence, which had taken place between Mr. Carew and himself (Mr. Molloy), and the authorities, had been ordered by the House to be printed; but, from some cause or other, the correspondence had not yet been laid on the Table in time for this discussion. On the 22nd March, he wrote to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, not because he blamed the right hon. Gentleman, because he knew that the right hon. Gentleman was not present in Ireland at the time, but because he had to write to the right hon. Gentleman as the proper official authority to communicate with. On the 22nd March, after Mr. Carew had written, asking for an investigation, he (Mr. Molloy) wrote to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, requesting him to draw the attention of His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant to the facts of the case. He might state that a letter had been previously received intimating that the district had been proclaimed. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, in reply to his communication, stated that the matter was still under the consideration of His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, and he hoped soon to be in a position to communicate with him further. He wrote again to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, drawing his attention to the fact that what was really desired was an investigation into all the circumstances connected with the 1123 case, and that the mere withdrawal of the proclamation was only a secondary matter, and that though undoubtedly it would he a relief, it would not secure the real object in view—namely, the peace and order of the district at a time when the extraordinary powers of the existing Act were being put rigidly in force. He reminded the right hon. Gentleman that any step calculated to defeat the ends of justice should be carefully avoided, and he added, that it could be proved that deliberate injustice had been done and was being continued. All he asked was the opportunity of laying the evidence of the case before His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant for his consideration. He pointed out that any examination other than one on oath would be useless, and he stated that, since the accused was anxious to be examined, it was only fair that the accusers should submit to the same test. That was a plain and simple demand. He asked for nothing more than an investigation, which he conceived the Government were bound to grant. In reply, he received a long formal document from Dublin Castle, nine-tenths of which were confined to the acknowledgment of the receipt of his letter. The only passage it was necessary to refer to was one in which it was stated that His Excellency had seen no reason, up to the present time, to revoke the proclamation appointing additional police to the district; but that he hoped, in the course of a short time, to be able to withdraw the men. That letter was signed by Mr. Jenkinson, and he (Mr. Molloy) was thus passed from one official to another. But being determined that nothing should be wanting on his part, he took up the correspondence with Mr. Jenkinson. He wrote to Mr. Jenkinson, acknowledging the receipt of his letter, and he said—
You appear, if I may be permitted to say so, to have misunderstood the whole object of that letter. What I there asked for was this"—here he quoted the words of his original letter—The latter part of the letter is the main part, and the withdrawal of the extra police is simply a detail. What we complain of is that false information was sent to the Castle, and that the authorities have continued to accept it in face of the evidence which we offered to produce. What I ask for is that the disputed facts shall 1124 be tested by an investigator to be named by the Lord Lieutenant.The point was this—on behalf of the district he asked, not for any investigation from anyone favourable to one side or the other, but that the Lord Lieutenant should select anybody he liked, so long as it was not anyone in the neighbourhood, and he asked that some such person should be sent down to examine on oath into the truth or falseness of the allegations made, and of the whole circumstances of the case. On the 18th April, he received a long and formal document, and at last, after six months, he was told that the Lord Lieutenant could not accede to his demand. He (Mr. Molloy) had put in the smallest compass he could the circumstances of the case. In the first place, outrages were committed in the district, both by burnings and by sending threatening letters; by an accident the author and instigator of these letters and burnings, for the burnings followed the letters, was found to be the woman who had been arrested on the charge of theft; that woman made a written confession of her guilt; she was accordingly sent for trial, and then, on the day the trial should have taken place, to the astonishment of the presiding Judge, and by the order, as it was stated in Court, of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland—not the right hon. and learned Gentleman now filling that Office, but his Predecessor—by the order of the Attorney General the prosecution was stopped, and no reason assigned. In point of fact, this woman and her accomplices in these acts were spirited away after the trial in some mysterious manner, and left the district nobody knew when. Mr. Carew, of Kildangan, was the recipient of some of these threatening letters, and he was a personal sufferer by these acts. Nevertheless, the only land, with one exception, taxed for the maintenance of the police, was Mr. Carew's land. Mr. Carew's property was followed for a distance of five miles in an irregular fashion, so that all the land he had in the district was taxed; no doubt, in consequence of his sympathy with the poor people who had been so deeply suffering in his neighbourhood. He (Mr. Molloy) thought these facts were facts which, for the sake of the honour and credit of the Govern- 1125 ment—[Cries of "Oh!" and "Withdraw!" from the Home Rule Members.] He certainly should not withdraw.
§ MR. BIGGARrose to Order. He wished to ask the Chairman, if the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Molloy) was not out of Order in speaking of the honour and credit of the Government?
THE CHAIRMANThe question of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) is one which seems to me to be trifling with the Committee.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, he would repeat that, for the honour and credit of the Government, they were bound, with such a statement of facts as was before them, to have examined into the veracity of the information they had received. [Mr. HEALY: Oh, no!] Certainly, an opportunity ought to have been afforded for examining the informers who gave the information and the persons who sent the facts to Dublin Castle. His own impression was, that if the correspondence had not been intercepted before it reached the authorities, such an investigation would have been granted. Unfortunately, the difficulty was to get any correspondence to pass unfiltered, or to pass direct to the authorities of Dublin Castle. He knew perfectly well that it was impossible for the Chief Secretary for Ireland, or for the Lord Lieutenant, to take the thousand cases of this sort which might be sent to them, and to read through the long correspondence which they involved. He would admit that that was impossible, and therefore what took place was this—that somebody in Dublin Castle wrote a precis, which often destroyed the facts of the case, and left the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary for Ireland under an entirely erroneous impression. He had not the slightest doubt that, in numerous cases, the real facts were never arrived at by the Central Authority. He must, however, say that, in this instance, be the authorities high or low, with the fact before them that the prosecution had been stopped, and with the confession of the woman in their possession, he was at a loss to understand what explanation could be given for the course pursued by the authorities. He would even go a little further, and would say that the Irish Executive had had an opportunity of going still deeper into the facts, and of sifting the evidence of the case; and he challenged 1126 the Government, in their own interests and in the interests of the peace and order of this district, to grant an investigation on oath, and to allow the facts of the case to be tested in the usual manner. He wanted nothing concealed, but to have the real facts brought out. That was his only object. He was afraid that the Government were very much like newspapers which, when they once refused the insertion of a document, were never induced, under any circumstances, to alter their decision. He might, however, say this for the comfort of those he represented, that, whatever the action of the Government might be, he was determined to sift the matter to the end; and he had already taken the first steps to open up and lay bare the action of the clique in this district by whom the peace and order of the locality had really been disturbed, and by whom all this annoyance and injustice had been occasioned. Whatever course the Government would be prepared to take in the matter, he at least should feel it his duty to lay bare before the public the whole of the acts and conduct of the clique to which he referred.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £3,927, 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 of the Officers and Attendants of the Household of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and other Expenses."—(Mr. Molloy.)
§ MR. TREVELYANI quite recognize the motives of the hon. Member (Mr. Molloy) in moving the reduction of this Vote. The hon. Member invariably conducts his proceedings in this House in that spirit of mutual respect which all Members of Parliament ought to entertain for one another. [Mr. BIGGAR: Oh!] I repeat, with that mutual respect which all Members of Parliament owe to one another; and, in moving the reduction of this Vote, I know perfectly well that he does not make the Motion as a slight upon His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, but as a means of calling attention to a grievance, upon an occasion on which, without taking such a course, he would not be able to give point to his remarks. As regards the interruption of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), and the laughter with which it 1127 was greeted by the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), I wish to make a remark to both of those hon. Members. I desire to ask them whether, if every hon. Member, in every debate which takes place in this House, were to interrupt them with laughter, meant, from the manner in which it is used, to be a deliberate insult, and accompanied by interruptions couched in forms of speech which are personal insults—I ask them what possibility there would be of the Irish Business in this House, or indeed of any other Business whatever, being carried on in any practical or, even, in any decent manner? It is only because Members refrain from retaliating in the same spirit that the Business of the House can go on at all—[Laughter.]—and the laughter of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) at that remark is, I believe, a method of receiving it which no other hon. Member present at this moment would care to endorse. This case, which has been stated by the hon. Member for King's County with great moderation of language, may, in one sense, be called a typical case. The House of Commons, by Statute, has placed certain powers in the hands of the Irish Government, and these powers are to be used in a certain manner—that is to say, that on the very best information which the Irish Government can obtain from their servants, who have charge of the different localities, wherever outrages have reached a certain point, and wherever there is danger to peace and order, to life and to property, they are empowered, under Statute, to impose extra police on the district, and the cost of that extra police must be charged on that part of the district which, after due examination, the Lord Lieutenant arrives at the conclusion is the portion of the district responsible for the disorder. I presume that what was done at Kildangan and other townlands is simply what has been done in every place where this extra police tax has been imposed. It was not imposed except upon information which the Irish Government considered to be perfectly reliable, and after the commission of a considerable number of outrages, I believe that 13 outrages were reported between the 1st of March and the date of the proclamation, the proclamation having been issued on the 9th of October; and the 1128 proclamation having been issued on that day, from the 7th of November the cost of the extra police has been imposed on the locality. Then we come to what is exceptional in the case. What may be said to be exceptional is that a part of the tax has fallen upon a gentleman whose social position and influence in the country are certainly higher than is generally the case with regard to the people who are subject to this tax. Consequently, this gentleman has felt it, no doubt, more keenly, and he has been likewise able to have the attention of the House of Commons called to it more successfully. I do not mean to say that the hon. Member for King's County would not have paid the same attention to the complaint of the humblest of his constituents; but it is a very different thing where the case is stated by an ignorant man who does not know how to get it up properly, and where it is stated by a man of high position and education like Mr. Carew. There is another thing in this matter which is exceptional—namely, the hon. Member for King's County has a grievance against the Castle authorities, in consequence of a letter having been, as he says, pigeon-holed. That assertion I take leave to correct; it is a charge which the hon. Member has brought for the first time, and which he now reiterates. No doubt, the hon. Member, as a Member of Parliament representing the grievances of his constituents, has been injured to this extent, that the representations which were originally made did not take effect, because, owing to some official mistake, the letter was mislaid and misunderstood, and, in consequence, there was a considerable delay in the correspondence. But that circumstance did not affect the district pecuniarily; because it was not until the 7th of November that the tax began to be levied. The proclamation was revoked on the 31st December, and the total sum levied on the district was, I think, about £52—I am not quite certain as to the actual amount. As far as Mr. Carew is concerned, I do not suppose it was a question of money at all. Mr. Carew felt the reproach which was cast upon him, and he called for a private investigation. And then we come to the real and essential point in the matter. "What we complain of," says the hon. Member (Mr. Molloy), "is that false information 1129 was sent to the Castle." It is quite clear to me that Parliament, in putting these powers into the hands of the Irish Government, did not intend that, upon every application made by an hon. Member, a sworn investigation should be granted. If we had granted an application for investigation in this instance, on account of the position of the person who considered himself aggrieved, we should have to yield in every case; and I am quite sure that hon. Members will feel satisfied that, if that course had been adopted publicly, the last of this police tax would have been levied in Ireland. ["Hear, hear!"] Well, I think that would be as great a misfortune as could happen, because I believe no quieter, no less oppressive, and no more successful means of restoring peace and order could be resorted to than this. The hon. Member commented upon the official correspondence from the Castle in terms which, perhaps, are the most formidable of his remarks; because, certainly, it would be a most serious matter for official Departments if they recognized that there was no objection, in regard to every refusal they were obliged to make, to enter into a somewhat prolonged and disputed correspondence. I am sorry to say that it is equally impossible for me, at this period, as it was before, to accede to the request of the hon. Member. If we were to concede inquiry here, we should have to grant investigation in all cases. Certainly, if the hon. Member goes to a Division upon that point, after the speech he has made, I shall consider it a Division upon the merits of the question, and shall not recognize that what is desired is the reduction of the Vote by the £1,000. I gather that the hon. Member merely wishes to express his opinion that there ought to be a sworn investigation into certain cases of the employment of extra police in particular counties of Ireland.
§ MR. MOLLOYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had taken the usual course of defending the action of the Government; but the right hon. Gentleman had entirely misconceived the meaning of the correspondence, and the object of his (Mr. Molloy's) remarks. He would admit, at once, that the proposal to reduce the Vote by £1,000 had nothing to do with the question he desired to bring 1130 before the Committee. The point he wished to call attention to was this—that while, as he stated in the correspondence, the strong powers of the Coercion Act had been used to the last extent, the authorities at the Castle, as he (Mr. Molloy) knew, had been wilfully and continually misinformed as to the real facts of the case. He asked for an investigation into the matter, in order, not that the police should be taken away, but that justice and right should be dealt out to the people. The point he had laid particular stress upon was this. The right hon. Gentleman said there were 13 outrages—threatening letters and burnings. That was quite true; but the author of those outrages made a written confession and was ordered to be prosecuted; but, at the last moment, the prosecution was withdrawn. He admitted the difficulty which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had put forward; but he could not admit that any policy would justify the perpetration of an act of injustice to the people. If wrong had been done, no matter what the circumstances might be, or the position of the authorities, for the sake of their own honour they were bound to make an investigation. What he wanted to know was, why, when the author of the outrages was discovered, the prosecution was stopped? Where had the real offender gone? And why was this injustice, which it could not be denied had been committed, allowed to continue? He had said that he had very little hope of the Government consenting to go back from its position, and he had instanced the case of the newspapers, which, having once stated a fact, were very reluctant to, or, indeed, never would, withdraw it. ["Oh, oh!"] At any rate, that was his opinion. While the Government refused to make this investigation, he found himself utterly powerless in the matter; but he promised to do all in his power to have the real facts of the case made known.
MR. JOSEPH COWENsaid, he had listened very attentively, and with some interest, to the statement of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and with no other knowledge of the facts, except what he had heard that day, he was bound to come to the conclusion that no complete answer had been given to the charge which had been brought by the hon. Member for King's County (Mr. Molloy) 1131 against the Government. In point of fact, he thought that no complete answer could be given. The real point of the case was that the person who was confessedly guilty of these offences of threatening and burning had been arrested on a charge of theft, and that, after making a confession of her guilt, and naming the person by whom she had been instigated to commit the crime, she was spirited out of the neighbourhood, or, at any rate, disappeared, and no explanation was given, the charge upon the neighbourhood for the extra police being, nevertheless, continued. The point was, where was this person, who was the originator of all this trouble; why had she not been punished; why had the trial been quashed; and why was the tax continued upon the district? That really was the issue. The conduct of the Government went to show, he would not say the justification, but the origin, of a great many of the complaints which had been made by hon. Members from Ireland as to the manner in which the affairs of that country were administered. The Castle was constantly receiving information from persons who could not be got at by anybody else. They acted on that information, and refused to receive any contradiction of it from responsible persons like the hon. Member for King's County (Mr. Molloy) and others. In this case, a woman, after being charged with theft, turned approver, the Government got her out of the district, and still continued to saddle the district with the consequences of her crime. He was afraid that as long as that horrible Act of Parliament—the Prevention of Crime Act—remained on the Statute Book—an Act which was a disgrace and a humiliation to the Legislature—Ireland would be reduced to this melancholy condition.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he did not know whether to be surprised or to wonder at the audacity and ingenuousness of the hon. Member for King's County (Mr. Molloy) in venturing so absurdly to ask for an investigation. How could the hon. Member expect an investigation into anything that had been done by the Castle? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland was a supporter in that House of the doctrine that all Irishmen were natural born liars, with the exception of those "babes of grace" the members of the Royal 1132 Irish Constabulary. It had been stated by the hon. Member for King's County that certain outrages had been committed; that the perpetrators of those outrages were known; and yet the tax on the district was allowed to continue, and no investigation would be granted by the Government. The hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Joseph Cowen) seemed to suppose that this was an isolated case. It was nothing of the kind. The same thing occurred in the county of Cork, where an unfortunate man named Leary was shot by the informer Connell. Connell was not prosecuted for murder, but was kept for months by the Attorney General for Ireland as a Crown witness. If the Chief Secretary for Ireland had been in Office in Cromwell's time, and had been asked for an investigation into the charge of spitting Irish babies upon English bayonets, he would have got up in that House and would have defended the act with as much aplomb as he had exhibited in the present case. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that the police tax continued to be levied on a gentleman residing in the neighbourhood, notwithstanding the fact that the author of the outrages had been discovered.
§ MR. TREVELYANI do not admit that.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that, in that case, he would withdraw the statement. The right hon. Gentleman said nothing about it, but allowed the statement to go by default.
§ MR. TREVELYANThe hon. Member for King's County (Mr. Molloy) did not state that the author of the outrages had been discovered. He said that a woman admitted writing certain threatening letters.
§ MR. HARRINGTONAt the instigation of other parties.
§ MR. HEALYThe hon. Member for King's County (Mr. Molloy) said that the woman, on being charged with theft, admitted having committed the outrages.
§ MR. TREVELYANThere were 13 outrages, and the woman did not commit them all.
§ MR. HEALY, resuming, said, that when the woman was put upon her trial by the Crown, the Crown withdrew the charge, and the woman was mysteriously spirited away. What inference were they to draw from that fact? The 1133 right hon. Gentleman had not stated a single thing to disprove the statement of the hon. Member for King's County. Where was the woman now? No doubt, she would appear here after in a glorified state as a Crown witness. She was now drinking her champagne in comfort, and she would be produced by-and-bye; and when the Crown wanted some infamous woman—some prostitute—to give evidence against some unfortunate prisoner, this woman would appear, fresh from her crimes in King's County, to give evidence on behalf of the Crown. Where, he asked, was she now? Of course, the statement which had been made by the hon. Member for King's County would not be reported in the English newspapers. It would be summarized into a statement that there had been an Irish row. There was a conspiracy of silence both on the Treasury Bench and in the English Press in regard to all Irish grievances. Everything was "cushioned," and never reached the public. The Government declined to give an investigation because they knew that, if an investigation took place, the authors of these outrages would be discovered, and the police tax would no longer be imposed. That would be a throwing up of the sponge for which they were not prepared. Mr. Carew told the Executive that he did not believe the crime was committed by anyone connected with the barony, and his letter was flung back again in his face. The right hon. Gentleman refused to concede an inquiry into facts so simple and so easily ascertained. The old proverb, "Fiat justitia," was altogether ignored in Ireland. The rule of the Castle was—"Let justice perish; but let the Castle stand." It was everything for the landlords and nothing for the people, except blood money and police tax. Because the Crown Juries could not be trusted, what did they find? Why, that Lord Spencer had given a far larger amount of money for charges of maiming, injuries, and murder than the much-abused Grand Juries did when they were in power. The amount of fines levied by the Lord Lieutenant greatly exceeded those imposed by the Grand Juries, and the Irish Members could get no information from Her Majesty's Government unless they went to the trouble of moving for a Return, and, even then, 1134 the Return was not presented until after the Vote was passed. The documents in this case were moved for on the 12th July. They had now reached the 18th of August, and they had not yet been circulated among hon. Members. Therefore, there wes not only a conspiracy of silence, but a desire to "cushion" and "cloak" everything. The Government feared the light, because their deeds were evil. They had awarded £3,000 to Mr. Denis Field, and large sums to other persons in Ireland; but what had they given to the families of the girls who were murdered by police at Ballina? Nothing at all. What had they given for the man who was murdered by them at Ballyragget? Nothing at all. As he had just said, it was everything for the landlords and nothing for the people, except blood money and police tax. Those were the methods by which the rule of the right hon. Gentleman was maintained in Ireland, and yet he came down to the House and complained that the Irish Members laughed mockingly. Did he suppose that they were not made of flesh and blood, and that they were to fight him on velvet in that House; whereas, in Ireland, if they happened to fall within his clutches, he fought them with the gaol and chains? It was expected that Irish Members were to be so sensitive of the personality of the right hon. Gentleman in the House of Commons, that they were neither to laugh nor cheer; but, over in Ireland, he was so little sensitive of their feelings that the gaol was quite good enough for them. Only the other day, on the second reading of the Parliamentary Registration (Ireland) Bill, the right hon. Gentleman said the time had come for everybody to speak fully and fearlessly upon Irish questions; but when they did speak their full mind, the plank-bed was the reward for their fulness of speech. The right hon. Gentleman must remember that he treated the Irish Members in Ireland as his enemies, and he could not expect that they would do anything else in that House than treat him as their enemy. This was a quarrel of life or death. It was the struggle of the Irish people fought out in that House, as their forefathers fought it out under different circumstances; and to suppose that they could impart into their debates all the delicate refinements and calm and studied speech which might be good 1135 enough if they were discussing a London Water Bill, was ridiculous and absurd when they were fighting for men's lives, liberties, homes, and families. It was ridiculous to imagine that they would not be shaken by emotions very different from those which a man would feel when he was dealing with an ordinary abstract question. Hon. Members did not understand the position of the Irish Question. It was as much a war now between the two countries as ever it was. The Irish Members were the exponents of the state of feeling which existed in Ireland, and which inspired the great mass of the people of Ireland with hatred and contempt of Her Majesty's Government.
MR. GLADSTONESir, I did not intend to intervene in this debate; but I think that the style of language the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) has thought proper to adopt, makes it impossible for me to remain altogether silent. I do not think that my right hon. Friend near me (Mr. Trevelyan) showed any defect of patience in his dealing with the charges that were brought against the Irish Executive. I must assume that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Monaghan, in the extraordinary tone he adopts, is acquitting his conscience from a sense of obligation to his country, and that makes the state of facts rather formidable. Is it really necessary that the case of Ireland should be stated from the hon. Gentleman's point of view in the language which he has seen fit to use?
§ MR. BIGGARYes.
THE CHAIRMANThe hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) must not interrupt the speaker. I have already called the attention of the hon. Member to the irregularity of his interruptions.
MR. GLADSTONEDoes the hon. Member for Monaghan really think that that is the way to attain the ends which, as a patriotic citizen, he must contemplate and desire? Does he really think it necessary to say that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland is pursuing exactly the same policy, and holding just the same language, as a man who would justify the spitting of Irish babes upon bayonets?
MR. GLADSTONEThe hon. Member complains very much that such language as that is not reported in the English newspapers. Well, I am very friendly to full reports in the newspapers; but I am by no means certain that it is very desirable such language should be reported. I should say, not speaking with the animation and excitement of the hon. Gentleman, but with perfect coolness and deliberation, that such language deserves and requires the severest condemnation and reprobation. I think that it goes directly to stimulate and inflame national hatred. It has been our object and desire, and I may say as long as I have sat here, especially since it has been my duty to deal responsibly with the affairs of Ireland, to do everything and to say everything which may tend to extinguished national hatred. We have not been slow to place ourselves in conflict with English prejudices when we believed it to be in our power to minister to this sacred work. I think it is to be deplored that hon. Members should plead the wrongs of Ireland as an excuse for language so violent. Surely, it need not be necessary to have recourse to expressions so extreme. Surely, the facts of these cases can be stated without exaggeration so pronounced. [Mr. BIGGAR: No.] I suppose the hon. Gentleman the Member for Monaghan thinks it is necessary that, in a country which is to maintain an aspect of civilization, justice should be administered. ["Hear, hear!"] I suppose he thinks it necessary that words should not be used which tend to obstruct the administration of justice. I suppose he knows it is necessary, in the administration of justice, to use, from time to time, the evidence of those who have themselves been guilty of crime. I do not suppose that he is prepared to support the absurd principle, in contradiction to the universal experience of mankind, that because persons have been convicted of crime, they are therefore under no circumstances to be permitted to perform an act of reparation to public justice for their crime, by themselves becoming parties to the conviction of others for crime. If that be so, what right has the hon. Gentleman to throw contempt upon those who take that course? Their position should shield them from the wrath and indignation of the hon. Gentleman, and 1137 I do say that to describe all such persons as "infamous," is to strike a blow at the administration of justice. The hon. Gentleman knows that there are prejudices in Ireland as well as in England. The hon. Member must not set up the doctrine, that human infirmities are confined to this side of the water. He must know very well that the history of Ireland, while it explains, palliates, and, in some cases, justifies such prejudice, yet likewise leaves untouched the fact that great prejudice does exist, and that the manner in which justice has been administered informer times throws the people of Ireland into a state of mind in which they are disposed to suspect and not to sustain. Is it right, under such circumstances, that the hon. Member should come to this House and tell us that nobody but some infamous woman, or some prostitute, having been guilty of crime, will ever appear to promote the administration of justice?
MR. GLADSTONEOught the hon. Member to come forward and exult in that fact, if it be a fact? I do not believe it is a fact. I believe it is a fiction. But, if it were a fact, is he really performing his duty to his country as an Irishman—I will not give any other plea—in exulting in that fact, and interposing another barrier in the way of the administration of justice? I must say that I have listened, with a pain which I cannot describe, to many of these recent discussions. It appears to me that the world is aware that a great work has been accomplished within the last 12 or 15 months in Ireland on behalf, I might almost say, of the common interests of civilized mankind; that a country whose personal life had come to be poisoned by the universal dissemination of crime has become so comparatively peaceful and secure that men can go to their business freely and without apprehension, and can discharge the common engagements of life and keep the contracts they have made without fear of suffering in consequence. I should have thought that those persons through whose agency and responsibility this change—palpable and notorious to all the world, and not to be disguised by anything the hon. Gentleman may say—I should have thought that those persons through whose assiduous labours, 1138 through whose fearless exposure of their own lives to danger, through whose never-surpassed patriotism such results have been brought about—I should have thought that, even in their errors, if they slipped aside for a moment, their intention being undoubted, they would have been entitled to some degree of forbearance, to some degree of respect, to something like moderation of language, even from the hon. Gentleman. I lament the language he has used. I wish to make every allowance. I have said nothing, I hope, in the way of retaliation for the astounding and extraordinary language of the hon. Member. I merely wish to say that such language will be received by us, I hope, so far as we are concerned, and all the accusations that are cast wholesale on my right hon. Friend and on other Members of the Irish Government in particular—of course, we share in the whole of their responsibility—such language will be received by us with patience, as far as we are ourselves concerned, and we shall not be stirred to reply to it. But this I may say—my lamentation for the language used is not because it wounds or hurts us, but it is because there is a great work in view, solemnly incumbent upon every man in this House, and which it is his duty to accomplish, and it is the establishment of peace and concord between these countries; and I hold that such speeches as we have just heard are fatal impediments to the establishment of such peace and concord. They are the greatest difficulties we have to deal with, not merely because of the state of mind they disclose in some persons on the other side of the Channel, but on account of the state of mind they tend to produce here. They tend, under the very necessities of human nature, to produce in the English mind a state of feeling that renders it almost impossible to do real justice to Ireland. It is not merely Conservative prejudice; it is not merely national misgivings derived from former times. It is the violence, the unreasoning violence, of language which is used by the hon. Gentleman, and by men like him, that are the most fatal difficulties in our way in whatever endeavours we make, and whatever wishes we entertain, to do full and absolute justice in every particular to Ireland. I have no right to make any request to the hon. Gentleman. 1139 For me, my share, my personal interest in these matters, can only be of very short duration.
§ MR. BIGGARHear, hear! [Cries of "Order!" from all parts of the Mouse.]
THE CHAIRMANI have already had to call the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) to Order twice; if I have to interpose again, I shall be obliged to Name him.
MR. GLADSTONEBut were this the last time I should speak in the House of Commons, not adopting the language of authoritative rebuke, to which I have no right to aspire, I would beseech and entreat the hon. Gentleman to question and examine himself—and I would say the same thing to others who have spoken in similar tones—to ask himself, to the very bottom of his heart, whether it is really necessary to use these inflammatory tones, and whether we have not reached a point at which some indications have been given by Parliament that they are disposed to do well, and to substitute a state of peace and friendship for the painful inheritance and recollections of the past; and to ask himself, if so, whether he will not himself become a participator in the work of peace, and, instead of provoking and stirring up animosities on this side of the water to come into conflict with animosities upon the other, whether it would not be better to put some curb on expressions which I do not ascribe to anything more than an unrestrained outflow of sentiments—I have no doubt honestly entertained and upright in their aim—whether he would not act more wisely, and more justly, and certainly more in the interests of his own country with a powerful neighbour on this side of the water—whether he would not act more in the interests of Ireland if he would endeavour to introduce into these deliberations something of that spirit of gentleness and moderation, something of that restraint of language which is agreeable both to the traditions of this House, to the social state in which we live, to the very name of civilization, and, I venture to say, to the religion which we profess?
§ MR. HARRINGTONsaid, he was somewhat surprised that the Prime Minister should have thought it necessary to express some doubt as to a portion of the case put forward by the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), without 1140 having heard the whole statement of the grievance of which his hon. Friend complained. He (Mr. Harrington) agreed with the observation of the right hon. Gentleman, that it should be the object of everyone who studied the well-being of Ireland to endeavour to maintain justice and bring about the peace of that country; but he would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he thought it contributed to peace or to confidence in the administration of the law in Ireland that, when Irish Members had to complain of a real wrong, when they came before the tribunal of that House, and before the public opinion of the country, to draw attention to it, the House should refuse to listen to them, and that the right hon. Gentleman, who had been absent during the debate, and to whose opinion the people of Ireland would be glad to appeal, should throw in his weight against Irish Members, while his Colleagues had allowed judgment to go by default? He believed that if the Prime Minister were only cognizant of the manner in which the law was administered in Ireland, and the way in which it was used in the interest of one class over another, the present state of things would not be allowed to exist. When the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland came over from Ireland the Ministry had nothing for him but panegyrics. He (Mr. Harrington) noticed the expression of surprise on the Prime Minister's face when his hon. Friend (Mr. Healy) mentioned the fact that political prisoners had to sleep on the plank-bed; but he could assure him that the Chief Secretary had given him the plank-bed for three weeks at one time; and during several days of that time he was not allowed a breath of fresh air, or a minute for exercise, but was kept locked up during the whole day in a cell 10 feet by 5 feet. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland could not deny that he (Mr. Harrington) was compelled to sleep on a plank-bed. He was glad the Prime Minister was in his place; and he repeated his belief that, if he was acquainted with the mode of administering the law in Ireland, if he knew that the law was made an instrument of oppression, vengeance, and vindictiveness in the hands of one class as against another, the present state of 1141 things would cease to exist. "What were the facts? Parliament had no grip on the administration of justice in Ireland, which was absolutely in the hands of one man, who could do what he liked; if hon. Members wished to address their constituents in Ireland, it was only on the sufferance of the right hon. Gentleman sitting near the Prime Minister (Mr. Trevelyan); wherever they went, from one end of the country to another, they were dogged by his policemen. That was what Irish Members complained of, and what the hon. Member for Monaghan had justly described as treating every Irishman as a liar and a villain, unless he happened to be a policeman. Now, if the Prime Minister was anxious that the people of Ireland should have confidence in the administration of justice, he (Mr. Harrington) would appeal to him not to shut his ears to the facts from time to time detailed in that House; he appealed to him to come down to the House when Irish Members had to draw attention to those matters. Irish Members were as much interested in the establishment of peace as the right hon. Gentleman himself; but he could assure him that Ireland never could be peaceable, and that the people of the country never would have confidence in the administration of the law, so long as it was not just and equal. Now, he was very unwilling to touch on a matter personal to himself; but he would give an instance of the manner in which Irish feeling and Irish opinion were treated, when they were brought under the notice of the House. Some time ago, be (Mr. Harrington) spoke at a public meeting at Mullingar, in the county of Westmeath; he challenged, and was very glad of having the opportunity of challenging, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary of Ireland in the presence of his Colleagues, to bring forward a single sentence of that speech which would justify him or the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in imposing an hour's imprisonment upon him. The right. hon. Gentleman, however, being desirous of justifying the course he had taken with regard to himself (Mr. Harrington), had, on a former occasion, stated in that House that he was a very formidable person, that it was necessary to make an example of some formidable person, and that, therefore, 1142 he had been selected for the honour. Upon what did the right hon. Gentleman ground his opinion of the formidable character he had given him? He had done so, simply on the fact that his Predecessor in Office had done the same injustice, and he took it for granted that his Predecessor was infallible. The right. hon. Gentleman described him as a formidable person, simply because, for a period of 12 months, he had been confined in an Irish gaol, without trial, and on a warrant of the late Chief Secretary for Ireland. He (Mr. Harrington) repeated his challenge to the right hon. Gentleman to produce a single expression in any of his speeches during the agitation in Ireland which would justify his arrest. He would say that he believed in his soul that he had been imprisoned for 12 months for a speech made, not by himself, but by another man. He attended one meeting in Westmeath, as representative of the Land League, and hearing a person on the platform making what he considered to be a violent speech, he interrupted him, and said—"If you make a speech of that character, I shall leave the meeting, and I shall have to protest against the course you are taking." He believed that the official reporter, whose report he had never been allowed to see, though imprisoned by the late Chief Secretary for Ireland, during the interruption put him down as taking up the speaking, and attributed to him the observations made by the speaker in the course of the next 10 minutes. In fact, he believed that he had been imprisoned for 12 months for the observations of another man. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] The Prime Minister seemed to be incredulous to that; but he (Mr. Harrington) fairly threw out a challenge to the Colleagues of the right hon. Gentleman to sift the question. His arrest must have been made upon some definite charge, with some definite reason; therefore, he said, let that reason be got from Dublin Castle, where it was entombed. He believed he should be able to convince the Committee, without much trouble, that this matter deserved investigation. On the 23rd of February, after he had been sent to prison last, the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Jacob Bright) quoted a speech which he (Mr. Harrington) had delivered, and asked if those were the words for which 1143 he was then undergoing two months' imprisonment? The reply of the Chief Secretary was that they were "some" of the words. That reply did not satisfy the hon. Member for Manchester, who asked "if there were any other words" in the speech on which Mr. Harrington was condemned, and, if so, would the right hon. Gentleman repeat them? The right hon. Gentleman gave a general reply, referring to the state of crime existing in Ireland. On being further pressed, the right hon. Gentleman gave, as the passage on which the Government relied, a portion of a newspaper paraphrase of his speech, which was not relied upon at the trial, and which did not appear on the shorthand writer's notes. The passage in question ended thus—
Comfortable farmers in Ireland generally-must be told that if they did not throw themselves into this movement, they would have the whole force of the labourers' agitation directed against them."—(3 Hansard, [276] 713.)He appealed to the Prime Minister to say whether he believed those words, even if he had used them, were a sufficient justification of the Chief Secretary for Ireland sending him (Mr. Harrington) to prison, locking him up in a small cell, compelling him to pick oakum during the entire day, and to sleep at night on a plank-bed? He asked the Prime Minister to go to Ireland, to visit the Irish gaols, and to examine for himself the state of affairs; let him see men repeatedly imprisoned in Ireland for words of this kind; let him see men kept without trial, Assize after Assize; and let him see the temptations offered to them, including whiskey, to give evidence, possibly against some innocent person. If the right hon. Gentleman thought they had no solid case, then let him stand up and give the reason why he thought so. He (Mr. Harrington) believed he had drawn attention to facts which deserved the serious consideration of the Prime Minister. If the administration of such a country as Ireland were in the hands of the Prime Minister; if he found himself solely, without aid and without council, responsible for the administration of justice there, he could well understand how calmly and discreetly a conscientious and high-minded Gentleman, as he believed the Prime Minister 1144 to be, would examine into everything necessary to be examined into with regard to the administration of justice. Threatening notices were always made evidence of the existence of a conspiracy in the localities. In the case of his (Mr. Harrington's) brother, the only evidence produced was that threatening notices were posted, and the magistrates concluded that therefore a conspiracy existed, although it was perfectly easy for one person to have gone round the district and posted them. It was pointed out, in the present debate, that a woman had confessed that she had written the notices. She had given the name of the man who wrote them, and she said that if the persons who originated them were known the magistrates would be surprised, which meant that persons of position were at the bottom of the matter. Taxes were imposed upon the locality, which the people had to pay, and it turned out now, with reference to this particular case, that it was another hoax. If the people of Ireland were to have confidence in the administration of justice, the Government must go upon a different course than they were now following. If the notices in question were printed, and if outrages followed them, why did not the Chief Secretary for Ireland grant a full inquiry into the matter? But the Crown had allowed this woman to go free. He thought the observations of the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) on this subject were not at all too strong, when he said he believed the people of Ireland would be prepared for the statement that she would probably turn up as a Crown witness. The Prime Minister was surprised at that; but the people of Ireland knew very well that that was not the first time such a person had been employed; they knew that, in one case of murder, the Crown had used the evidence of a man who admitted that he paid for the act, and put the pistol into the hand of the murderer; and they knew very well that the chief evidence against the Phœnix Park murderers was that of James Carey, who was taken in hand by the Crown and patted on the back. He would admit that there were difficulties in the administration of justice in Ireland; he would admit that it was an extremely difficult task for the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who was a stranger to the country, and for the Lord 1145 Lieutenant, who was also a stranger to it, to take up the administration of justice as well as it could be done by men who were acquainted with the country and the feelings of the people; but Irish Members complained that, when their attention was drawn to a wrong, they would grant no inquiry, and that in that House they misled the public as to the facts. He (Mr. Harrington) had drawn the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, a short time ago, to the execution of Myles Joyce, in Galway Gaol, for the Maamtrasna murder, and the right hon. Gentleman declined to reply to him. The information he had on this subject came from a Catholic priest, and he had pointed out that the man Joyce was to be executed in Galway Gaol, and that two other men were also to be executed for the same offence. They were found guilty, on the evidence of informers, who saved their own lives by sacrificing the lives of these men. The man Joyce was brought 200 miles away from his home to be tried; this unfortunate man was a peasant, and almost starving; he could call no witnesses; he did not understand English, and neither did the jury nor the counsel understand Irish. Two days before the execution of that man, at the instance of the chaplain of the gaol, the two other condemned men sent for the Resident Magistrate, and made a solemn declaration that they were guilty of the offence. If his information was wrong, the right hon. Gentleman was in a position to show that it was wrong.
§ MR. TREVELYANWhat was the information of the priest?
§ MR. HARRINGTONThe information was, that two days before the execution, acting on the suggestion of the confessor who attended these men, they sent for the Resident Magistrate who originally had charge of the case, and made a dying declaration that they were guilty of the crime for which they were condemned, but that the other man, Myles Joyce, was perfectly innocent. He had not himself seen the depositions, and he might be wrong; but he could tell the right hon. Gentleman that the people of Ireland were very anxious to arrive at the truth of this matter. Public opinion in Ireland, at the present moment, relied upon the statement he had made of the facts which had occurred in this 1146 case, and it was believed that depositions such as he had described had been sent to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He felt satisfied that if this case had occurred anywhere else, it would be the subject of very serious inquiry on the part of hon. Members on both sides of the House. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to lay the depositions on the Table of the House, in order that the agitation in Ireland in relation to this subject might be set at rest. If those depositions did not state the innocence of Myles Joyce, he would at once express his regret for having occupied the attention of the Committee at such length. On the day of execution, Myles Joyce protested his innocence as he left the cell, as he crossed the prison yard, as he reached the scaffold, and actually, when the rope was placed round his neck, he turned to the officials and Press men, and protested his innocence in Irish; and while that was going on the drop was pulled, the rope caught his elbow, and they had the horrible spectacle described of the hangman going down and literally kicking him to death. He said, again, if the depositions were in the hands of the Government, let them be placed on the Table, in order to allay the feeling that this man had been unjustly condemned to death. He believed that the cases he had brought forward would show that Irish Members were justified in drawing attention, from time to time, to the manner in which the law was put in force; and, while he was as anxious as the Prime Minister, or anyone else, that Ireland should be peaceable, he believed that result would never be achieved while the administration of the law remained as it was, and while the Representatives of the Crown continued to stand up and say that the end they had in view justified the means. That was the justification relied upon by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, with regard to the prison rules applied to untried prisoners; but it was, also, the argument made use of by the assassins in Ireland; but the people there believed that the end did not justify the means, if the means were unjust; and, that being so, Irish Members must continue to draw attention to cases of the kind he had described, and to express, with reference to them, the feelings of the Irish people which had 1147 been outraged in a manner that was not conducive to peace and order in Ireland.
§ MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he thought the speech of the hon. Member who had just addressed the Committee (Mr. Harrington) might be cited as an example of propriety of language. His assertions were strong, and it was to be regretted that the Committee had no means of testing them; but the hon. Member recognized the fact, and he (Mr. Newdegate) had never, during the many years he had occupied a seat in that House, abandoned the position, that Parliament was the highest Court of Justice in the Realm. Hon. Members from Ireland had lately become his neighbours in the old place he had occupied for so many years, and he rejoiced that they had furnished him with a bond of union between him and them, which he was proud to own, when they assisted him in resisting an attempt that he thought would bring degradation on the House of Commons—namely, to introduce into that Assembly an avowed Atheist. He hoped that, during the last three years, he had avoided every topic that might be annoying to Irish Members. They knew him to be a firm and not inactive Protestant; they knew that there was a Constitution the chief element of which was Protestantism; and that in defending that Constitution, when circumstances rendered it necessary, he would not shrink from offending them or any other person; but, in consideration of the bond of union he had alluded to, he had waived all topics of controversy that might offend them in order to preserve united action between his new neighbours and himself in opposition to the attacks of Atheism. But he must warn those hon. Gentlemen that they might so conduct themselves as to prove that there was but one topic on which they entertained a respect for the House, and that they might impress the House with the belief that that topic was only accidental. He could not forget that they had reduced the conduct of Business in the House during the last year to a state of confusion which was painful to every English Member.
§ MR. NEWDEGATEI am about, Sir, to advert to the speech of the Leader of the House.
THE CHAIRMANI am sorry to interrupt; but the Question before the Committee is, whether the Vote to the Lord Lieutenant shall be reduced by £1,000?
§ MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he would acknowledge the justice of the Chairman's observations; but, at the same time, the Committee must be aware that they had been forced to travel into questions of Order which had not yet found their proper solution. He had risen for the purpose of thanking the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of that House for the manner in which he had intervened for the vindication of the character of the House. He had often heard the right hon. Gentleman exercise those powers of oratory, for which he was known throughout the world, and he had never heard an appeal more worthy of himself than that which he had addressed to the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy). He had taken down the words used by the hon. Member to which the right hon. Gentleman had objected, and had not the right hon. Gentleman risen, he (Mr. Newdegate) would himself have called the attention of the Committee to them; but he should not now attempt to interfere with the discharge of the high function that belonged to the right hon. Gentleman by one word of comment which would be misplaced after so admirable a speech. He would merely venture to repeat the warning which the Prime Minister had given to the hon. Member, that the language which he had used both with respect to that House and the conduct of responsible Ministers was such as was calculated to arouse amongst the people of England feelings of indignation to which he should be sorry to see them give effect as regarded the Representatives of Ireland.
§ MR. T. D. SULLIVANsaid, the Prime Minister had made a most eloquent and touching appeal in favour of moderation of language in that House; and there was not the least doubt that, to the eloquence of his words, the right hon. Gentleman had added the genuine emotion of his heart in speaking on that subject. But, it seemed to him (Mr. Sullivan) that it remained to be said that, whilst smooth speeches were all very well, it would be better if they had in Ireland a little more of that smoothness 1149 of action which would help so much to improve the relations between the two countries. It would be vain and useless for the Representatives of Ireland to gloss over the just grievances and wrongs of the Irish people. No doubt, it was better to let the truth be known in temperate and quiet words; but, in any way, they must make the truth manifest, and it was that the Irish people had their hearts torn by the treatment they experienced in the name of law and justice. If the Prime Minister desired to heal the animosities and wipe out the prejudices, which, as he truly said, existed on both sides of the Channel, let him so direct the administration of law in Ireland as not to exasperate or excite the public mind by the manner in which the Executive exercised the extraordinary powers conferred upon them. He desired to speak in as mild terms as he could command on this subject; but he found it not easy to do so, because there was no town or village in Ireland where the young men of the place were not in a state of excitement, not because of the administration of justice, but because of the administration of injustice and tyranny throughout the country. He knew it was as much as the younger men could do to keep themselves within the bounds of legality of speech and action, knowing what they knew and seeing what they saw taking place every day about them. Why, the magistrates and the police were the tyrants of Ireland; they could do what they pleased; they could exercise without bridle or responsibility, and in an unjust and atrocious manner, the stupendous powers conferred upon them. If these acts of injustice were isolated and of rare occurrence, he believed the people, in the main, would regard the treatment received as the fortune of war, and think no more of the matter; but they were of constant occurrence, and there was a feeling existing in Ireland at the present day that justice was not being done to them. It was absolutely true that cruelty and wrong were being done day after day, and for that state of things there was no redress. In such deplorable circumstances as these, it was vain to talk smoothly. The right hon. Gentleman said, truly, that he wanted a better state of feeling to exist between the two countries, to which he (Mr. Sullivan) 1150 replied, "Do away with this tyranny." There was no one in Ireland who had sympathy with crime. He had denied before, and he would deny again, that there was a particle of truth in the contrary allegation. The Irish people said, let justice be done; but they said also, let the magistrates and police be compelled to keep within the just spirit of the law. At present, they did nothing of the kind. The Prime Minister was capable of saying words which had a soothing effect upon the Irish people; but hardly were they reported and read in Ireland, when an act of the Executive did away with all their good effect. And let not the right hon. Gentleman think that anything in the nature of oratory would heal the wounds which those acts caused. To establish a state of good feeling, let him put a curb on the men who brought about the unfortunate relations existing between the two countries, because, until that was done, the verdict of the people would be the same as now, and the good wishes of the right hon. Gentleman would remain unfulfilled.
MR. O'BRIENsaid, that, with the eloquent words of the Prime Minister still fresh in their ears, he felt it difficult to address the Committee on the question before them; but he felt bound not to allow the speech of the right hon. Gentleman to pass without pointing out that the fallacy which underlay the whole of it was the idea that the conflict which went on in Ireland last winter, and which was going on still, was merely a conflict between the Government and crime. Hon. Members on those Benches said that the whole aim and secret of Lord Spencer's Administration was to degrade political opponents, to class political agitation with crime and outrage, and to put down agitation under cover of the prejudice excited by crime. What was the state of things in Ireland last year? Meetings were about to be held, and Members of Parliament were about to address their constituents, when men like his friend Mr. Davitt, and the hon. Members for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) and Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) were cast into prison for speeches in which they actually denounced outrage. Men like the Mayor of Wexford and Mr. M'Philpin, men as high-minded as Earl Spencer 1151 himself, were cast into prison and compelled to sleep on plank-beds and wear convicts' clothes; blood taxes and police taxes were showered down on the heads of the people, and the whole administration of the country became one vast scheme of retaliation and vengeance, not for justice, but for the landlords; and yet, in the face of these things, the Prime Minister wanted Irish Representatives to go about teaching affection and submission towards a Government that allowed them to exist. He was afraid he was not skilled in the use of moderate language; but, with a full sense of the responsibility which the Prime Minister had placed upon Irish Members, he ventured to say that the Government need not be surprised if, instead of submission or affection, they had created amongst the Irish people a deep and implacable hatred for themselves and all their works. They had done their worst to degrade their fair political opponents to the level of criminals, and they had only themselves to thank if they succeeded in raising criminals to the rank of political opponents.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, the Prime Minister had addressed a lecture on the subject of political deportment to the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy). which, of course, came with a very good grace from the Leader of a Party upon whom the hon. Member had recently inflicted such a severe defeat. Irish Members should be pleased with the position taken up by the right hon. Gentleman, because their policy was to be as moderate as possible, and the Government were doing all they could to play into their hands. He thought it was reasonable that the Government should listen with some attention to those Irish Members, who, it was well known, had the confidence of the large majority of the people of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman said it was desirable that justice should be administered in Ireland, and in that they were in perfect accord; but Irish Members complained that what was administered in Ireland was something which, under the name of justice, was not justice at all. There were cases of jury-packing, cases of conviction without evidence, and others in which the Lord Lieutenant acted in the most unjust manner, and, notwithstanding the wishes of the right hon. Gentleman, 1152 the fact remained that the grossest injustice was done throughout the country. Then the right hon. Gentleman said they ought to be satisfied if the House showed a disposition to give them fair play and proper measures for Ireland; but his (Mr. Biggar's) experience was that, whenever they brought forward any measure likely to be beneficial, they were sure to wedge in a clause which was exceedingly objectionable, and became itself the cause of more injustice than the Bill was intended to remedy. They had evidence of that fact in a Bill then before the House, with respect to which it was only fair to say that a portion of it was of a most objectionable character; and when Irish Members, speaking with the full knowledge of the requirements of the country, and representing the opinions of the great majority of the Irish people, raised objections and protested against its injustice, the Government, in this ease as in others, in their usual mechanical manner, carried the decision against them, by means of the large majority at their command. Now, the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had also referred to the undoubted good intentions of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He (Mr. Biggar) disputed that proposition entirely. He did not believe in the good intentions of the Lord Lieutenant; on the contrary, he said that the Lord Lieutenant simply pandered to what he believed to be the interest of his political Party, without caring one straw whether his acts were justifiable, or likely to be beneficial to the people of Ireland. That was his opinion, and he believed it was shared by the great bulk of the people. And hence the reason why there was no confidence in the Government, or any part of it. The case which occurred in King's County was only one out of many of its kind. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland complained that Irish Members had interrupted him in the course of his speech; but they had only done so when he was making a statement which seemed to them to be very wide of the mark. For his own part, he was utterly indifferent to the opinion of the Chief Secretary for Ireland; and he would say more—if he were asked for his own opinion of the Government collectively, and of the Members of it individually, he should 1153 certainly be obliged to use language which would be considered un-Parliamentary, and for which he would have to apologize; therefore, he would refrain from saying anything, although the Chief Secretary for Ireland might infer what he thought fit from his remarks. "With regard to the case brought forward by the hon. Member for King's County (Mr. Molloy), the facts were that a largo landowner in the county received a threatening notice; other notices had been distributed in the same district, and all the police tax, with a small exception, was laid on a particular landowner. That fact, of course, raised a strong suspicion in the minds of impartial persons that the Lord Lieutenant laid the tax on the property of the gentleman in question from some improper motive. He (Mr. Biggar) complained that the Chief Secretary for Ireland had not made the slightest attempt to meet the charge that the Lord Lieutenant had unjustly, either through negligence or design, allowed the whole of the tax to be placed on the property of Mr. Carew without taxing the rest of the property in the district. The right hon. Gentleman would see the question at issue. It had been proved that Mr. Carew had himself received threatening letters, and a woman had confessed that she had sent them to him; but, notwithstanding that, Mr. Carew got no redress for the injustice perpetrated upon him. With regard to the woman who confessed that the letters were written by her, owing to some unseen cause, and without any apparent reason, except that the object was to screen some other person, when the case came on for trial the prosecution was withdrawn. Now, he submitted that if a person belonging to the popular Party had been implicated in the charge, the prosecution would not have been abandoned, and the fullest investigation would have taken place. But, in this case, the woman who had confessed was spirited out of the way, so that no means were available for finding out the facts, and thus the persons who encouraged the sending of the letters were screened by the Government. He thought the Chief Secretary for Ireland was wrong in not replying on the facts of the case. The right hon. Gentleman said that, if any explanation were given in these cases, the portion of the Act under which they 1154 were dealt with would break down. Of course it would; but why? Because the Lord Lieutenant had laid taxes on different parts of Ireland, either in defiance of evidence, or without any evidence at all. It was simply because the Lord Lieutenant had no evidence in the present case that the right hon. Gentleman refused any explanation of it; and, therefore, he (Mr. Biggar) felt justified in saying that, were it not for the mechanical majority of the Government, Irish Members on those Benches would not allow this Vote to be taken.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he did not think it right that the debate should close without a few words from him, in reference to the speech of the Prime Minister. There was no one in the House who had greater respect than he had for the right hon. Gentleman at the head of Her Majesty's Government. As long as he remained in the House, he had given cause for hon. Members, however strongly they might differ from him, to entertain feelings of respect for his personal character, and the greatest admiration for his extraordinary genius. If it were merely by his oratory, one might naturally expect that he could lead the House whichever way he pleased. But the Irish Members were a small band of men, and, to a large extent, untrained men, most of them uneducated in the practice of affairs. It was easy, therefore, for the Prime Minister, on occasions of this kind, to use language which, when it was reported outside, would make the worse appear the better reason. The facts of the case under discussion were very simple; but the right hon. Gentleman was not cognizant of them; he was not present during great part of the debate; and his appeal for general amity and peace was no more germane to the matter than if, seeing one man knock another down, he were to say—"My little children, love one another." The Sermon on the Mount would have been as applicable to the case under consideration as the right hon. Gentleman's speech. The Prime Minister's appeal to Christian sentiment had nothing to do with the question they were threshing out; it was not at all to the point, when they were dealing with questions of facts and figures, and with allegations and contentions of the character made that afternoon. The Prime Minister had appealed to them to use 1155 language in the House which would not create prejudice in England, and which would not keep alive in Ireland hatred of England. He (Mr. Healy) wished the right hon. Gentleman would convey to the English newspapers, and to his Colleagues, similar sentiments. It was rather late in the day for those who had been subjected to every form of insult and calumny to be asked to listen to that appeal. Would the right hon. Gentleman instruct the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir William Harcourt) and the Vice President of the Council (Mr. Mundella) not to make insinuating and barbaric statements against Irish Members when they went down to the country? Would he instruct the Press of England to cease the calumnies and misrepresentations which they had so long heaped on the Irish Party? So long as the cancer was eating into their vitals, so long might the right hon. Gentleman expect to hear expressions from the Irish Members which would grate on his ears. The sooner the fact was recognized that there was a state of war existing between England and Ireland the better it would be for the country. It was not a physical war, because the people of Ireland were not able to give it physical effect; but it would be a physical war if the Irish people were able to carry it on. He saw the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) in his place; the right hon. Gentleman must admit the truth of that statement. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: I admit nothing of the kind.] If the contrary were the case, why did the right hon. Gentleman keep up his soldiers, and his forts, and his policemen? He would not go into that; but when they had a state of feeling in a country which would break out into insurrection if the people had the power, it was to be expected that the Representatives of those people in the House of Commons would break out into insurrection in their language. No appeals to fine sentiment would do. Let them have justice. They wanted justice, and nothing else. They had put forward in the House one little incident, and they could get no satisfaction whatever in relation to it. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had told them that the woman admitted the perpetration of these crimes. [Mr. GLADSTONE: 1156 No, no!] What became of the woman? Why was she spirited away? Was she to be put upon her trial? When she was to be tried for certain offences, the Crown withdrew the charge against her, just as they withdrew the charge against the informer Connell, of Millstreet. Why had they no statements upon these facts? Why was investigation refused? Were the Irish people supposed to he down and to be danced upon whenever injustice was committed? When they were struck, were they supposed not to cry out? Were they not to protest against injustice? They found the Chief Secretary for Ireland, no matter what ease was brought before him, would accept the evidence of the commonest policeman, in preference to that of any number of honest and respectable witnesses. The right hon. Gentleman regarded the Irish people as born liars; none of them, in his opinion, had any truth in them, unless they were policemen. Let the right hon. Gentleman show a single case in which he had preferred the evidence of anyone to that of a policeman. He (Mr. Healy) had brought forward in the House many charges; but the right hon. Gentleman had no evidence to offer in refutation, except that of policemen. Let the Irish people have justice and inquiry. He had pleaded for inquiry into the bludgeoning of the people at Wexford; but he could not get it. He had seen his best friends knocked down, kicked, and beaten. The President of the Home Rule Club at Wexford was brutally kicked by a policeman; and he (Mr. Healy) was forced down on one knee, a bludgeon was raised over his head, and he would have been beaten, if he had not been recognized by a local head constable. Why was there no inquiry into the circumstances of the disturbance? Whose fault was it? Did the fault lie with his friends? Five men were convicted yesterday in Wexford for these so-called riots by a Resident Magistrate of the right hon. Gentleman and the local landlords. Five men were now picking oakum, and would that night he on a plank bed. And the Irish Members, who represented them, and knew the injustice, were supposed to keep cool. Were they to have no feeling for the men whom they loved and knew, and who, that night, would be away from their families? No investigation, no inquiry; only eloquent 1157 speeches from the Prime Minister, and appeals to them to be moderate, and gentle, and patient. If everything was comfortable they might be moderate and patient. It was easy for the right hon. Gentleman to be comfortable; but he must remember what Shakespeare said of the impossibility of a man holding fire in his hand by thinking of the frosty Caucasus. The right hon. Gentleman could not expect Irish Members to be as cool in dealing with these matters as himself. The right hon. Gentleman did not appreciate the state of facts when the Irish Representatives put statements forward in the House. Neither all the eloquence of the right hon. Gentleman, nor all the eloquence of all the eloquent men from Demosthenes down to the right hon. Gentleman himself, could pluck from the people of Ireland the rooted sorrow they felt. They could only do it by giving the people justice, and that justice the Government persistently refused.
§ MR. TREVELYANI have already spoken on the Main Question, and I only speak again on account of the persistent oblivion which appears to have come over the minds of several Gentlemen who have spoken since, including, I must say, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-on-Tyne (Mr. Joseph Cowen). I think I am quoting his words correctly when I say he spoke of the woman who had confessed to the outrages which had caused this police tax to be levied as having been "spirited away." There were 13 charges of outrage in King's County; they were outrages against property, including several incendiary fires, and the sending of threatening letters. This woman, who was a thief, said she sent some of the threatening letters, and that, so far as I know, was all that she admitted. We are told that the Statute, which allows the Lord Lieutenant to impose a police tax on any district where there were incendiary fires and outrages, should not have been applied. The police tax was imposed on account of the incendiary fires as well as the threatening letters and the fact that the woman had said she had written threatening letters was surely no reason why the police tax should not be imposed.
§ MR. O'KELLYThe point is, why is there not an inquiry granted?
§ MR. TREVELYANThe inquiry was not granted, because there was no more primâ facie reason for granting an inquiry in this case than in any other. ["Hear, hear!"] Hon. Members who cheer that statement are the hon. Gentlemen who object to have the police tax imposed. In my opinion, the police tax is as quieting, and as self-acting, and as merciful a method of putting down crime and outrage as was ever proposed in Ireland.
MR. JOSEPH COWENThis woman was charged with theft, and she has been got out of the way; the assumption is that she was got out of the way to be used for other purposes in some other place.
§ MR. TREVELYANIn what place, and for what purpose? What has it to do with the question? Let us suppose the police tax was imposed on account of a single incendiary fire; a woman confesses to another crime, and we are told she was being got out of the way. What that has to do with the imposition of the police tax on account of incendiary fires in which this woman was not concerned I do not know. I am not aware where the woman is; I do not think the Government have spirited her away; she has never been brought forward as an informer, and for all I know she has no information to give the Government.
§ MR. HARRINGTONWas the prosecution against her withdrawn?
§ MR. TREVELYANThe prosecution was withdrawn.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORTo screen whom?
§ MR. TREVELYANThere was no question of screening. The woman confessed, whether truly or not I do not know, of having written certain threatening letters, and the prosecution was withdrawn I know not why; and there is no reason why I should inquire into the matter—it has nothing to do with the imposition of the police tax. The hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) discussed over again, in the presence of the Prime Minister, and I think for the benefit of the Prime Minister, several questions which I may inform the Prime Minister have been discussed several times before at great length in this House. The hon. Member for Westmeath complained of the treatment he and his brother received 1159 in prison, and he says that I put him in prison. Well, Sir, I did not put the hon. Member in prison. The Government prosecuted the hon. Member on the ground of a passage in a speech he delivered which had attracted their attention; but from the moment that prosecution began, the matter passed entirely out of the hands of the Government to the tribunals of the country. Hon. Member after hon. Member has got up, and talked about my taking the word of a policeman against the word of a private citizen. It is not I who take the word of a policeman; it is the tribunals of the country. In this case the hon. Member was tried by two magistrates; and it has been said, over and over again, that, practically, these magistrates are as much our servants as the police themselves. That I repudiate on behalf of the magistrates and on behalf of the Government. But the case of the hon. Member for Westmeath was afterwards tried by a County Court Judge, and that County Court Judge was not the servant of the Executive Government, he was a servant of the Crown, and of the two Houses of Parliament, and we have no more power over him than we have over a Judge of the High Court of Justice, who can only be removed by an Address in both Houses of Parliament. I am not responsible for the evidence upon which the hon. Member underwent a term of imprisonment, and I apply the same observation to most of the charges that have been brought against me in the course of this day. Well, then comes the question of the plank bed. The hon. Gentleman, being condemned under the law, was subjected to the ordinary prison regulations; and one of the ordinary prison regulations is, I think I am correct in saying, that, for the first month of an imprisonment, the prisoner should be subjected to the punishment or inconvenience, or whatever it may be called, of a plank bed. [An hon. MEMBER: A luxury.] I will not be sure about dates; but, as soon as my attention was called to the matter, I set to work upon the rather difficult task of arranging that the position of the hon. Gentleman should be ameliorated, and I am sorry the result did not come about earlier. The hon. Gentleman, however, by his experience benefited those who came after him, because 1160 the attention of the Government having been called to the matter, we made arrangements that in certain cases, and for certain offences, the plank bed should not be insisted upon, and that other indulgences, if I may so call them, should be allowed. I must now refer to the case of the hon. Gentleman's brother. The hon. Gentleman brings it forward as a grievance against the Government that his brother was subjected to the punishment of the plank bed. When the hon. Gentleman's brother was put in prison, on account of a matter which attracted a good deal of attention, I took care that the condition of the plank bed should be removed in his case; and what was the reward I got from the hon. Member? He wrote a long and extremely able letter to The Times, which a private Member in the House has described to me as one of the best letters written since the time of Junius. That letter contained a most scathing passage or attack on me for doing what he now blames me for not doing, and that is remitting the punishment of the plank bed. The hon. Gentleman will, I think, allow that the remission of the plank bed in his brother's case was alluded to in the letter to The Times in a very uncomplimentary manner. The hon. Member also said that wrong was done in the case of Myles Joyce. Now, that is a matter into which it is impossible to go very deeply. The hon. Member stated that we did not do in Ireland what would have been done in England—that is to say, that when representations were made to the high officials representing the Crown in the matter of remitting or confirming the sentence of death the information was not made public. If there was one thing more certain than another, it was the practice universally prevailing in England that the grounds on which capital sentences were remitted or confirmed were not made public. So far from that, however, a certain modicum of publicity was given in the case of Myles Joyce, and I will recall the facts. The hon. Member says that information has reached his ears that two of the condemned men made a statement that the third man was perfectly innocent. Well, Sir, I have seen the information which came, and I state that, to my own knowledge, it was materially different, 1161 and that their statement was not at all that the man was innocent, and that it did not in the least invalidate the evidence which had been produced at the trial; but that it, in fact, confirmed the evidence. It was obvious that these unfortunate men were labouring under the idea—which I am told is not uncommon amongst their class in Ireland—that innocence of murder consists in not actually striking the blow, or actually participating in the crime. Another case in which the Government are accused by the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) of turning a deaf ear to was that of the Wexford riots. The hon. Member says that we ought to take his word in the matter. ["No, no!"] Well, he says that, because he states that such and such things took place, we ought to institute an inquiry. The hon. Gentleman is a Member of this House, and, therefore, when he says that such and such things took place, very great weight naturally is attached to his testimony; but it must be remembered that, in cases of a great tumult, one sees one part of the affair, and another sees another part; and if you could only have the Resident Magistrate and the Police Inspector Members of this House, and if they stood up and gave their views on the other side, then we should see whether there was a primâ facie reason for inquiry. But Sir, there is a much more authoritative way of deciding this case, which came before a judicial tribunal. People have been examined who were not policemen and Resident Magistrates, but private citizens of the town of Wexford; and I shall take the only step which, as a Minister who is attempting to do his duty, I could take, and that is to ascertain carefully from official sources what passed at the trial; and then, having consulted with those upon whose advice I can depend, I will say whether there is primâ facie evidence for inquiry; until that has been done I shall not order an inquiry. To order an inquiry into the conduct of the police, without there being serious grounds to believe that they had behaved improperly, would, I imagine, more than anything else, hamper the authorities in Ireland in their extremely difficult task of preserving law and order. But we have got very far away now, I am glad to say, from the language used earlier in the debate. God knows, I have enough 1162 to forget in the course of my duties here, and I do my best to forget the sort of things which have been said here this day. I will ask hon. Members to consider what my position is. Perhaps the most disagreeable and painful experience that I have in my position is to listen to the reflections which are constantly passed upon my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Porter). My right hon. and learned Friend and myself have committed to us the task of doing our best to preserve the peace of the country, or, I ought to say, to restore peace to the country. We do our best, and we use the powers that are put into our hands by Parliament as honestly as we can, and we never punish; in fact, we could not punish anyone at our own will and pleasure. We can see, however, that judicial investigations are made, and we endeavour to secure that the result of those investigations is carried out. When we come down to this House, however, we find we are confronted with 14 or 15 eloquent and forcible speakers, and we find that cases are tried over and over again in an ex parte manner, and with extreme violence of statement; and we, who have had absolutely nothing to do in any sort of way with the passing of sentences upon prisoners, are treated as if we were tyrants who had committed people to prison, or had sent them to the gallows at our own will and pleasure. I cannot imagine a more trying or more distasteful duty than the one I have to perform; but, because it is trying and distasteful, I can conceive no higher privilege than that I should be the man who is called upon to perform it.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, it was not his intention to continue at any length the discussion upon the various details which had been referred to that afternoon. The question as to individual cases of alleged hardship in the different prisons of Ireland was a matter in which, at that period of the Session, at any rate, he might be justified in declining to enter at any length. There were one or two points, however, which had been touched upon in regard to which he might be allowed to make a few observations. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Trevelyan), in his concluding remarks, referred to the duty which had been cast 1163 upon him as Chief Secretary for Ireland in respect to the preservation of law and order—the right hon. Gentleman very happily corrected himself, and said, the restoration of law and order in Ireland. He (Mr. J. Lowther) thought it must be conceded by every impartial witness that the right hon. Gentleman, in the most difficult position in which he had been placed, had exhibited a singular absence of all rancour and animosity, and had conducted himself—certainly so far as he (Mr. J. Lowther) had observed—in the House of Commons in a manner which many of them, if placed under similar trying circumstances, might well be disposed to envy. The right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues might always rely on the cordial support of the Members of the Opposition as long as they preserved an attitude of firmness, coupled, as in the case of the right hon. Gentleman, with courtesy, in dealing with the affairs of Ireland. But the debate which had taken place that afternoon would, he trusted, not be altogether thrown away on the people of this country—he was now speaking of the people of Great Britain. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, who he was sorry was not at the present moment in his place, delivered a speech which was a most singular one, not only on account of its eloquence, but because it betokened that the right hon. Gentleman was at last realizing the true difficulties of the situation with which the Imperial Government had to deal in Ireland. It had always been the practice of the right hon. Gentleman to deal with Irish affairs as if the taking of the property of a certain number of persons, perhaps the most loyal in the community, and handing it over to those who had openly avowed their disaffection to the Sovereignty of the Queen of England, would produce peace and contentment in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman had had, during a good many years past, the opportunity, with a large majority at his back, of trying his hand at the pacification of Ireland by the establishment of a new régime in that country. It was not for him (Mr. J. Lowther) to ask what measure of success had hitherto attended the efforts of the right hon. Gentleman; but they had, in the speech delivered that afternoon, evidence of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman himself now realized that the various schemes 1164 he had propounded, and which he said would have the effect of not merely discharging what he considered a duty towards the people of Ireland, but would have the effect of producing in that country a feeling of grateful regard and respect towards the Government of England, had proved a complete failure. The right hon. Gentleman had had an opportunity, during the last few months, of realizing the truth of his statements, upon the faith of which, no doubt, the assent of Parliament and the country was obtained to the measures he had proposed; and his speech that day was a practical confutation of the entire policy which he had pursued for the last 15 years. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister used to be in the habit of speaking of his Friends the Liberal Members from Ireland, and he used to appeal to the hon. Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw) as the embodiment of popular opinion in Ireland; he used to refer to the hon. Members for County Cork (Mr. Shaw) and County Gal-way (Mr. Mitchell Henry), and others who thought with those hon. Gentlemen, as the impersonation of national aspirations; and he (Mr. J. Lowther) had often ventured to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that he was leaning on a broken reed. He had always maintained, though he deeply deplored the fact, that the Party which was represented in that House by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) and the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), and by those who acted with those hon. Gentlemen, was the Party who represented, at the present moment, the large majority of the people of Ireland. Why he dwelt upon this fact was, that he never thought any good was occasioned by deliberately refusing to recognize the actual facts. The Prime Minister, time after time, contradicted him when he made such a statement; and on one occasion the right hon. Gentleman went so far as to say that he (Mr. J. Lowther) was guilty of calumny—an unwitting calumny—in making the statement. Now, when he found that those who were responsible for the Government of Ireland failed to realize what was a great element in the political situation, he thought he was justified in calling their attention over and over again to what were the actual facts. He had said that the Party represented by the hon. Member 1165 for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) and those who acted with him was the Party who, at the present moment, represented the popular feeling of Ireland. But how long would they continue to do so? So long, and so long only, as that Party was the Representative of the greatest amount of hostility to the British connection. So soon as any other combination which held out to the people of Ireland a still greater intensity of opposition to Great Britain arose, the hon. Member for the City of Cork and those who acted with him would be relegated to that limbo of exploded and extinguished volcanoes which was now filled by the hon. Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw) and those who, acting under his Leadership, used to succeed in imposing on the Prime Minister and making him believe that they were the Representatives of Ireland. Hon. Members below the Gangway knew perfectly well that never was the position of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) so insecure as when he was found, red-handed, negotiating and bartering with the Imperial Government for what was supposed to be his own personal advantage in connection with the historical location which he occupied for some time under the auspices of the present Government. However much they might regret the language that had been used that afternoon, they must, he feared, realize that, if certain hon. Members desisted from employing such language, they would do so at the risk of forfeiting their popularity in Ireland. He hoped the Committee would seriously consider this question. The policy had been tried of taking large sums out of the pockets of the loyal inhabitants of Ireland, and thereby alienating the good opinion of those people; and the Members of the extreme Irish Party constantly took credit for having been the means of having brought about that result. Rightly or wrongly, large sums of money and valuable rights had been taken away from those who were loyal to the British connection, and handed over to those who openly stated—and they deserved credit for their candour—their hostility to the British connection. He had always said that the hon. Member for the City of Cork had the honesty to avow the dishonesty of his policy. The other day the Prime Minister, availing 1166 himself of the opportunity of delivering an extra-Parliamentary utterance, spoke of the improved state of affairs in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman omitted to state that the cause of the improvement of affairs in Ireland was that he himself had tardily recognized the falsity of the conclusions he had previously drawn, and that he had ceased to hamper those of his Colleagues who had cast upon them the duty of maintaining the Queen's authority in Ireland. If the Prime Minister intended the House to understand that the cause of law and order in Ireland was one whit stronger intrinsically than it was when he himself realized the mischievous character of the policy he had previously adopted, he was wrong. His (Mr. J. Lowther's) own conclusion was that the moment the strong hand was withdrawn from the lawless elements of Ireland there would be a state of affairs precisely similar to that which existed some time ago. He did not wish to be misunderstood, when he drew attention to the fact that the hon. Members led by the hon. Member for the City of Cork represented popular feeling in Ireland. He thought English people ought to realize that there was in Ireland a decided and powerful feeling in favour of separation from the rest of the United Kingdom. The people of England must be prepared to face such a condition of things. He hoped the Government would, by judgment and firmness, decline to relax, in any shape or form, those necessary safeguards for life and property which the Prime Minister had very tardily allowed to be adopted by the Executive in Ireland. The policy pursued by the Government during the first two years had resulted in signal, conspicuous, and, he was bound to add, well-merited failure. The policy which had been adopted now for some 12 months past had yielded very great results. It had, to some extent, though not entirely, restored the rule of law and order—not to the extent which Ministerial speakers upon post prandial occasions were apt to assert—still it had achieved great results with regard to the protection of life and property in Ireland. He only hoped they had seen the last of these attempts to obtain Irish votes from English towns, which was, he ventured to say, a great moving factor in the wire-pulling calculations at the present 1167 time. The Government must know that they must rely, in the long run, on the loyal classes in Ireland, such of them, at least, as they had not driven out of the country or rendered altogether powerless, and on British public opinion, which, whilst determined to do all reasonable justice to the people of Ireland, would preserve their rights, liberties, and property without allowing them to plunder each other. He ventured to say that nothing could be more demoralizing than to bid for the support of that section of the people who appeared to have, at the moment, the greatest amount of Parliamentary influence—to obtain that support at the expense of the minority, which minority had rendered itself unpopular with the majority of their countrymen by nothing so much as their loyal adherence to the British connection. That being so, he hoped the Government would persevere in the lines they had tardily adopted, and that they would have no more negotiations or attempts to procure Irish support by questionable devices such as they had seen on recent occasions. He did not include in that category the most recent bribe, as it was called, in the shape of the Tramways Bill. He would not include that, because an eminent personage, who had gone before them, and who at one time had held the Office of Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant and had afterwards been Prime Minister of England, had said that the only way to govern Ireland was to hold in one hand a heavy purse and in the other a thick stick. That was an utterance attributed to a great statesman; and he (Mr. Lowther) must remind the Committee that that personage, and those connected with him, always intended to keep the thick stick in readiness solely for the purpose of protecting one class of Irishmen from outrage at the hands of another class. The object was not to put down any legitimate national aspiration compatible with the good government of the country. The Tramways and Public Companies (Ireland) Bill proposed to bestow Imperial funds upon Ireland—not to take away the property of one class and give it to another; and, consequently, differed from the other bribes previously offered by the present Government. He hoped the Government would proceed on the lines they had 1168 now adopted, and which, unfortunately, they had not adopted at an earlier period.
§ MR. DAWSON (LORD MAYOR of DUBLIN)said, he was certainly a disciple of the policy laid down by the right hon. Gentleman who had just resumed his seat (Mr. J. Lowther). He was the best patriot who told the truth—the best patriot both to his country and to that House. It was most desirable that the truth should be well known. In the course of this debate reference had been made to the difficulty of bringing the truth home to the mind of the English people. He (Mr. Dawson) was convinced, from what he knew of the English people, both in England and abroad, if they had full and perfect information with regard to Irish questions, they would find hon. Members on the other side of the House acting in a very different manner, or have many of them relegated to "another place," instead of having them legislating in this House for that country. Sometimes, when Irish questions were discussed early in the day, and when there was quite time for the debates to be well reported, they found the newspapers filled with matters concerning Basutoland, the claims of Ceylon, or Cetewayo, whilst the people of England were left in ignorance as to the welfare of the Irish nation. Were the English people truly informed of the condition of that country? The Committee ought to remember, in justice to the English people, that a great factor in the present condition of Ireland was this unfortunate ignorance. The principal medium of communication between the two countries consisted of the "Correspondents" in Ireland—the gentlemen who corresponded with the newspapers. Let them take a typical case—a Correspondent of The Times, that great organ—probably the greatest and most influential in the world—the great organ which took the opinion of England beyond the seas. Who was the Correspondent of that journal in Ireland? Why, the gentleman who represented The Times in Dublin was a political partizan, who kept back everything that was just to Ireland, and sent over everything that was unjust and untrue. He (Mr. Dawson), himself, had written to The Times very often; and he must confess that whenever he had appealed to its columns he had been treated with 1169 the greatest courtesy and fairness—and had enabled him, at times, to do something by way of undoing the evil work of the gentleman to whom he alluded. Doctor Paton was the Dublin Correspondent of The Times; he was the Editor of The Daily Express, the mouthpiece of the landlords, the exponent of Orangeism, the detractor and calumniator of the Irish people. Such was the Correspondent of The Times in Dublin; such was the person who was responsible for the information given by that paper in regard to Ireland. Did he (Mr. Dawson) overdraw that picture? To show them how true was the sketch, he would point out that a statement had been made by this gentleman in The Times to the effect that a statement had been made by the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) that he and his family had been driven from Ireland by terrorism. The hon. Member for Leitrim had written to say that he had never made any such statement; that it was not true; and that, not being true, he never could have uttered it. The Daily Express and The Times, however, never published that repudiation; and the hon. Member had been compelled to appeal to the columns of a Liberal journal in Ireland to publish it. And yet this biassed, untrue, unfair, and malicious agency was the only one through which information relating to Ireland could reach the English people. He was aware of many of the virtues of the English people—he knew of their pluck, self-reliance, and backbone, and he wished to God they had more of those qualities in Ireland; for if they had, he knew perfectly well that they would soon win for themselves those victories, and soon obtain those Constitutional advantages which were possessed in England, and would retain them with a firmness which no cajolery would deprive them of.
THE CHAIRMANI must point out to the hon. Gentleman that though the debate on Irish policy travels over a very wide field, yet the question into which he is now entering, as I understand it, is not connected with the conduct of any salaried officer of the Crown. The hon. Gentleman is travelling somewhat wide of the Question before the Committee.
§ MR. DAWSON (LORD MAYOR of DUBLIN)said, that, under the circumstances, 1170 he would not pursue the subject any further; but the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. J. Lowther) had laid such emphasis on the truth being known, that he (Mr. Dawson) had ventured to point out how little the truth was known. He wished to ask the Committee, in regard to the statement of the Chief Secretary for Ireland concerning the violent language of Irish Members of Parliament, what had ever moderate language obtained, and what had ever polished sentences achieved? What had eloquence—eloquence from that of Burke down to Isaac Butt—done for Ireland? It had produced applause from the Treasury Bench, but nothing else—no material benefit to Ireland. Could the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland put his hand on anything he (Mr. Dawson) had said of a violent character in or outside that House? No; his request had always been for weapons of a Constitutional kind, instead of the weapons of physical force. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was giving such weapons to them, and he was thankful to him for it. But as to violence of language it was sometimes necessary in Ireland. On the Bench in Ireland, after one of those tirades to which the Irish people were so accustomed, a Judge had given as an excuse for the extravagances of his manner that he was obliged to adopt a violent manner, for that, if he spoke in ordinary language, it would have no effect, and that the case was so terrible that it required a most extraordinary demonstration. He had said—
It was like my fate when I went into a restaurant in Dublin the other day. I wanted the waiter, and to attract his attention I tapped on the table in the most polite manner possible. No one came to me, although there were several waiters leaning against the mantel-piece at the top of the room—evidently talking politics. I knocked again, this time more loudly; but I was still unattended to. I jingled the glasses, no one came; I smashed the glass, and I had 20 waiters round me in a second.It was the same way with politics in Ireland. An Irish Member might employ classic phrases, and might argue from premiss to premiss, and from conclusion to conclusion, for all time, without achieving anything like what the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) could achieve with one of his powerful 1171 denunciations in a minute. This was a lesson to him, showing him that if he wished to do anything he must be forcible. If he was to obtain anything, he must abandon the suaviter in modo and adopt the fortiter in re.
§ MR. O'KELLYsaid, he had paid great attention to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. J. Lowther), who had spoken in the interests of the Party responsible for nearly all the intrigues which existed in the country; and, in reply to it, he had to say that, so long as the House continued to sustain, as it did at the present time, the power and influence of these men in Ireland, so long would there be an entire absence of peace and contentment in Ireland. Now, what was it they were struggling for in Ireland? It was to get such control over the affairs of their own country as Englishmen had here. Irishmen and the Irish Members wanted their country to be ruled according to the will of, and for the benefit of, the people. What was it stood in the way? Why, that part of the population represented by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. J. Lowther.) The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland said—and said very truly—that over the magistrates in Ireland he had no power. That was perfectly true in one sense. The right hon. Gentleman had no power over them to restrain them—no power to direct them into the way of Constitutionalism. No expression of opinion—not even a vote of that House—could make the Irish magistrates walk in the way of liberality or justice to the mass of the Irish people. Why? Because these men were drawn from the very class represented by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Lincolnshire. That class were, and had been for centuries, the persistent and venomous enemies of the mass of the Irish people. In that sense, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland was justified in saying that the Government had no controlover the magistrates of Ireland. But who had control over them? The landlord class had—that class which represented all that was hateful in the eyes of the Irish people. In the very admirable speech which the Prime Minister had made, he had laid great weight 1172 on the necessity and on the wisdom of every man in that House so conducting himself that his conduct and his speech would lead to better relations between the two countries, and particularly of the Irish Members so conducting themselves as to create—not to restore, for it had never existed—a feeling of friendship between England and Ireland. Well, that feeling, or that condition of things, could not be brought about by speeches. No amount of speech—even speech as eloquent as that of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister—could efface from the mind of the people the knowledge that they were daily subjected to outrage at the hands of the agents of the Government, and that, in the smallest matters of daily life, they found themselves in contact with the police and the magistracy, who exercised their power as tyrannically as it was ever exercised. Nothing could efface from the mind of the Irish people the fact that the Government carried their protection of the Irish police as far as they possibly could—that they used their influence and power in the most brutal and oppressive manner daily and hourly in Ireland. Why, at every moment of their lives the people of Ireland found themselves looking down the muzzles of the loaded muskets of the Government, and upon the points of their bayonets, and at the batons of the police. They could not do the slightest thing in Ireland, they could not hold the most innocent meeting, without the police and armed military being brought up with their muskets pointed in the face of the people, ready to shed their blood on the slightest notice. Very often the police made an excuse for the shedding of blood. In the name of guarding the peace, these men frequently became the agents of provocation—they made any excuse for the use of violence, and the use of their arms against the people. Well, as long as they had such a condition of things existing in Ireland, it was vain to hope that more kindly expressions from the Treasury Bench would restore peace, or lay the basis of anything like a reasonable or peaceful understanding between the two countries. The Government must address themselves to the ameliorations of Irish life, and, if they wished to give them that kindness in act which they poured 1173 on them in words, must allow them to govern themselves reasonably, and give their ministers of all kinds to understand that they were to act in Ireland as they would be compelled to act in England. They must so regulate the military and civil and judicial functionaries in Ireland as to protect the rights and liberties of the people—they must pay the rights and liberties of the one country the same respect as those of the other. When they did that there might be some hope that an age of peace and reconciliation would begin to dawn. But the Government were deceiving themselves wondrously if they imagined that by mere speeches in the House they could accomplish that work. The people of Ireland had had a long experience of the British Government, and that experience had been a very bitter one. The memory of that Government was written in the blood of their forefathers in the minds of the Irish people; and it would take a good deal of ameliorative legislation to bring the Irish people into that condition of mind when they would be prepared for real union with the British Government. But if ever that time was to come, it would have to be brought about by leaving the people of Ireland, as far as possible, beyond the principles and advice given to them by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. J. Lowther). He told them they must keep their strong hand upon Ireland. If they did so, the time would come when that policy would land them in disaster—the day would come when their strong hand would be weakened, and they would then get the benefit of their strong-hand theory and their strong-hand Government. If Irishmen were to remain in this Empire they would remain in it on conditions of equality as freemen—on conditions of absolute equality. That was the only condition on which they would be able to make a real union between the two countries; and the sooner they set themselves to the work of uprooting nearly all that had been done for hundreds of years, and basing their Government on the will of the Irish people, the sooner would they be likely to bring about peace. Any attempt short of that would fail, and would, as he had said, only land them in disaster.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, that he was rather struck by one fact—namely, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary 1174 for Ireland had made two speeches of considerable length, raising a variety of topics, but altogether evading the primary complaint against the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. That complaint was that, whether or not it was desirable that this police protection should be given in a particular district, in one case the expense of that protection had been laid entirely on the property of one particular gentleman—namely, Mr. Carew. The right hon. Gentleman had not been able to give the smallest explanation. If he had been able to give the slightest reason why this blood tax should be put on it, there would have been some excuse for it; but he had not. He had failed to show that Mr. Carew, or any one on his property, was guilty of outrage; and it surely was something new to him (Mr. Biggar) to say that the putting of a tax upon an innocent man would have a tendency to put down outrage. To his mind it would have an opposite effect. The guilty party, whoever he might have been, who had committed these incendiary fires, and had got off with impunity, would be more likely than not to repeat the offence when he saw someone else punished. The case of the Government seemed to have altogether broken down on this matter. The right hon. Gentleman said they had the power, by the authority of the House, to levy this tax by their own will and pleasure; but if they did that—as had been pointed out by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate)—surely the parties who had to pay should have a right of appeal to the House, and of criticizing the conduct of the Government. Moreover, it was for the Government to defend their action when it was called in question. On this occasion, however, the Government had not attempted a defence. They had given no explanation of their conduct, and it was fair for the Irish Members to assume that that was the ordinary way of administering the law in Ireland. If the law was administered unfairly and improperly, as it evidently had been in this case, what was to prevent the Resident Magistrates acting as they pleased, seeing that there was no means of criticizing their conduct? Mr. Carew happened to be a gentleman against whom no imputation could lie; but, at the same time, the conduct of the Government 1175 had been so unfair that no one could attempt to defend it.
§ MR. KENNYsaid, he thought the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. J. Lowther) was to be thanked for the character of his speech: but in his allusion to the policy of the English Government, and the statement of an eminent English politician, as to their "holding a purse in one hand and a stick in the other," the right hon. Member had omitted to say that, to the people of Ireland, the purse had usually been a very light and the stick a very heavy one. The Irish Members were determined that this presentation of the heavy stick to the Irish people should not continue longer than they could help. However, he would not follow the right hon. Gentleman in his interesting discourse, but would direct a few observations as to the manner in which the blood tax was being levied in a certain part of Ireland. He objected to the principle of the tax. It was a tax which did not exist in any other civilized country in the world; and it was the cause, he believed, of much more crime than any other tax. It worked both ways. In many poor districts of Ireland, where the people were so badly off that they were scarcely able to live, and yet where they paid such heavy rents and taxes, they found that through the operation of this blood tax 5s. or 6s. was imposed on the overburdened people. It was a question whether, amongst these people, this additional burden did not cause heart-burning, and was not the cause of crime breaking out in the country at one time or another. He would refer to the case of Isidore M'William Bourke, who applied for compensation under the Prevention of Crime Act for the murder of his brother, who lived near Galway, on the ground that the property he had inherited from his brother was a property which had entailed a dead loss to him, and that simply because he had endeavoured to carry out the policy in the practice of which his brother had lost his life. On the evidence of this man £1,500 was awarded him, and £500 to a sister, who was the only real sufferer by the murder. It transpired afterwards that the man had concealed the fact that half of the property had been in his own hands; that it was managed for him by a steward, and worked annually at a profit of between £1,000 and 1176 £2,000. The counsel who appeared for the ratepayers at the inquiry was entirely ignorant of this state of things in Galway; but it was necessary, also, to hold another Court of Inquiry in County Mayo. In the meantime, a suspicion arose as to the real condition of affairs, and a communication on the subject was sent to the second legal gentleman who appeared in County Mayo; but it did not reach him in time. The result was that Mr. Bourke was unjustly awarded an enormous sum in compensation for an injury which had not occurred to him. On looking into the majority of these awards, they found that there were sometimes exemptions made so far as the payment of the tax was concerned. But who were the men who were exempted? Invariably Protestants, or landlord-parasites. These people were exempted now and then, and the result was that the tax fell upon the peasantry, and those who stood by them, who could not be at all suspected of the commission of the crimes in respect of which the taxes were levied. Men had to contribute who were known to be entirely innocent. There was another feature in this matter—namely, the demoralizing effect of this tax. In the case of the murder of the Joyce family, the whole family were destroyed to prevent the discovery of the murderers. The men who went on this murderous expedition knew perfectly well that if they spared any member of the family the survivor or survivors would be sure to apply for compensation under the Prevention of Crime Act, and obtain a large award, which would be levied on the district. The result was that they committed a wholesale massacre, killing off a whole family, for the purpose, probably, of escaping from the effect of this blood tax. So that the tax operated badly as a means for the suppression of crime. He had already drawn the attention of the Chief Secretary for Ireland to this matter—the award to Mr. Isidore Bourke—and had asked for an inquiry; but that had been refused, and the people who had to pay the tax went on dragging out a miserable existence under their heavy burdens, having to pay a tax of nearly 20s. in the pound.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he had a question to raise as to the case of Mr. Edward Harrington, who was at present suffering imprisonment; and he 1177 supposed he might as well raise it now. The cause of Mr. Harrington's imprisonment had been the issue of a placard which had been printed in several parts of Tralee; and, as a great deal turned upon that placard, he might as well read it to the Committee. It commenced—
To the men of Ireland. Castleisland to the front!And then came an allusion to the Queen, which he would not read—Take notice, that we, the men of Tralee, are now ready to form a branch of the Invincibles in this town, and any person desirous of connecting himself with it will kindly make every active and secret inquiries at the upper part of Boherbee, whore weekly meetings and drillings will be carried on. And you must also take notice that any person or persons acting contrary to the orders of his superior officers will as sure as he has breath in his body meet with a worse death than Lord Cavendish and Burke got. As we intend to make history, we must remove all tyrants. Blood for blood. Poff and Barrett were unjustly executed by the bloody Government of England, and we must have satisfaction. Death to landlords, agents, and bailiffs. By order of the Tralee Invincibles. God save Ireland from informers.He thought it necessary to state that this placard was found posted up on the walls, in some parts of Tralee, on the 18th May, Joe Brady being executed on the 14th; and the reason he put those two facts in juxtaposition was this—that the placard called upon the people of Tralee to form themselves into an Invincible Society within four days of the time when one of the Phœnix Park assassins paid the penalty of the law. In fact, it was at the very moment that the Government had shown its power to bring every member of the Invincible Society to a speedy and terrible punishment. He would call the attention of the Committee to some of the words of the placard. The placard said that any person who was desirous of joining a murderous and secret, and, of course, an illegal conspiracy would—Kindly make every active and secret inquiries at the upper part of Boherbee, where weekly meetings and drillings would be carried on.Boherbee, he would point out, was the name of a well-known street in Tralee; so that people were called upon by a public placard to assemble in a public street for the purpose of forming themselves into an Invincible Society. At the trial, which was the result of the 1178 publication of this placard, the document was described by the prosecuting counsel who appeared against Mr. Harrington as one of the worst placards which had ever been published. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) believed one of the prosecuting counsel said it was a placard that would make one's blood curdle. Why, his (Mr. O'Connor's) description of it was that it was simply childish, preposterous, incoherent, and ridiculous in the highest degree. What took place after the posting of the placard was this—the first act of the drama was the seizure of the newspaper—namely, The Kerry Sentinel—with which Mr. Edward Harrington and the hon. Member (Mr. Harrington) were associated. All the copies of the paper, he believed, were also seized and taken away, but were afterwards restored. The Chief Secretary for Ireland made a great point, or endeavoured to make a great point, out of the fact that these prosecutions in Ireland were altogether independent of the Executive. But this prosecution had taken place under the direction of the right hon. Gentleman.
§ MR. TREVELYANI said the prosecutions took place upon the initiative of the Representatives of the Government; but that there our connection with them ceased.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR, continuing, said, that, after the seizure of the paper, Mr. Harrington and the persons connected with the office were taken before two Resident Magistrates—gentlemen of whose integrity and independence they had had such touching testimony from the right hon. Gentleman that day. The case occupied two days. On the opening of the case on the second day two apprentices connected with the office of The Kerry Sentinel instructed the counsel who was defending the officials connected with the office to declare that they (the apprentices) were guilty, and that they had not only set up and printed, but had afterwards posted this placard. Well, what occurred upon this? Why, in the face of this confession of guilt on the part of the two apprentices, the whole staff of the office were sentenced to different periods of imprisonment. Mr. Harrington and the printer were sentenced to six months' imprisonment. An appeal took place before the County Court Judge (Mr. Morris), who on that occasion delivered 1179 one of the most extraordinary judgments he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had ever read. He described the placard as a most terrible document—a placard which, to his (Mr. T. P. O'Connor's) mind, was utterly ridiculous, nonsensical, and incoherent, without a particle of originality, and containing the very worst commonplaces of criminal documents in Ireland. This document was described by an intelligent County Court Judge as the work of high political intelligence. Well, on an appeal, the two apprentices to whom he had referred were brought up before Mr. Morris. They were put upon the table, and repeated what they had stated through their counsel on the second day of the trial. They stated that they were the composers of this document; and yet, on the face of that testimony, Mr. Harrington, whom he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) believed to be as innocent as his brother or himself (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. For throe months that gentleman had not been allowed to receive a visit from his friends, and he spent 20 hours every day in his cell. What was the statement of the Government in regard to the case of those boys? It was that the lads were put up to make the statement. "Oh!" said the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, when allusion was made to the case in that House, "why did not the boys make this statement on the first trial?" Well, they did make this statement at the first trial. They made it clearly and palpably; and it was on their own confession alone that they were sentenced, and that they were suffering imprisonment. "But," said the right hon. Gentleman, "what was there to prevent the boys being communicated with between the two days of the trial, and induced to concoct this story?" Well, the right hon. Gentleman knew very well that there was no opportunity for any communication taking place between the two boys and the other persons charged with the offence, and between them and persons outside. But, whether there was any communication or not, these two boys made the statement, and they were sentenced and put into prison. His (Mr. T. P. O'Connor's) contention was that this document bore upon the face of it the strongest probability of the story of the two boys being correct. What was the 1180 balance of probabilities? Why, it was whether two young men—two mischievous and inexperienced boys—composed and issued a bill calling for the public organization of a private murder conspiracy, or whether it was composed by a man of education, fitted to be the editor and proprietor of a newspaper. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) contended that it was monstrous, perfectly preposterous, and beyond the credulity of any sensible man, to say that this placard could have been concocted by the editor of a newspaper and not by those two boys. There might have been some justification respecting Mr. Harrington. His office was ransacked; his correspondence was seized, and, amongst other things, a letter from Mortimer Shea of a most ridiculous character was found—a letter six, or seven, or twelve months old—lying about the office. What did the sapient prosecutor say with regard to this letter? Why, that it was a proof of the wickedness of this document, and a proof of the wickedness of the people in this office, who, instead of destroying the document, allowed it to be saved. Why, if Mr. Harrington had had any sympathy with a document of that kind, it stood to reason that he would have taken the very first opportunity to destroy it, or, at any rate, to prevent its being lying about loose. In future, then, the possession of a dagger, or the poisoned bowl, was to be taken as evidence of the intention to commit murder—the open possession of the very thing which, if a person were inclined to commit murder, would be the first concealed. He was willing to form his judgment of the future of the Executive in Ireland by their action in reference to this case. If they did not let Mr. Harrington out of prison within 48 hours of this discussion, he should contend that they justified the most violent things which had been said of them outside the House; because they would have given ground for the idea that they wished to confound the innocent with the guilty, not to make mad the guilty, but to appal the free.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, that in discussing this matter he would endeavour to abstain from language that might provoke angry criticism. He thought a very radical misconception as to what was the duty of the Government 1181 prevailed amongst hon. Members opposite. It was the duty of the Government to prosecute where there was a strong primâ facie case; but when the case was in the hands of a tribunal, there their duty stopped—for the result of the legal investigation they could not be responsible. However, it was necessary that the Committee should be placed in possession of the facts of the case, a little more fully than it had been already by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. T. P. O'Connor). Statements of fact made in that House were necessarily very often ex parte statements—very frequently statements were made which it was absolutely impossible to contradict. Such had been the statements of the hon. Member for King's County (Mr. Molloy), which, in one of its aspects, concerned not himself nor his right hon. Friend (Mr. Trevelyan), but must have concerned his Predecessor, and as to which not the slightest intimation that the subject was to be brought forward was afforded him. He had had no opportunity of examining into the circumstances under which the right hon. and learned Gentleman his Predecessor (Mr. Johnson) had come to the conclusion that the case in question was not one which should be examined into. He said this with a view to asking the Committee to suspend its judgment, as the case might turn out to be altogether devoid of foundation. He trusted the Committee would give him an opportunity of correcting statements made in that House which were hardly fair and reasonable. It had been stated that, in the case of a conviction at the Cork Assizes, instead of the punishment of penal servitude for life, which should have been inflicted owing to the nature of the offence, if it had been properly brought home to the prisoner, only two years' imprisonment were given; and the Committee were asked, at the time, to draw the inference from the fact that the person who imposed that sentence did not believe in the guilt of the prisoner. He (the Attorney General for Ireland) did not think a more atrocious charge could have been made; because it implied that the Judge ought not to have left the case to the jury, and should have directed his discharge, but, in neglecting to do so, he had been a party to the punishment of a man whom he knew to be innocent. Since the case had been 1182 first mentioned he (the Attorney General for Ireland) had been informed that it was a misdemeanour, and that, as a matter of fact, the Judge had imposed the maximum penalty for the offence. He would request the Committee to suspend its judgment in that case. He admitted that the necessity for the suspension of judgment did not equally apply in the ease of Mr. Harrington; and here he would repeat what he had already indicated—namely, that it was not his duty to defend or criticize the decision of the magistrates or of the County Court Judge. He had no control over these results; but he would tell the Committee what really happened. The town of Tralee was placarded with a document which commenced—"To the men of Ireland. Castleisland to the front. To hell with the Queen," &c, going on to request the men of the town to form themselves into a branch of the Invincibles. The description given by the hon. Member for the borough of Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) of this document—namely, that it was incoherent, childish, and ridiculous, and altogether preposterous and absurd, was hardly the description which he (the Attorney General for Ireland) would be disposed to give of it. It was not, certainly, a masterpiece of composition; but he had never seen a threatening letter, or a document of this kind—and he had seen many of them—which was not faulty in some one or other of its aspects, and which could be described altogether as a masterpiece of composition. If it was a joke, it was a singularly unfortunate one, considering the condition of the country, and considering the time at which it was perpetrated—a time at which it was calculated to produce a most unfortunate impression on the people's mind. It was well known where it was printed. By the powers the law gave, there was a search made, and it was found that the document was printed upon paper used for printing The Kerry Sentinel. Not only that—it was proved that the type had been set up from what was called in the newspaper office a "forme" used in the production of that newspaper, and the type used in printing the document was the same as that used on a newspaper. In fact, there was conclusive internal evidence that the document had not only been printed at that particular office, 1183 but in the very forme in which the newspaper was produced.
§ MR. HARRINGTONsaid, that was not the case. Two distinct sorts of type were used. Those in that House who knew anything about printing would appreciate the distinction when he told them that one notice was printed in brevier, whilst the other was in leaded long primer.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, that there was other evidence as to where the document had emanated from. It was proved, for instance, that this notice had been printed there, from some parts of the wall of the office, where papers which bore printing upon them and other paper in the office which had not been printed upon were found to exactly correspond. It was not denied that Mr. Harrington was the person primarily responsible for the office; for he was not only editor, but manager; and he, and some of the persons connected with him, were summoned. On searching the office it was found that not only was this particular document printed there, but that the letter referred to by the hon. Member (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) was also there, together with another letter. There was clear proof that some person outside, whose name had not been given by the hon. Member, at any rate wrote to someone in authority in the establishment, asking for the printing and dissemination of similar documents. That was many months before; but the hon. Member must see how enormously that strengthened the argument. The person who wrote asked to be supplied with half-a-dozen printed notices directing tenants when and how they should act, and those notices were surreptitiously posted up.
§ MR. HARRINGTONasked, whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not know that the letter was the production of a lunatic?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, he knew nothing of the sort, and never heard of it; but, however that might be, the matter was brought before the magistrates, and on that occasion Mr. Harrington and the other persons charged were represented by one counsel and 1184 one solicitor acting for them all. On the first day of the case, when it was not admitted that this document had been printed in the office, there was no statement that anyone connected with the newspaper knew anything about it. On the second day, the counsel who represented the foreman and the employés stated that the two boys were willing to admit that they had done this, but not with the knowledge of any evil. That cleared them so far as they were concerned. Mr. Harrington was not aware of the existence of this document, and had never seen it until it was produced in Court. The newspaper published in this office contained a paragraph referring to the document, and stating that the streets had been placarded with a quaint document, of which it gave a copy. There was no word of condemnation of that document, but simply a reference to it as a "quaint document." The boys pleaded guilty, and they were just as admissible as witnesses on that occasion as any other persons, and they were afterwards examined on the appeal. Evidence was never refused, for it was never tendered. Counsel stated that, the boys having pleaded guilty, no one else must be regarded as guilty; but the magistrates could not assent to that, and it was a matter of consideration whether the action of the boys was anything more than an attempt to save their employers. He (the Attorney General for Ireland) did not say it was; he was only stating that these were the facts before the magistrates. The boys were examined on the appeal before the County Court Judge; and the account they gave, being separately examined, was so absolutely contradictory in many most important particulars, that the magistrates said the Attorney General was perfectly justified in rejecting their evidence. The person who wrote the newspaper article referring to the document as a "quaint document" was produced; and it was said that he himself had written that document, and not Mr. Harrington; but he also admitted that Mr. Harrington had dictated it. It was plain that the document was printed in some newspaper office in Tralee, and the Judge had abundant grounds for the decision he came to, and he was in a better position than the House of Commons to judge of the matter. The House of Commons, in constituting itself a Court 1185 of Appeal, was undertaking a function which would be very troublesome, and which it was not competent to perform. On these grounds, it seemed to him that there was no reason for the argument of the hon. Member for rejecting this Vote.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, the Committee had now had the statement of the Crown, and he supposed that was their best argument. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland said the House of Commons was not to try cases; but what other chance was there of getting justice, unless by drawing attention to these matters, and so trying to expose the infamous and ruffianly system of which the hon. and learned Gentleman was the mouthpiece? It was one of the most ancient functions of the House of Commons to keep watch and ward over the action of public servants. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had made a point about this "forme." Had he ever been inside a newspaper office? This letter he said was found in the same "forme" as the letter from Michael Davitt; but did not everyone know that, in order to apply it to the press, the "forme" must be filled up with some kind of matter? The first portion was filled up with the letter from Michael Davitt, and then this placard was put in in order to make up the "forme." The right hon. and learned Gentleman had spoken of the letters that went to a newspaper office; but he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) would appeal to anyone who was acquainted with a newspaper office whether it was not the receptacle of every wild and insane document that could come to the mind of man? There was not a newspaper office that did not receive insane, threatening, or murderous letters. Because his hon. Friend (Mr. Harrington), in the middle of a disturbed district, received an insane letter from an acknowledged lunatic, the right hon. and learned Gentleman insinuated that the hon. Member had permitted his office to be used for the dissemination of murderous and assassinating placards; and he and the Prime Minister had delivered to the Irish Members a lecture on decency of conduct, and made charges against Gentlemen whose standard of honour was superior to that of the Crown officials. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said Mr. Harrington was able to describe 1186 the document in question; but were there not many people in Tralee who had seen the document and were able to describe it? Because, five days after the document was posted all over the town, the editor of a newspaper was able to describe the document, the right hon. and learned Gentleman asked the Committee to believe that, therefore, he had antecedent knowledge of it. A more monstrous thing could not be asked of an intelligent body of men. The right hon. and learned Gentleman further said the evidence of the two boys was contradictory; but the County Court Judge had said that the evidence undoubtedly agreed in the main particulars. What had the right hon. and learned Gentleman to say now? What had the smiling, even-tempered Crown Prosecutor to say to that? He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) did not say the evidence was not contradictory in details; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman said it was contradictory in essentials and not in trifling matters. The right hon. and learned Gentleman and the Chief Secretary for Ireland knew it was nonsense to say they had no power to interfere with the administration of the Courts of Law. Had they no power to withdraw from prosecutions, and was it not in the power of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, when he thought that injustice had been done, to restore the person who had suffered injustice to liberty?
MR. JOSEPH COWENsaid, the Committee were not going to review the decision of the Court in all its details; but this gentleman and his two apprentices were now in prison, and the question was whether it was wise, under all the circumstances, to keep them there. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had said that they could not interfere with the judicial proceedings of the Courts; but it was a notorious fact that the Irish Government had interfered with judicial proceedings. They initiated and controlled those proceedings; but was it wise, in the interest of peace in Ireland, to retain these persons in prison? The Prime Minister had made a vigorous appeal, with a view to a better spirit between the two countries; but was it likely that the imprisonment of Mr. Harrington would create or foster a better feeling? It was possible that the whole thing might have been a hoax by 1187 foolish and reckless apprentices. "Would anyone say that men, seriously engaged in a conspiracy, would ask their fellow-citizens to meet in the market place? Would anyone suppose that the Invincibles would post placards, asking their associates to meet each other? The very suggestion of the thing condemned it. He would admit that, in the disturbed state of affairs which existed in Ireland at that time, it might have been injudicious to allow this joke to be perpetrated; but the term of the boys' imprisonment had now expired, and Mr. Harrington was detained, although he said he knew nothing about the matter. Anyone who was acquainted with a newspaper office would know how this thing could have been done without the connivance or knowledge of the editor. Under all the circumstances, he hoped the Chief Secretary for Ireland would, at least, say that this case should be taken into consideration, if he could not do more towards promoting that kindly feeling to Ireland upon which the Prime Minister had so effectively spoken. Was it reasonable to suppose that an intelligent man like the editor of a newspaper would concoct such a document as this? The proposal was preposterous; and as to the discovery of some threatening notices in the office of this newspaper, plenty of such things could be found in newspaper offices in this country. Threatening notices had been sent to Mr. Harrington, and the very fact that they were not destroyed was evidence that he was not a party in the matter. If he had been accustomed to deal in these practices, or to circulate these placards, he would have taken precious good care to have destroyed these documents; but this was an ordinary occurrence. Would hon. Members imagine what would have happened if an English newspaper office had been treated in this way? Not a single English newspaper had had the manliness to denounce these proceedings, and yet more outrageous and indefensible proceedings could not easily be conceived. It might be admitted that Mr. Harrington should be punished for negligence; but he had been for some time on the plank bed, and had suffered sufficiently. His paper had been destroyed; and was not that punishment plenty? It was quite clear that he was being punished for something of which he was not guilty. 1188 If he was guilty of printing this notice, let him be put upon his trial. He was not being punished for that offence, but because he was supposed to be in sympathy with the popular Party in Ireland. The best plan for the Government would be to allow him to be released.
§ MR. HARRINGTONsaid, he hoped the Committee would forgive him for taking some part in this discussion, as the matter was one in which he was personally concerned; but as he had attended the trial, and had a clearer knowledge of the facts than the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, he wished to say something in reply to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's observations. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that, although he and his right hon. Colleague were responsible for the initiation of such proceedings as these, they were not responsible for decisions and sentences. That proposition had been repeatedly heard; but he (Mr. Harrington) asserted that in this particular instance they were not only responsible—not alone for the initiation of the proceedings, but for the sentences inflicted by the magistrates, and by the County Court Judge. This document, which his hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle (Mr. Joseph Cowen) had so well characterized as foolish and frivolous, was not, as had been represented to the Committee, a placard. It was not a placard in the ordinary sense of the word; it was simply a small slip, such as young boys, working in a newspaper office, could set up without the cognizance of anyone else; and in this case it was clearly proved that these boys had done this in the absence of the foreman. That fact was brought to the knowledge of the Crown officials, and the foreman printer of the Dublin Evening Mail had stated that any apprentice in any newspaper office might have set this up without the knowledge of the foreman, and that he had repeatedly done that sort of thing himself. That was the statement of the witness brought from Dublin by the Crown. What was the form of the proceedings taken by the Crown? He would invite the attention of the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland to this point, because the right hon. and learned Gentleman had misled the Committee as to what took place at these 1189 trials. The right hon. and learned Gentleman stated that it was quite competent for these boys to be produced as witnesses at the first trial in defence of his brother, Mr. Edward Harrington. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman must know that it was not competent for them to be produced, because they were included in the common indictment with Mr. Harrington and the foreman. If the Crown had wished to do justice in the case, instead of indicting the proprietor or managing editor in common with the merest apprentices in the office, they would have given him a fair opportunity of defending himself by proceeding against him by a separate summons. But, in order to make it impossible for him to make any defence, they indicted him by a common indictment together with all the other persons in the office. The two boys pleaded guilty, but only when they heard him (Mr. Harrington) distinctly swear in the Court that he believed this document was printed in his office, and they saw that he would sift the matter to the bottom. He (Mr. Harrington) was surprised at the lamentable want of knowledge of the facts on the part of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, who was responsible for the conduct of the case. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had stated that it was perfectly competent for these boys to give evidence, but that they had not done so; but, according to the newspaper reports, this was what occurred—
The evidence closed yesterday evening, and it was intimated that Mr. M'Inerney would address the Court this morning. When the Court opened Mr. M'Inerney stated that two apprentices, Robert Fitzgerald and Maurice Kean, admitted to Mr. T. Harrington, in the course of an investigation last night, that they themselves set up and printed the Invincible notice without the knowledge or instigation of anybody.Mr. Ronan was the representative of the Crown, and was supposed to prove every one guilty who was prosecuted by the Crown. Mr. Ronan said—These boys were mere underlings in the office. It was very remarkable that the case should have been met up to yesterday with an emphatic denial that the document was printed in The Kerry Sentinel".How did he justify that statement? Neither he (Mr. Harrington) nor his brother had ever seen the placard in question; but the police went to the 1190 office and seized the type and machinery, and every letter there, even those he had written in the days of his boyhood. All these letters were in the hands of the Crown officials. He challenged the right hon. and learned Gentleman to produce any evidence from them that would bear out the infamous imputation he had cast upon himself and his brother. Mr. Ronan said these boys were mere underlings in the office, and he asked the magistrates not to accept their plea; and by complying they shut Mr. Harrington out from the benefit of the evidence of these boys. Yet the Attorney General for Ireland coolly stood up to inform the House that it was competent for them to give evidence. He would read the report further—Mr. E. Harrington: We never saw the document until yesterday. I can swear that I never saw the printed notice until yesterday.The right hon. and learned Gentleman had said that the magistrates had evidence to lead them to the conclusion that his brother had knowledge of this document; but in opposition to that he would put the statement of the magistrates themselves. Their statement was written out and was read to the reporters. The prosecution, he would first explain, was under the section of the Prevention of Crime Act which alleged that they had taken part "in the operations of an unlawful association," and so on; and the magistrates held that the evidence of one policemen, who proved that threatening notices had been from time to time posted in Tralee, was sufficient evidence of conspiracy. It was necessary to prove conspiracy; and the magistrates, as usual, believed the policeman. Every man of intelligence knew that one single lunatic such as the one who wrote the letter which the right hon. and learned Gentleman had quoted could publish hundreds of threatening notices all over the country. In their judgment the magistrates said—The whole of the defendants were charged, under Section 9 of the Prevention of Crime Act, with having knowingly taken part in the operations of an unlawful association, as defined by the 24th section of the said Act," &c.Then they said—One part of the law has been rendered easy by the complete acknowledgment that this atrocious notice, inciting to murder, was printed in the office of The Kerry Sentinel.And, continuing, the magistrates said— 1191After carefully reviewing the evidence adduced on the part of the Crown, as well as that for the defence, we can come to no other conclusion than that the diabolical notice received by Mr. Huggard, and found posted through the town by the police, was a notice calling upon the people to commit a crime—that it emanated from The Kerry Sentinel office, and therefore from the employés in that office.The common sense and intelligence of every man in that Assembly would show him that one single individual could have turned out that document; and yet the magistrates said it had emanated from the employés in the office! They continued—The defendants now before us are, in a greater or less degree, guilty of being concerned in the printing and posting of said notice," &c.Those who pleaded guilty were guilty in a less degree; but the men whom the Government wished to punish—their political opponents—and that was the kernel of the whole matter—were guilty in a greater degree, and sentenced to six months' imprisonment—The defendants now before us are, in a greater or less degree, guilty of being concerned in the printing and posting of said notice; and therefore, taking into consideration the atrocious nature of the threatening notice, and also the fact that, for a considerable period, as detailed in evidence, numerous outrages have been committed and threatening notices posted in the neighbourhood of Tralee, and judging by the contents of Mr. Sheehan's letter, and the acknowledgment of the printing staff, that the present notice emanated from The Sentinel office, we feel bound, not only to show our abhorrence of such acts, as well as to mark our disapproval in the strongest manner possible of such conduct on the part of the employés of any newspaper, but we have to inflict such punishment as we trust may prevent any such similar conduct on the part of those employed on any newspaper.Therefore, even if the admission had not been made by the two boys that they had printed the document, every individual in the office, from the editor to the apprentices, would have been found guilty by these two magistrates. He would appeal to every hon. Member to consider what chance of liberty or freedom any editor in this country would have if a newspaper office in this country was broken into and the type and machinery was seized, and the editor was accused of sympathy with crime, and included in a common indictment against everyone employed in the office. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had read a portion of a letter found in The Sentinel office. That letter had been 1192 handed to him (Mr. Harrington) at the trial, and he recognized the writing. There was no signature to it; but it was written from all points of the compass, similar to dozens of letters which had been received by every man who was prominent in Irish politics, from the same unfortunate person who signed himself "Colonel O'Sullivan, M.P." That letter asked for the assistance of 40,000 men to take possession of his holding; and the right hon. Gentleman wished to hold him responsible for the assembling of 40,000 men who only existed in the disordered imagination of this unfortunate man. Then the right hon. and learned Gentleman said a letter was found in the office asking for "Boycotting" notices to be circulated; but what were the facts? The right hon. and learned Gentleman stated that a letter was handed to him in the witness-chair. It was dated 12 months before that time, and he had said that it had been received by him when he was managing the office, and that it had never been seen by his brother. But he looked on that letter as a forgery. He knew the man who was supposed to have written the letter, and he knew that that man could not have written such a letter; and he was prepared now to say that, from the time when he became connected with this newspaper, and with the agitation in Ireland, he bad never had any connection with threatening letters. He was cross-examined, and his allegation was found to be true. Since then the Crown had found out that that letter was a forgery, and that it had been sent by a man who was in collusion with the police; and they had discovered the writer and were now prosecuting him. He had been returned for trial; but how had he been found out? He had been found out by a policeman, for whom he had written some letters to the hon. and gallant Member for the County of Dublin (Colonel King-Harman). That policeman stated that that man had written a memorial for him, and he had recognized the writing as that of a man who was in collusion with the Crown; and because of that letter his (Mr. Harrington's) character was to be assailed. There was one other point which it was necessary to clear up. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had stated that the County Court Judge had grounds 1193 for not basing his decision on the evidence of the two boys; but, admitting that, had he any ground whatsoever for coming to his conclusion as to Mr. Harrington? The presumption was that a man was innocent until he was found guilty. Could the right hon. and learned Gentleman prove anything that would bring home guilt to Mr. Harrington? The document was, on the face of it, so absurd that no intelligent man could have written it; but there were circumstances connected with it that rendered it still more absurd. It was written on a short slip of paper, and how did the Crown recognize it? The right hon. and learned Gentleman said it was attached to the letter of Michael Davitt; but the boys had stated that in rolling the ink over this notice, they had rolled it over Michael Davitt's letter, which stood in the same galley, and upon that circumstance the right hon. and learned Gentleman wanted the public to believe that his brother was guilty. The thing was a farce and a monstrous absurdity, and it was only under such an administration of justice as there was in Ireland that such an absurd thing could be attempted. These boys only made a confession on the second day of the original trial, and they were immediately taken into custody and sent to gaol. It was absolutely impossible for any man who was convicted and in prison to communicate with his friends, and it was a monstrous absurdity to suppose that a plan could have been devised by which these boys would make this confession. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman thought that the two boys who confessed that the placard was their work had been "got at," and induced to take the guilt upon themselves and screen the managing editor, let him (Mr. Harrington) tell him that the two boys had been dismissed by his brother, and that they could now be found working on a rival newspaper at Tralee. It was clear as noonday that he had deserted these two lads, and allowed them to go to gaol; but any man of intelligence would know that it would be absurd for him to expect that these two boys would afterwards come forward to make a statement in his behalf. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman was still in doubt, or was still anxious as to whether he had done justice in this case, he might go to Tralee, and there, 1194 as he (Mr. Harrington) had said, he would find these boys working in a rival newspaper office, and he would find that they would make the same statement now, that they were guilty and Mr. Harrington was innocent. He had full knowledge of these facts; for he had studied the case carefully. He did not expect that the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his Colleagues would go back upon the work they had undertaken; but he was satisfied that 99 per cent of the population of Ireland knew that his brother was innocent. He made no appeal on his brother's behalf to the right hon. and learned Gentleman; and, if he did so, he was sure that his brother would repudiate his action. His brother, he knew, could bear his imprisonment as he himself had done, like a man. He had been imprisoned three times by the underlings of the right hon. and learned Gentleman; but he simply stated, for the information of the Committee, what everyone acquainted with him in Ireland knew, that on each occasion the Government had imprisoned an innocent man. When he challenged them to bring him in this case to trial they shrank from doing so. He did not wish to be understood as making any appeal, for he should be ashamed to make any appeal to those who, he believed, were not influenced by motives of justice, but by political partizanship, and who were driven into the course they had taken by an enraged faction in Ireland, who were as bitter against the right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench as they were against him for the part he had taken in Irish politics, and who, if they could, would consign him to the same imprisonment.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he was sorry that no attempt had been made to answer his hon. Friend (Mr. Harrington); and he thought it disrespectful on the part of the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland and the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He had seen the right hon. and learned Gentleman most malignantly——
§ MR. CALLANsaid, if the expression was un-Parliamentary he would withdraw it; but solely because it was un-Parliamentary.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he would withdraw the expression without any qualification. He had only given his reason for withdrawing it; and he did not require any censure from the Chair. The hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) had shown very plainly why his brother should not have been imprisoned, because of the action of these two apprentices. It was alleged that Mr. Harrington was in the office at the time, and ought to have known of this matter; but the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland had been present at Green Street when the Irish juries were packed, and yet he said he was no party to that packing, although it was done, in a way, under him. His friend, the chaste and virtuous Mr. Bolton, was present, and packed the juries without any word of reprobation from the right hon. and learned Gentleman; and yet he said he was no party to that, and the House of Commons had acquitted him of all complicity in that infamous proceeding. When it came to the case of an Irish editor, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said he was in his office, and ought to have known what took place. If Mr. Harrington was to be held responsible for what was done by one of his apprentices, or a printer's devil, and was to get six months' imprisonment for what he know nothing of, what ought the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland to get for being present at the packing of the juries by his virtuous friend, Mr. Bolton? Ought he not, in equal justice, to get the same punishment as Mr. Harrington? He (Mr. Callan) had known the right hon. and learned Gentleman for some time, and he knew him to be drawn from one of the worst classes in Ireland.
THE CHAIRMANI must warn the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) that if he continues to use language so offensive towards Members of this House I shall have to Name him.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he could understand the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland adopting the course he had referred to; because, as regarded the Roman Catholics in Ireland, he (Mr. Callan) knew the feelings of the North of Ireland and the Unitarian Whigs. As to the Phœnix Park murders, the feeling created in the breast of every Irishman was that James Carey 1196 was the principal culprit. There could be no doubt whatever that the four men who were executed for participation in the Phœnix Park murders could have been brought to justice equally as well by the evidence of others besides James Carey. Then, why was James Carey selected? He (Mr. Callan) wanted to give the Government an opportunity of clearing up the matter; and he was glad to see the Secretary of State for the Home Department in his place, because he could not help looking upon the right hon. Gentleman as one of the principal culprits. He understood that the detective authorities, and the police, and the then Law Officers of the Crown were altogether opposed to James Carey being selected as the approver, but that they were overruled. He wanted to know if that was a fact; and he should like to give the Chief Secretary for Ireland an opportunity of denying it. It was said that influence was brought to bear upon the Lord Lieutenant, by which he was induced to shelter that infamous character, James Carey, by whose instrumentality was committed the assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish, and that James Carey was saved from the scaffold by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. It was stated in Ireland, in extenuation of Lord Spencer's character, for having saved that ruffian's life, that there was a meeting of a Sub-Committee of the Cabinet, who had an interview in London with the Legal Authorities, and it was further stated that the detectives assured the Law Officers of the Crown that they could actually prove all the facts connected with the assassination without the assistance of James Carey. Notwithstanding, Carey was selected as an approver, in the hope that he might be able, in some way or other, to besmirch and implicate the Irish Members of Parliament as having been participators in this conspiracy. That was stated very generally in Ireland—namely, that influence had been brought to bear upon the Cabinet by the courteous and large-hearted Secretary of State for the Home Department. He (Mr. Callan) wished, therefore, to have an explanation of the matter; and he desired to afford an opportunity to that right hon. Gentleman of disavowing the statement made with regard to him, that he was the person to whom they were indebted for the fact that James Carey was 1197 chosen to convict the other conspirators. He (Mr. Callan) wished to be generous, and to afford the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity of indignantly denying any participation in the selection of Carey as the approver to convict the men who actually assassinated Lord Frederick Cavendish. It was either the Lord Lieutenant, or the right hon. Gentleman, and the Committee ought to know which was the guilty party. He saw that the right hon. Gentleman smiled; but would he deny that he was the person to whom the people of Ireland were indebted for the selection of Carey?
§ MR. DALYsaid, that at any other time he would have been prepared to excuse the warmth which had been imported into the debate, and to feel that the time spent in discussion had not been spent in vain. The question, however, more directly before the Committee was the imprisonment of Mr. Harrington; and perhaps the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) was not aware that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had, at some length, defended the action of the Government in that matter. He (Mr. Daly) had listened with the greatest possible attention to the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman; and he hoped, in the interests of truth and justice, that every word of it would be carefully recorded. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that he was not there to defend the decisions of the magistrates, and then the right hon. and learned Gentleman made a curious allusion. On two occasions, he referred to the time and the circumstances. Now, he (Mr. Daly) would ask for the calm attention of the Committee and the country to the main facts of the case. First of all, take the value of the document. Could any sensible man believe that it ever emanated from anybody for a serious purpose? Furthermore, there was the clearest proof that it must have emanated from this newspaper office. Could any reasonable man believe that the editor of a newspaper intended to publish a document which carried with it damning evidence that would at once convict him? The case was endeavoured to be further strengthened by the statement that when the office of The Kerry Sentinel came to be searched another document of a similar nature was discovered; but, as 1198 the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Cowen) said, if that document was a dangerous one, why should Mr. Harrington have left it lying about, under the circumstances alluded to by the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland. There was one singular fact in connection with the speech of that right hon. and learned Gentleman. When he came to discuss the appeal made in this case, and to defend the decision arrived at by the County Court Judge, he gave, as his principal reason, that the County Court Judge assumed that Mr. Harrington had seen the document. What did that amount to, looking at it in its broadest light? It meant that a man was to suffer the disruption of his business, imprisonment for six months, a plank bed, and all the other amenities which attended imprisonment, upon the mere assumption of the Judge. What could be said for the Constitutional liberties of the country, when justice was administered in that way? He hoped that the statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman would receive the widest publicity, and that it would be the moans of explaining to every honest Englishman what the circumstances were which attended the Vice-regal rule in Ireland. If the outrage which had been committed on Mr. Harrington had occurred in any other country—in Bessarabia or in Turkey, for instance—there would have been a loud outcry raised by the Liberal Press against such outrages being committed on innocent people. Having heard all that could be said on both sides of the case, he could not doubt that the printing of the placard originated entirely in a reckless and ill-considered boyish freak; and he much mistook the character of Englishmen, and would, in future, have little faith in the justice and honour of the English people, if that day's discussion did not arouse in the minds of people of this country a feeling which would demand that the innocent man, who had been so cruelly wronged and imprisoned in a time of excitement, should be at once released, and should receive proper amends for the injustice he had suffered.
MR. O'BRIENsaid, that after the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) he almost pitied the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland for the humiliation he had had 1199 to undergo that day in defending the prosecution of Mr. Harrington. Of all the many stupid things which had been done by the Irish Government, he thought the imprisonment of his hon. Friend and his brother was about the most stupid. It was bad enough to seize a paper for something contained in it that was considered to be violent, dangerous, or inconvenient to the Government. There was, however, a brutal recklessness about this case. He (Mr. O'Brien) had had some experience of persecution at the hands of the Government, and he had never quarrelled about it. Although The Kerry Sentinel was a very formidable paper in Kerry, not because it broke the law, but because it taught the tenants of Lord Kenmare to be dissatisfied with the old rack rents they had had to pay, it was not attacked openly, or brought openly to account for anything that appeared in it; but the Castle officials considered that it was better to try and affix a fatal brand of crime against its manager, and so they trumped up this monstrous and incredible story, that a sane man would be insane enough to permit his own type and his own printing office to be used for the publication of an idiotic placard like this. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had admitted, any man with a head on his shoulders would know that the moment that placard appeared on the walls of a town like Tralee any practical printer would be able to tell from what office it came, and in what type it was printed. The idea that an educated man, knowing that so many lynx-eyed persons were watching every part of his newspaper office, would commit a virtual suicide in that way was preposterous. There was nothing in the annals of human nature to equal it. The thing was so absurd and incredible, that it did not require the confession of the boys in the office to show that it was not a thing with which the editor could have had anything to do. He (Mr. O'Brien) was as certain as that he lived that the local landlords' evictions were the circumstances which really instigated this proceeding against Mr. Harrington, and that Mr. Harrington knew as little about the placard as a child unborn. If the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland wanted an instance of the causes which 1200 made men mad and reckless, he (Mr. O'Brien) was sorry that the right hon. Gentleman had not listened to the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington), so that he might be able to compare it with the lame and impotent defence set up by the Government.
§ MR. BIGGARthought the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had made out a wonderfully poor case against Mr. Edward Harrington and the foreman printer of this paper. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had refrained from entering fully into the merits of the case, on the ground that it was no part of his duty to interfere with the due administration of justice in Ireland. He (Mr. Biggar) granted that that was so up to a certain point; but he knew that it was not at all uncommon for the Secretary of State for the Home Department of this country; and for the Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, to look over the evidence which had been given in criminal cases; and if they found that no case had been made out, it was quite within their province to remit the punishment altogether, or to lessen the term of imprisonment. Although his hon. Friend the Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) had made no appeal on behalf of his brother, and, perhaps, would not thank him for doing so, he (Mr. Biggar) must confess, at the same time, that if the Government were disposed to do justice in the case, they ought at once to release from imprisonment, not only Mr. Harrington, but also the foreman printer.
§ MR. HARRINGTONsaid, that the foreman printer was released on appeal.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, the case in regard to Mr. Edward Harrington appeared to be this—the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland laid great stress on the fact that, when the two apprentices and Mr. Edward Harrington were first brought before the magistrates, and the same counsel and attorney were representing the whole of the three, no confession of guilt took place on the part of the boys. Surely the right hon. and learned Gentleman ought to have sufficient knowledge of his Profession to know that it was no part of the duty of the counsel to acknowledge either the innocence or guilt of a client, until they heard what the nature of the evidence 1201 was. When the second day arrived, and the counsel understood the sort of case attempted to be made out on behalf of the two boys, they stated what really had occurred—namely, that the boys themselves were guilty of printing the placard, and that Mr. Harrington knew nothing about it. He thought there was sufficient evidence to show that the placard could not have been printed by Mr. Harrington or the foreman. The placard insinuated that the foreman was a leader in a particular movement, and had called upon the people to come out for drill in the neighbourhood where they lived. It was preposterous that the foreman printer would thus have accused himself of being guilty of a serious offence, for which, if convicted, he would be liable to most severe punishment. For that reason, he (Mr. Biggar) thought that the document itself ought to have proved that the foreman printer had nothing to do with the matter. There was the testimony of the two boys, that they had printed the document, and that Mr. Edward Harrington knew nothing about it. Therefore, the case of the Crown entirely broke down. There never had been anything except a mere case of suspicion against Mr. Edward Harrington. Of course, there was a general theory that the editor and conductor of a newspaper was liable for everything which appeared in it. It was contended that he ought to look over every proof, and see that his contributors were trustworthy persons. But this was a charge, not of publishing anything in the newspaper, but of printing a certain placard, and against Mr. Edward Harrington there was no case whatever. When the case came before Mr. O'Connor Morris, the County Court Judge, as soon as he saw the placard, he said that it was a most reprehensible document, and that nobody could defend it; but that was no reason why Mr. Edward Harrington should be convicted of printing it, when there was no evidence to show that he had ever seen it, or had had anything to do with it. There was no evidence, nor even the slightest innuendo, that he had been accustomed to print either threatening notices or Moonlight notices; and there was no connection whatever established between Mr. Edward Harrington and this particular placard. If Mr. Harrington had seen the placard, he 1202 would, in all probability, have treated it as waste paper; and, in point of fact, a document was found in the waste-paper basket which was proved to have been written by a man who was a lunatic, and perfectly irresponsible for his actions. His hon. Friend the Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) said that as soon as these boys were sentenced to two months' imprisonment they were turned out of their employment at The Kerry Sentinel office, and that they were now in the employment of a rival paper proprietor. That fact afforded proof that, certainly, the Harrington family had no direct object in keeping on good terms with these boys; and if the boys had printed the placard at the instigation of Mr. Edward Harrington, nothing was more probable than that that gentleman would have endeavoured to keep in their good graces for fear of exposure. He (Mr. Biggar) might refer, also, to the article which appeared in Mr. Harrington's newspaper, showing that the placard must have been printed in one of the newspaper offices in Tralee. If Mr. Edward Harrington had a guilty conscience, it was hardly likely that he would have pointed to his own office as the place where the document was printed. This was only another instance of the way in which justice was administered in Ireland; and he thought the Government ought to make the only amends in their power by immediately releasing Mr. Edward Harrington.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he saw the Prime Minister in his place, and he would appeal to him for an explanation which he had vainly attempted to obtain from the Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Attorney General for Ireland, or the Chief Secretary for Ireland. In Ireland it was universally regarded as an infamous proceeding that James Carey, the real organizer of the Phœnix Park murders, should have been selected as the approver to bring the perpetrators of that deed of assassination to punishment. It was rumoured in Ireland that the detective officers and the police officers were unanimously against the selection of James Carey; that they said they would be able to convict the conspirators without Carey's assistance, and that Carey being the principal man and the chief organizer of the crime was the first man who ought to have been 1203 brought to the gallows. It was added that influences were brought to bear, and that the Lord Lieutenant was induced to yield; but that, before doing so, the matter was referred to a Sub-Committee of the Cabinet. It was stated and believed in Ireland that Mr. Jenkinson, the Chief Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department, came over to London, and recommended that Carey should not be selected as the instrument to bring others to justice; but that, in consequence of the influence of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Carey was selected as the instrument to bring others to justice. He (Mr. Callan) did not know how there had come to be such a kindly feeling between the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department and Carey.
THE CHAIRMANI have already cautioned the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) twice for the constantly offensive remarks he has made in reference to individual Members of this House, and which he is now repeating by insinuation. If the hon. Member continues to repeat such observations I shall Name him.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he only wished to know whether it was a fact that the police authorities in Ireland were opposed to Carey's being taken as the principal approver in the conspiracy; and whether other persons in Ireland, Mr. Jenkinson included, were also opposed to it, and that Carey was selected entirely through the exercise of English influence in the Cabinet? He hoped that an answer might be given to that question, so that Lord Spencer might be placed in a proper light in Ireland.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 17; Noes 70: Majority 53.—(Div. List, No. 300.)
§ Original Question put, and agreed to.
§
(2.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sure, not exceeding £27,555, 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 Offices of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Dublin and London, and Subordinate Departments.
§ MR. HARRINGTONsaid, he had intended to call attention to the unsatisfactory nature of the information which the Chief Secretary for Ireland gave to the Irish Members in his replies to Questions; but after the very long debate they had just had, and all the trouble which had been imposed upon the Committee, he did not think it right to go further, and he would be satisfied with the attention which had already been drawn in the course of the day to Irish matters. He trusted that the discussion which had taken place would induce the right hon. Gentleman to inquire more seriously and more zealously into the Questions that were put to him by hon. Members of that House, and that he would look for independent information, and not always rely upon the information of those who had landed him in the trouble he had undergone that day.
§ MR. TREVELYANsaid, he fully recognized the spirit in which the hon. Member had given utterance to his remarks. He would admit that on two or three occasions Irish Members had had reason to complain of his statements in reply to Questions having been bald and insufficient; but it arose from the fact that he had been obliged to give a reply without being able to follow up a matter which required further inquiry. But what might have appeared to be shortcomings on his part had not arisen from any inattention to the matter; and he should be glad if, after the debate they had had, any official change could be introduced. He trusted that after the long discussion which had taken place he might now be allowed to take this Vote without further delay.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he wished to ask for an explanation upon a financial point. Once upon a time, not very long ago, they had an Irish Chief Secretary and a Parliamentary Undersecretary, the same as in all other high Offices of State. At that time the salary of the Parliamentary Under Secretary was £ 1,789, and that of the Permanent Under Secretary £1,000. The old régime was in existence down to 1851; and in that year he found there was an Under Secretary with a Parliamentary Secretary, who had a residence in Phœnix Park, the salary for the two Secretaries being £2,789 a year. No doubt, the population was now less than it was then, and it might be supposed that there had been a reduction on that account; 1205 but, on the contrary, although he found that one of the Departmental Offices in Parliament had been got rid of, the expense had absolutely increased. In 1851 they had a Chief Secretary for Ireland who did the political work, and an Under Secretary, upon whom the Business of answering Questions fell. He thought the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be very glad if he had a Parliamentary Under Secretary now, so that he could be able to devote his own attention more completely to the high politics of the country. As he had pointed out, the salary of the Parliamentary Under Secretary and of the Permanent Under Secretary amounted to £2,789 a-year; but he found that the salaries connected with the Secretary of State's Department were now doubled within a few hundred pounds, seeing that they had been increased by £2,111, and now amounted to £4,900. He contended that the Secretary's Office was the most over-managed institution in Great Britain. The Under Secretary now had £2,000 a-year, or £200 more than the Parliamentary Secretary had 32 years ago. There was an Assistant Under Secretary, whose salary had been increased from £1,000 a-year to £1,200 a-year; and, in addition, there was a new Office, which had been created specially for Englishmen. Of course, all the good Offices they had in Ireland were Offices created for Englishmen—he referred to the Assistant Under Secretary for Crime, who received £1,700 a-year, £1,500 in the shape of salary and £200 in lieu of an official residence. He was not aware that the Permanent Secretary for England had any official residence at all. They had now three Under Secretaries instead of two; and, instead of paying £2,789, they were called upon to pay £4,900. There had been a similar increase in the subordinate offices. Formerly, there were two senior clerks, who received £1,000 between them; now the same two clerks received £1,634. Formerly there were seven assistant clerks, who received £2,196; and now there were nine clerks, receiving £3,468, being an increase on that head of £1,200 a-year. Then there were eight junior clerks, who received £1,150, and now the same number of junior clerks were receiving £1,308. Altogether the expenses of the Irish Office had been increased by the sum of £5,000 a-year, not- 1206 withstanding that they did not give the Chief Secretary for Ireland what he (Mr. Callan) was quite sure the right hon. Gentleman very much desired—namely, a Parliamentary Undersecretary, similar to the officer who was in existence in 1851. At present the whole Parliamentary duty devolved on the Chief Secretary himself; and it was the appointment of clerks in Dublin, like Mr. Jenkinson and other English officers, which had increased the expenditure by something like £5,000 a-year. He thought that some explanation of this increase should be given.
§ MR. TREVELYANasked, what was the date of the Return which the hon. Member had quoted?
§ MR. CALLANsaid, the last date at which there was a Parliamentary Under Secretary was the financial year 1851.
§ MR. TREVELYANsaid, he was sorry to say that on that Bench they knew nothing of a Parliamentary Under Secretary. [Mr. CALLAN here made a remark, for which he was called to Order by Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT.]
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he did not require to be called to Order by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. If he (Mr. Callan) were doing anything irregular, the proper person to call him to Order was the Chairman of the Committee. He had given the date of the last appointment; but he had only given it as an act of courtesy to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and not to the Secretary of State for the Home Department.
§ MR. TREVELYANsaid, he should be very glad to have the assistance of a Parliamentary Under Secretary. He did not understand the hon. Member to make any reference to any increase in the salary of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. On the contrary, the salary was still larger in former days. With regard to the Under Secretary, the real cause of the increase was one which made a considerable appearance in the Vote; and it was, in fact, all the more misleading. There had been the extra assistance required by the Under Secretary for Police and Crime. As the hon. Member had stated, Mr. Jenkinson had been appointed to fill that Office; and, as far as the official position of that gentleman was concerned, it must be taken in conjunction with the proposal for the more economical as well as the more 1207 efficient working of the Department of Police and Crime, which was embodied in the Bill proposed to the House this year for the re-organization of the Irish police, and which he hoped to bring in at the beginning of next Session. If that Bill were passed, Mr. Jenkinson's additional salary would be actually made up by very large reductions indeed in salaries scarcely as large as his own. The Chief Secretary's Office had, no doubt, as far as clerks were concerned, become more expensive since the year 1851; but the same might be said generally of all the great Public Departments. The expense of gentlemen in the position of clerks in the Public Offices had risen only at the same rate as the increased expense of living in connection with other classes. There had been no serious increase of late, and the Secretary's Office had been re-organized quite recently by the gentleman who was now Under Secretary—namely, Mr. Hamilton, a person of very great experience in these matters, who had brought his experience in regard to re-organization to bear, and had improved the position of some of the gentlemen in the Office, and, at the same time, had very much facilitated the working of the Office without throwing any new and additional burden upon the public. A portion of the increase in clerical labour was due to that cause, and it was also partly due to another cause—namely, the gradual increased demand by the public, and especially by the House of Commons, probably a very good thing, for a much more exact method of doing the Public Business, and for much greater elaboration in the documents by which that Public Business was made known to the House of Commons.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he did not wish to impute to the Chief Secretary for Ireland that he had increased the expenses. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman would appreciate the real reason why he had brought the matter forward. He regretted that he was unaware the subject would be brought on that day, or he would have furnished the right hon. Gentleman in advance with the Return he intended to quote. He thought that a sufficient Vote might be taken from the salaries of the Under Secretaries to make provision for a Parliamentary Under Secretary to assist 1208 the Chief Secretary in giving his answers in that House. He gave that explanation, simply because the Chief Secretary for Ireland always accepted a suggestion generously, and did not attempt to sneer hon. Members down because they were simply Irish Members as the Secretary of State for the Home Department did.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he could not ascertain that, since Mr. Jenkinson went to Dublin, matters had greatly improved under his administration. His hon. Friend the Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) told the House some time ago that Mr. Jenkinson came from India with a very bad record, and that he was a gentleman in whose hands it would not be safe to leave the liberties of the Irish people. They all knew the theory of the Government in Ireland—namely, that all the people in Ireland were supposed to keep within the eye of the law. Of course, that was not the case; but that was the theory in regard to Ireland. In India, however, there was not even that pretence of observing the law between the Natives and the Hindoos and the British subjects. It was obvious, therefore, that Mr. Jenkinson had formed his idea of Government from the duties and distinctions which existed between races in India. No doubt, Mr. Jenkinson had been sent to Ireland to put his Indian ideas into practice in reference to the Irish people. Therefore, Mr. Jenkinson was exactly the sort of man they should send to Ireland. It had hitherto been the misfortune of Ireland to be governed under a system by which the Native Irish race was tyrannized over by Englishmen. It was supposed to be sufficient, from a British point of view, that Ireland should be content and satisfied with her connection with England. So long as that feeling prevailed, it would be impossible to place the people of the two countries, either in regard to law, justice, or anything else, upon a footing of perfect equality. Mr. Jenkinson had been sent across the Channel, not because he possessed any merits of his own, but because it was supposed that he would carry matters on with a very high hand; and, no doubt, since Mr. Jenkinson went to Ireland, that sort of rule had been invariably practised. Matters had certainly not improved under Mr. Jenkinson's administration. Then, in regard 1209 to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, they had had an illustration of the mode in which matters were treated in the Secretary's Office only a few months ago. The Irish Office was challenged in regard to the treatment of the brother of the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington), and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland did not deign to answer the appeal, but put the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland forward in his place, who made a very lame reply, although it was the business of the Chief Secretary for Ireland himself to have defended the action of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman was Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and he ought to have told the Committee whether he thought the case made out by the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland was such as would justify him in saying that no mitigation of the punishment should take place. As no case had been made out, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, if he had no authority to order the release of Mr. Harrington, might, at least, have said that he would bring the matter before the Lord Lieutenant. That was only an illustration of the way in which Irish Business was carried on. The right hon. Gentleman always defended all that was done, and never confessed that any of his underlings were wrong. The course pursued in the case of Mr. Harrington was atrocious; there was no evidence against Mr. Harrington whatever, and the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland did not say that there was the slightest pretence of a case. All that the right hon. and learned Gentleman said was that certain documents were found in the office of the The Kerry Sentinel, and upon that fact he justified the finding of Mr. Harrington guilty. The right hon. and learned Gentleman simply took up the old ground of whitewashing any official who was charged with neglect of duty. He (Mr. Biggar) did not think the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland was much of an improvement upon his Predecessor in Office (Mr. W. E. Forster). except that he conducted Business in a more plausible way. The system of misgovernment under one right hon. Gentleman was just as bad as it was under another; but the present right hon. Gentleman spoke in such a plausible 1210 manner that he always managed to avoid the real point in the case. In order to enter a protest against the manner in which the duties of the Chief Secretary's Office were discharged, he would move to reduce the Vote by the sum of £6,125.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £21,430, 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 Offices of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Dublin and London, and Subordinate Departments."—(Mr. Biggar.)
§ MR. TREVELYANsaid, he was afraid that the reduction proposed by the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) was a great deal more than his (Mr. Trevelyan's) salary amounted to; and the Motion, if carried, would cut off the salaries of a considerable number of clerks and writers.
§ MR. KENNYsaid, the sum of £6,125 had been selected by his hon. Friend (Mr. Biggar), because it was the amount of the salaries of the Chief Secretary, £4,425, and of Mr. Jenkinson, £1,700.
§ MR. TREVELYANsaid, that a great deal of the sum had already been voted on account.
§ Question put, and negatived.
§ Original Question put, and agreed to.
§ (3.) £1,280, to complete the sum for the Charitable Donations and Bequests Office, Ireland.
§
(4.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £85,482, 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 Local Government Board in Ireland, including various Grants in Aid of Local Taxation.
MR. O'BRIENsaid, he rose for the purpose of moving the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £1,000, the amount of the salaries of the two Government Inspectors in Donegal, Mr. Macfarlane and Dr. Woodhouse. He did not wish to enter into this matter for the purpose of recrimination; but, unfortunately, there had been a period of exceptional distress in Donegal, and it was important that it should be seen what steps the Government had taken to deal with 1211 that exceptional distress, and provide for the unfortunate people who suffered from it. He did not mean to go back on the wisdom, or want of wisdom, of the Government in refusing outdoor relief as a means of meeting distress; his position was that, so far as the districts in question were concerned, the Government policy had completely broken down; that the Poor Law Inspectors did nothing whatever to cope with the distress; and that the people might have died in thousands from starvation had not private charity stepped in. He would try to prove this as briefly as possible. On the 20th November last, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in answer to the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), announced what was to be the policy of the Government during the winter. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Local Government Board had already issued a Circular to all the Unions in the county of Donegal calling attention to the necessity of making every provision possible for indoor and outdoor relief, and that the Local Government Board had also called upon their Inspectors to report as to the sufficiency of the arrangements made in this respect by the Guardians of such Unions, and that, if exceptional pressure came, it would be their duty to see that the administration of the required relief was not interfered with for want of sufficient funds. [Mr. TREVELYAN: What is the date of that?] The date of the right hon. Gentleman's statement to the hon. Member for the 'City of Cork was the 20th of November last, and the passage was one which the right hon. Gentleman himself had quoted in a recent debate. He (Mr. O'Brien) thought that passage contained instructions to the Guardians to supply both indoor and outdoor relief, and that, in case of any neglect on their part, it would be the duty of the Local Government Board Inspectors to call them to account. He need not go into independent testimony as to the intensity of the distress in the Unions; but he would point out how the Government policy had completely broken down in two of the most distressed districts in County Donegal, Dunfanaghy and Glenties. In the former place, according to the testimony of the Inspector himself, the people had no possessions, except a few hens and, perhaps, a pig; and Mr. 1212 Macfarlane agreed in describing another parish as in a still worse condition. Now, what had the Poor Law done in those distressed Unions? In the Glenties Union 148 persons had been relieved; while, in the far less distressed Union of Innishowen, in the same county, there were 348. Again, in the comparatively prosperous Union of Kilrush 1,017, and in Killarney 1,026 persons had received relief. What was the effect of the Government policy? In those Unions where the Guardians did their duty, the Guardians would be actually re-imbursed their expenditure under the Poor Relief Act; whereas, in those miserable and afflicted districts he had named, they would get nothing at all, because they had set their duty at defiance, and refused to give outdoor relief. Bad as was the state of things in Glenties Union, in the Union of Dunfanaghy it was absolutely unendurable; for, during the months of March and April, when the distress was at its worst, not a single person was in receipt of outdoor relief. In a district containing 16,000 persons, the entire work done was to support 38 persons in the workhouse; and even that could not be done without the horrible scandal of the seduction of an unfortunate woman. Such was the amount of work done in these two Unions, admittedly the most distressed in Ireland. The question he had to ask was this—Had the Guardians in those Unions attended to the instructions of the Local Government Board, to make every provision for indoor and outdoor relief; and, if not, had the Poor Law Inspectors done as the Chief Secretary for Ireland promised they would do—namely, reported upon the sufficiency of the arrangements in that respect; and if they had not, what action had the Local Government Board taken to reprove the culpable inaction of the Boards of Guardians? He (Mr. O'Brien) said that, instead of stimulating those Boards to do their duty, the Local Government Inspectors had done all they could to shelter them, for the simple reason that they were sent down at the beginning of the distress, with a brief from the Government, to show that the existing Poor Law could deal with the distress, and, in fact, that there was not much distress to deal with. It must be admitted that the policy of the Government in relying on the Poor Law to 1213 meet distress in these districts was a shameful failure. The priests in the Unions did all they could to stimulate the Guardians to discharge their unquestionable duty—that was to say, to give outdoor relief—but to no purpose; and there was an insinuation that the whole cry of distress was an imposture. He wanted to point out to the Committee what sort of men these Local Government Board Inspectors were, whose Reports were taken to discredit the testimony and even the character of the reverend gentlemen he had alluded to, and of individual witnesses like Dr. Hart. Now, they had the fact that Mr. Macfarlane, one of the Inspectors, had been travelling upon a railway in Ireland with a ticket that was out of date, and that he was ordered to pay two guineas and costs—ho (Mr. O'Brien) supposed as a mark of personal esteem. If that were so, it came to this—it was all very well for the magistrate to give Mr. Macfarlane an instance of his confidence; but why did he kick him downstairs? But that was not the only transaction in which Mr. Macfarlane had been engaged. He was sorry to have to refer to another; but, in dealing with persons like this, it was necessary to bring forward facts. Mr. Macfarlane was not only a Local Government Board Inspector, he was a landowner; and it was quite notorious that for a long time he had been in embarrassed circumstances, and his estate was in the hands of a receiver for the benefit of his creditors. Now, he (Mr. O'Brien) should have to trouble the Committee by a reference to a very short extract from a report in The Freeman's Journal of the 10th of August, relating to proceedings before Judge Ormsby in the Land Court, which disclosed that, according to the receiver, Mr. Macfarlane was carrying on certain dealings which the receiver charged as collusive, with the object of defrauding his creditors. Again, Mr. Macfarlane, as a landlord, turned a man out of his farm in County Tyrone, keeping back from him £26, the amount of labour given by him. He (Mr. O'Brien) did not want to elaborate these statements, but simply made them for the purpose of showing the Chief Secretary for Ireland the sort of men sent down to the Unions to see that the Guardians did their duty, and to whom 1214 the lives of the people were practically entrusted—men who were appealed to from the testimony of priests and of independent Englishmen, who went through the districts in question during the period of distress; these were the men who had the audacity to take credit for the effect produced by private charity, when both the Poor Law Guardians and the State withheld from the people the means of subsistence. So far from their receiving £1,000 from the country for their services, he said they ought to be indicted for manslaughter, for causing the deaths of the people by starvation.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £84,482, 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 Local Government Board in Ireland, including various Grants in Aid of Local Taxation."—(Mr. O'Brien.)
MR. TREYELYANsaid, he had listened to the hon. Member for Mallow's (Mr. O'Brien's) speeches in every one of the important debates which had taken place in that House on the subject of Irish distress during this Session and the last. The hon. Member had, in all those instances, spoken against the operation of the Boor Law; and it was hardly to be expected that he would allow this Vote to pass without one of those protests which he was accustomed to make. The hon. Member had quoted, and quoted before then, from his (Mr. Trevelyan's) speech of the 20th of November, 1882. He could imagine that an hon. Member with a strong predilection for speaking on the subject of distress in Ireland might have read his words with a due regard to the intention with which they were uttered. The hon. Member for Mallow, however, appeared to have missed the meaning the words were intended to convey, which was governed by the first sentence in the passage referred to. The hon. Member thought that the Dunfanaghy and Glenties Board of Guardians had not come up to the moderate standard of outdoor relief laid down in the Local Government Board Circular. There was no doubt that in those Unions the system which the hon. Member severely condemned, but which the Government approved, had been strictly carried out. Under those circumstances, the Guardians not being a 1215 paid body, the hon. Member could do no more than remonstrate; and, therefore, he proposed to reduce the Vote by the amount of the salaries of the two Local Government Board Inspectors. He (Mr. Trevelyan) was bound to say that the only part of the hon. Member's speech to which he took any exception was that in which he referred to the character of Mr. Macfarlane. He did not think that the private character of public servants should ever be brought before the House of Commons, unless there was some fault of a public and patent character which amounted to a scandal.
MR. O'BRIENsaid, he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that he had not referred to the private character of Mr. Macfarlane beyond what had been disclosed in the public prints.
§ MR. TREVELYANsaid, he was about to conclude his last sentence by saying that, in his opinion, the only occasions on which the characters of public servants should be referred to in that House were, first, when the charge was very grave, with reference to the individual personally; and, secondly, when it related to pecuniary matters, as showing that he was not a proper person to have control of money. He understood that, by moving this reduction, the hon. Gentleman wanted, at the eleventh hour, to add one to the numerous protests he had already made against the Poor Law system which a considerable number of Members of that House believed to be right, and which a smaller number believed not only wrong in principle, but immoral; and, with that understanding on both sides, he trusted hon. Gentlemen opposite would allow the Vote to be taken.
§ MR. HARRINGTONsaid, he thought it was to be regretted that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had not attempted to touch the indictment preferred by the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien). He (Mr. Harrington) might observe that the right hon. Gentleman had dealt very delicately with that point of the hon. Member which affected the character of his officials in Ireland. But hon. Members on those Benches had to look not to the past alone, but to the future, and they knew that the gentleman in question would hereafter be the administrator of the system in the same sense as he 1216 had been before; and, therefore, he thought his hon. Friend had acted wisely and justly in drawing attention to the character of Mr. Macfarlane. He had no wish that attention should be drawn to the character of individuals in that House; but where a public servant was manifestly guilty of conduct which, in the public mind, would render him unfit for the discharge of his duty, where there was evidence, above all things, that he was a biassed and partial man, who was not likely fairly to carry out the duties entrusted to him, then he (Mr. Harrington) said hon. Members were justified in bringing such matters forward. He would remind the Chief Secretary for Ireland that the case of the hon. Member for Mallow was, that in the Unions of Dunfanaghy and Glenties, where the distress was keenest during last winter, absolutely no outdoor relief was given—that in Unions where the people were in comparative comfort outdoor relief was administered; but in those where they were dying by hundreds there was nothing done to give them that assistance and shelter which every benign Government should afford. As an instance of the manner in which the Guardians discharged their duties—duties which the right hon. Gentleman believed were performed so perfectly—he would mention that he had a letter from an unfortunate man whose wife and child, notwithstanding that he had been sending 15s. or £1 every fortnight for their support, had been emigrated to America by the Guardians of one Union without his knowledge or consent. He considered that constituted a very serious charge against the working of the Emigration Clauses of the Act; and he desired to know whether the Government would do justice in this matter, and have the action of the Guardians scrutinized in such a manner that cases of the kind would not recur. This case was of itself sufficient to prove the absurdity of the system to which the right hon. Gentleman had given his sanction—one such instance was a proof that the Guardians, in working out the scheme of emigration, sent out of the country people who ought to remain there.
§ MR. KENNYsaid, he could confirm the statement of the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien), that the people of Ireland had no confidence in the Reports of the Poor Law Inspectors, whose 1217 Statements, in almost every instance, were in direct conflict with those of disinterested persons, who were best informed and understood best the condition of the different Unions. Thus, the Reports of Mr. Macfarlane and Dr. Woodhouse were directly opposed to that of the priests of Donegal; and, if anything more than the latter were necessary to convince an impartial mind that the people there were on the verge of starvation, it would be found in the fact that when one of the Inspectors was on his way through a district in Donegal, thousands of famishing people gathered round him to demand work. He (Mr. Kenny) would not follow up the statement of the hon. Member for Mallow, because, to his mind, his case had been fully established; but he (Mr. Kenny) would point out that the rule which enforced the so-called workhouse test operated quite as harshly in his own and other districts in Ireland as it had done in the Unions to which his hon. Friend had referred. In one Union with which he was acquainted, the distress was far greater than it was in Kilrush; and, although the Guardians were willing to give outdoor relief, they were prevented doing so by an extraordinary Order of the Local Government Board. He asked the serious attention of the Chief Secretary for Ireland to this fact, with the view of preventing the issue of these cruel Circulars, which had caused so much misery to the unfortunate people in the distressed districts.
§ MR. DAWSONsaid, that the English Poor Law system had an element of elasticity in it, which allowed it to deal with temporary distress; and he believed, if they could get that system extended to Ireland, it would be one way of meeting this difficulty. Both the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade and the late Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had, on a former occasion, congratulated the Unions in Lancashire on the way in which they had extended the provisions of the Poor Law with regard to outdoor relief. The fact was, that the Local Government Board in Ireland had not a quarter of the power which the Guardians in England possessed for dealing with temporary distress; and it was in that respect that he asked the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary 1218 to the Lord Lieutenant to assimilate the law of the two countries.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, it appeared to him that Mr. Macfarlane was a man of that unfortunate class who were most likely to get Government situations in Ireland, which, as a rule, were confined either to policemen, or the broken-down landed gentry. Many of the Government officials in Ireland belonged to the latter class, and were, generally speaking, in such embarrassed circumstances, caused by the proceedings taken against them for the recovery of debts, that they were brought into a position more or less contemptible in the eyes of the people, and led sometimes to commit acts of impropriety, although, perhaps, they might not be any more dishonest than their neighbours. The case brought forward by the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien) was an instance of this. Mr. Macfarlane's mode of dealing with his tenants was in itself, sufficient to show that he was not a satisfactory person to report upon the action of the Poor Law officials in Ireland. But, besides that, he had been brought before a magistrate, and fined by him, in the form of damages and costs, for committing a gross fraud on a Railway Company. It was not shown whether or not Mr. Macfarlane was in the habit of systematically avoiding payment of railway fares; but, however that might be, he (Mr. Biggar) would ask the Committee this question—"Was a man, who had been brought before the magistrates and convicted of having defrauded a Railway Company, a proper person to be intrusted with the office of Poor Law Inspector?" He thought the power of these men was too great, for they were able to set at defiance the protests of Guardians and other Union officers; and, certainly, the Government, in their own interest, should dismiss any of them from their position who had notoriously been convicted of fraud. If Mr. Macfarlane was not dismissed, he did not see how the Government could defend their conduct with regard to the Donegal Unions, seeing that their evidence was based on his Report.
MR. O'BRIENsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had not replied to his assertion that, at a time of the deepest distress in the most poverty-stricken place in Ireland, neither the Government nor the 1219 Guardians did anything to save the lives of the people, although, in other places, sufficient outdoor relief was given. There was nothing to show that the Government made any attempt to stimulate the Guardians to do their duty; and, therefore, as a protest against this neglect, he should take a Division on his Motion for the reduction of the Vote.
§ MR. SMALLsaid, that much more attention was paid to the comfort of the officials than to the wants of the starving poor; and it was incumbent on the Government to put some pressure upon the Boards of Guardians, in order to make them give outdoor relief.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 19; Noes 53: Majority 34.—(Div. List, No. 301.)
§ Original Question put, and agreed to.
§ (5.) £32,262, to complete the sum for the Public Works' Office, Ireland.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, this was a Vote which covered a very wide field; it was of great importance to those who were interested in Ireland, and there were many questions in connection with it, which hon. Members on those Benches desired to bring under the notice of the Committee. It might be said that, of all the Boards in Dublin, the business of this Board both from an engineering and economic point of view was worse managed than any other; but, important as the Vote was, and wide as was the field which it covered, at that period of the Session he did not think they would be justified in doing that which, under other circumstances, would undoubtedly have been their duty—namely, to criticize the administration of the Board, and to suggest the remedies which they believed should be applied to the abuses which existed in connection with it. It would be well if the Irish Government could find time, amidst the absorbing occupation of restoring law and order in Ireland, to develop the resources of the country, and to look after the permanent officials who had control of the working of these Boards; but he would not detain the Committee by going into that question. They were disposed to allow the Vote to pass, not because there were no crying abuses in connection with it, but 1220 because it was Saturday evening, and very late in the Session.
§ MR. COURTNEYsaid, he agreed with some of the remarks of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) concerning the defective management of the business of the Office of Works, Ireland. He would point out that a Bill had been introduced, with the object of remedying the defects complained of, which he regretted it had been found impossible to pass that Session.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he had one question to put to the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, with respect to the Bill he had just alluded to. His information was, that the Bill had been blocked by some Conservative Gentlemen below the Gangway, at the request of a certain Member of the Board of Works. He would ask the hon. Gentleman, with regard to Colonel M'Kerlie, who it was understood would retire about the month of June or July, and who he regretted to see was still at the Office, whether this delay was due to any question of pension.
§ MR. COURTNEY, in reply, said, no question of pension was involved that he was aware of?
§ Vote agreed to.
§ (6.) £3,708, to complete the sum for the Record Office, Ireland.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he was sorry to see that a question had been raised, both with regard to the publication and price of copies of the Irish manuscripts. He trusted, however, that the Government would not allow themselves to be intimidated by two or three Gentlemen from Ireland, with regard to the production of these most interesting documents, which, as they were now being prepared, were a credit to the compiler, and a credit to the State; because he (Mr. Healy) was satisfied that any reasonable amount of money spent upon them would not be thrown away. There was a strong argument in favour of the Government continuing to give Mr. Gilbert sufficient assistance in his work. The price of the manuscripts was £5 5s.; and, if only, say 50 copies were printed, the dealers would soon get hold of them, and run them up to fancy prices in a very short time, and therefore he hoped they would, with Government assistance, 1221 continue to be printed and brought out in large numbers.
§ Vote agreed to.
§ (7.) £9,261, to complete the sum for the Registrar General's Office, Ireland.
§
(8.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £13,385, 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 General Valuation and Boundary Survey of Ireland.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he would ask whether the item for salary under this Vote was a payment to that noted pluralist, Mr. George Bolton, whose name was to be found in connection with almost every Public Office in Ireland? Mr. Bolton, amongst his other offices, held those of Crown Solicitor for Tipperary, Crown Prosecutor in Dublin; he was down at Sligo as Crown Prosecutor, and now he turned up as Solicitor to the Boundary Survey Commissioners. It would not surprise him (Mr. Healy) to see Mr. Bolton's name some day connected with an expedition to the North Pole. Why did the same man get everything in Ireland? Were there no other officials worth anything? What was the meaning of this £400? Why Mr. George Bolton should get £400 from the Boundary Survey Office, he could not understand. Upon whose recommendation did Mr. George Bolton receive this appointment, and would the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury say how much Mr. George Bolton got from the State?
§ MR. COURTNEY, in reply, said, he was not in a position to answer the last question. Mr. Bolton was the Solicitor to the Boundary Survey Department. He held that office in 1875, and he had continued to hold it ever since.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he would ask what Mr. Bolton's duties were? Perhaps the chaste and virtuous George Bolton's special friend, the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Porter), would say what duties the chaste and virtuous George Bolton performed for £400 a-year? For the purpose of getting an explanation, he would move that the Vote be reduced by £400, which was the amount of the salary paid to the chaste and virtuous Mr. George Bolton.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £12,985, 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 General Valuation and Boundary Survey of Ireland."—(Mr. Callan.)
§ MR. KENNYasked the Secretary to the Treasury, when it was proposed to give effect to the Report of the Borough Boundary Commission, which was published about 12 months ago?
§ MR. COURTNEYsaid, he could give no information on that point, but would make inquiries.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, this was an extremely unsatisfactory state of things. There were a few gentlemen who were in great favour at Dublin Castle, and, of late, these gentlemen had been pitchforked into all the snug appointments at the disposal of the Government. Formerly, Matthew Anderson discharged the duties of Crown Solicitor for the City of Dublin for £1,500 a-year; but now there were five Crown Solicitors—namely, Matthew Anderson, Samuel Lee Anderson, George Bolton, Alexander Murphy, and William Lane Joyut, and they cost the State £5,000. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury appeared to think it was sufficient to say, in answer to the questions put in regard to Mr. George Bolton's connection with the Boundary Survey Office, that Mr. George Bolton had held the appointment for several years. Mr. Bolton could not have any work to do as Solicitor to the Boundary Survey Office, because, since his appointment to that position, he had been pitchforked into other important offices. It was desirable the Committee should know that the chief supporter and backer of Mr. George Bolton was the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Porter). Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who must know something of the habits and confidences of Mr. George Bolton, the pluralist, would say how often the gentleman visited the Valuation Office? Of course, if they did not receive some satisfactory explanation, they must divide the Committee.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. Porter)said, he never appointed Mr. Bolton to any office. Mr. Bolton was an officer discharging certain duties under other Votes, and as regarded 1223 the present Vote, he believed Mr. Bolton had held the post of Solicitor to the Boundary Survey Department for upwards of 20 years, and that he had saved the public upwards of £4,000 in fees during each of those years.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, that if Mr. Bolton had saved the country £4,000 a-year, it was evident that, in times past, £4,000 a-year had been absolutely thrown away. Mr. Bolton must have little to do in connection with the Boundary Survey Office, because the right hon. and learned Gentleman was able to send him down the country for weeks and weeks together. The office of Solicitor to the Boundary Survey Department was evidently a sinecure; and, therefore, he and his hon. Friends must put the Committee to the trouble of dividing.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 18; Noes 51: Majority 33.—(Div. List, No. 302.)
§ Original Question put, and agreed to.