HC Deb 26 February 1883 vol 276 cc843-4
SIR HERBERT MAXWELL

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the following passage in a leading article in the "Echo," published on Friday 23rd February:— If the history of Ireland teaches one thing more than another it is this, that no reform, however moderate and necessary, can he wrung from the British Parliament when Ireland is at peace. Mr. Gladstone has admitted it, Mr. Chamberlain has admitted it, and he who denies it goes in the teeth of facts. If that be so, can it be wondered that the Irish leaders, we will not say connive at crime, but at all events do nothing to check it? … It is too much to expect that there will be any very earnest desire on the part of the Irish leaders to put an end to outrage when without it they are reduced to impotence … The temptation is too great to be resisted … Whatever may be the result of the trials now pending at Dublin, even though every secret society in Ireland is discovered and its members scattered, it is folly to expect that Ireland will long be free from the machinations of other secret societies from murder, and from outrage, whilst by such means, rather than by reason, redress can be obtained for such wrongs; whether he is aware that the senior Member for Salisbury is proprietor of the paper; and, whether he is prepared to direct a prosecution of the publishers on the ground of inciting to outrage?

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

Before the right hon. and learned Gentleman answers the Question, I would like to ask him whether a statement to the same effect as that mentioned in this Question was not recently made at a public meeting in Ireland by an eminent Member of the Conservative Party—that is to say, whether the junior Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) did not at a public meeting in the Rotunda use these words— Now they (the Government) may wriggle, or deny, or suggest as they please; but every sane man in the Empire knows that but for the Land League, its meetings, and the crimes and outrages which too often follow those meetings, there would have been either no Land Act at all, or a very different one from that which now finds its place on the Statute Book. I beg to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether this statement is not precisely to the same effect, only a little farther, to that mentioned in the Question, and what action he proposes to take thereupon?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I am in the unfortunate position of knowing nothing of the contents of The Echo, and I am afraid I have not read the speech in the Rotunda. I can give no opinion upon either subject. If the writing in The Echo, which I have not had the advantage of reading, or the speech in the Rotunda, are at all to the effect of the passages quoted, I can only say they appear to be extremely mischievous, and in the highest degree reprehensible. As to the Rotunda speech, that is a more serious thing, because that was made in Ireland. With reference to this passage, which appears to be quoted from a paper, which I am told is an English paper, all I would say of it is that, in my opinion, sentiments of that kind meet with so universal reprobation in this country that prosecutions are the less necessary.

MR. PASSMORE EDWARDS

I beg most distinctly to say that I know nothing, and knew nothing, of the article till to-day. In the second place, I beg most distinctly to say that the extracts, as recorded, are most garbled and misleading.

SIR HERBERT MAXWELL

After the remarks of the hon. Member, I hope I may be allowed to say the extracts referred to are verbatim from the leader in The Echo of Friday last, and the omissions marked by asterisks were only made to prevent the Question from being of inordinate length.