CLASS III.—LAW AND JUSTICE.

HC Deb 09 March 1883 vol 276 cc1967-2008

(1.) Question again proposed, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £40,000, he granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1883, of Criminal Prosecutions and other Law Charges in Ireland, including certain Allowances under the Act lo and 16 Vic. c. 83.

Whereupon Question again proposed, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1883, of Criminal Prosecutions and other Law Charges in Ireland, including certain Allowances under the Act 15 and 16 Vic. c. 83."—(Mr. T. P. O'Connor.)

MR. MONK

said, he rose with considerable reluctance to trespass for a few moments on the attention of the Committee. There was no one more regular than he was in attendance upon Committee of Supply, and he was always anxious to take part in the discussion of the Estimates. But when he and his Friends sitting below the Gangway on that side of the House found hon. Members below the Gangway on the opposite side of the House taking every occasion to prolong discussion upon the Estimates, and making no secret that their object in discussing each separate item referring to Ireland was not so much to criticize the Estimates as to cast obloquy upon Her Majesty's Government, and especially upon his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, then he confessed that they felt considerable difficulty in taking their proper part in the discussion of the Estimates. At the same time, he thought it was only fair towards the Government that they who had hitherto been silent in discussing the Estimates should warn the Government in a friendly manner that there was a considerable feeling of discontent and dismay in the country at the large increase of the Estimates year after year since the present Government came into Office. Perhaps it would not be out of place for him to allude to the coming Estimates, for he feared very much that they would find there was also an increase for the year 1883–4. He was afraid that the Government would find, when the next General Election took place, that one of the greatest dangers they would have to contend against would be the cry that they had not observed economy with regard to the expenditure in the different Services of the country. In reference to the Vote which was now before the Committee, there was no doubt that a Supplementary Vote of £40,000 for the cost of Criminal Prosecutions and other Law Charges in Ireland did require more explanation than had been given to the House the other day by his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland. He thought that the House ought to have laid before it some Paper or explanation as to whom the enormous additional sum of £15,000 in the shape of fees to counsel had been given. He believed that in Ireland, as well as in England, there was a large legal staff which was regularly provided for in the Estimates, and he should like to know to whom these fees went? It was stated, he thought by his hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), that perhaps there might have been an additional 100 cases; but in the event of there having been 100 additional cases for which this additional £15,000 was charged, it would appear that a fee of £150 had been paid in each case to the legal gentlemen employed. "What he wanted to know was whether these fees went to the present staff? At all events, he thought they ought to have some explanation of the matter, because they all knew there was always a tendency of fees to counsel increasing to an enormous extent. He had not risen with any desire to prolong the discussion; but he thought that the Committee was entitled, and especially that the Liberal Members who sat below the Gangway were entitled, to some explanation of the large increase which appeared in the Supplementary Estimates. He had therefore risen to call attention to this matter, and he could assure the Government he did so in the most friendly spirit towards them, because he believed that if they did not check this enormously increasing expenditure, they would have to answer for it before the country before very long.

MR. O'BRIEN

said, there was one item in the Estimate in regard to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had omitted to give the Committee any information. He referred to the item of £15,000 in regard to "Prosecutors, &c." He should like to know what "Prosecutors," and especially "&c," meant? It would be interesting, he thought, to know what that amount included, and whether any portion of the remuneration went to informers and Crown witnesses; and the reply of the right hon. and learned Gentleman might perhaps throw some light on very important matters, especially the manner in which the services of these persons had been made available in some of the recent prosecutions in Ireland. He invited the attention of the Committee also to the description of evidence that had been resorted to in reference to prosecutions such as those of Mr. Harrington, Mr. Davitt, and Mr. Healy. It was bad enough for a man to have to defend his words in a Criminal Court; but in Ireland a man had sometimes to defend himself against words that belonged not to him but to some police reporter. He thought there was nothing that indicated better the odious character of the system of espionage that was practised against public speakers in Ireland than the fact that, although he believed no Press man had ever been injured in Ireland in the discharge of his duty except by the police, no professional shorthand writer could be got for love or money to undertake this duty. The duty was discharged by policemen who had dabbled a little in Pitman's shorthand. They managed to take down about every third word a man uttered, and then they strung them together with words the man never used at all. The policeman in Mr. Healy's case swore to the report in The Freeman's Journal being a full and exhaustive report of all that the hon. Member said in his speech; but Mr. Healy exhibited in Court a copy of The Leinster Leader, containing a really full report of his speech, which covered three columns in that paper as contrasted with one column and a half of The Freeman's Journal. In Mr. Harrington's case, the police reporter broke down so calamitously that the County Court Judge who confirmed the sentence was actually obliged to base his decision not upon the evidence for the Crown, but upon the evidence of a gentleman who was called for the defence, and who proved that the report of the police reporter was a tissue of falsehoods from beginning to end. That was the sort of fair play that the political opponents of the Government received in Ireland just now—a sort of fair play from which he had to some extent suffered himself. When the right hon. Gentleman opposite made some strong references to him (Mr. O'Brien) last night, he could not, of course, on the spur of the moment answer for everything that might have appeared in the newspaper with which he was connected; but that day he had had an opportunity of glancing through a file of the paper, and if the House would bear with him for a moment—although it might be a little irrelevant—he thought he should be able to show, confining himself to mere matters of fact, that the right hon. Gentleman had not been quite as just to him as he expected others to be towards himself. The right hon. Gentleman stated that he (Mr. O'Brien) had held up to execration four persons, three of whom were afterwards killed or murderously assaulted. The inference was one which he disdained to notice further. As to Mr. Burke, the first of the gentlemen mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, as far as he could recollect, and as far as he had been able to search through the files of United Ireland—and, of course, he had not been able to do so very exhaustively—his name was never mentioned in United Ireland until after his death; nor was there the most remote personal allusion to him, unless the paragraph about "rats in the Castle cellars" might be supposed to point to him in particular. [Cries of "Hear, hear!"] He heard some murmurs in reference to that article. It had been admitted in that House by the late, and, indeed, he believed by the present, Attorney General for Ireland, that that paragraph was simply a rough comment upon a declaration made in that House by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, that "until the Irish Government was re-organized"—he thought he was quoting almost the exact words of the right hon. Gentleman—"there could be no hope of permanent tranquillity in Ireland."

MR. TREVELYAN

I must interrupt the hon. Member to say that, in the remarks I made in my speech a week ago, I especially omitted that passage.

Mr. GLADSTONE

If the hon. Gentleman refers to me, will he kindly give me the means of verifying what he means, because I do not admit the words he has quoted?

MR. O'BRIEN

said, that at that moment he had not time to lay his hands on the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman. He was quoting from a report of the right hon. Gentleman's reply to a question of the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy); but he would say nothing further in reference to Mr. Burke. As to the reference to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), he fought him fairly—more fairly than the right hon. Gentleman had fought him. He (Mr. O'Brien) had never struck a foul blow at any man. As to Mr. Field, the only allusion that was ever made to him in United Ireland was in one paragraph, not so much blaming Mr. Field as asking what would have been thought of a Catholic juror who handed down from the jury-box a note to Mr. Michael Davitt, instead of a Protestant juror handing down a note to Mr. Norris Goddard? If that was ferocity, he was at a loss for a term to characterize the frame of mind of the right hon. Gentleman last night. As to the right hon. Gentleman himself, he thought that in a less hasty moment the right hon. Gentleman would admit that any allusion that was ever made to him was a not unkindly one, until, in his speech at Hawick, he threw in his lot once for all with the enemies of Ireland, and until he held up newspapers and speeches of persons who, perhaps, had feelings as well as he had, to execration as part of the machinery of murder—as moral murderers. He was willing to let his countrymen judge, and they were the only judges, as to the description of speaking or writing which came nearest the description of moral murder. So far from his having any personal animosity to the right hon. Gentleman, he was amazed that such an idea should have entered the right hon. Gentleman's head. He had never seen the right hon. Gentleman, to his knowledge, until he saw him a fortnight ago in that House, and the only feeling that he entertained towards him was admiration for him as a literary man, and a sincere hope that he would bring into practice, as a Minister, the principles of freedom that he had so eloquently defended in his books. He was obliged to the House for having permitted him to make this statement. He had only to add that, in the discharge of what he deemed to be his duty to those who sent him there, he should never be irritated into saying—he hoped consciously, at all events—anything unjust to any man; nor would he be intimidated from saying whatever the interests of Ireland, which with him were supreme interests, demanded, not against an individual, for he had no grudge against particular men, but against the system which individuals from time to time administered in Ireland. He turned from that subject now to the case of Mr. Davitt and Mr. Healy. Those gentlemen, he believed it was admitted, had committed no offence that could be brought within the comprehensive scope of the Crimes Act, which was a sort of omnibus Act of all the crimes in the calendar. They had done nothing that any man more modern or more respectable than the Judges of Charles I.'s time would ever have ventured to pronounce an offence. They were punished, not because of anything they said or did themselves, but because, although they had not even heard of it, Policeman Cox was shot in Abbey Street, Dublin, the night before their speeches were delivered in Carlow and Navan, and also because Mr. Field was stabbed in Dublin a few nights after. The Chief Secretary himself—he happened to have that reference—immediately after these occurrences, admitted that the outrages in Dublin were not of an agrarian character. The right hon. Gentleman, in reply to a Question put to him, said— I must ask hon. Members to consider that it is important to hear in mind a distinction between the general state of Ireland and the special question of violent organized crime in Dublin. It was evident, then, that the crimes in Dublin had nothing to do with the speeches in the country, either at Carlow or Navan, and those places ought to have been quite as safe places for making a strongly-worded speech as Leeds or Woodstock. But the Castle officials, with their usual talent for making bad worse, induced the Government to commit in this case the very blunder they committed after the Phoenix Park assassinations. Instead of encouraging people to speak boldly and openly, and as of right to speak what was in their minds, they suppressed open speaking. They confounded the criminal and the politician in the same category, and they very naturally confounded the sympathies of the people as well. Mr. Davitt and Mr. Healy were punished because of crimes with which nobody dared to accuse them of sympathy, as the Irish people were punished because of the assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish, which they deplored quite as heartily as the English people. This policy might be wise and cunning enough from the point of view of the Castle officials, for it was part of their purpose to keep the two countries at cross purposes and at daggers drawn, for fear it should ever occur to the people of England to try how the people of Ireland would get on at ruling themselves. He did not know whether the eyes of the people of England would ever be opened to the effect of this. People would say to themselves that Mr. Davitt, in his speech at Navan, called attention with desperate emphasis to the distress in Ireland; and a few days afterwards it happened that there was a paragraph in the Queen's Speech which suggested the propriety of considering that distress. Now that Mr. Davitt was in prison, now that all agitation was suppressed, now that the country was supposed to be quiet and tame, and kissing the rod, the only word the Government had for the starving peasants of Ireland was that, for the comfort of British taxpayers, it was necessary to ship them out of the country, no matter when, or how, or where; and that the best plan to get them away was to starve them out. [Cries of "Oh!"] Hon. Members might murmur, but he was telling them what would be thought in Ireland, and what he thought. Then, as to Mr. Healy. The farmers of Ulster, who had reason to know something of Mr. Healy, what did the House think would be their reflections, when they said to themselves—"Mr. Healy's speech at St. Mullins was a bold exposure of the defects of the Land Act—defects which these same Northerners pointed out in their conference at Belfast the other day; defects which one of their own Commissioners showed the Government a short time ago, and which would perhaps remain and unsettle the whole question of rent in Ireland if the present mode of fixing it was not amended. Now that Mr. Healy was chained up, where was the proposed amendment of the Land Act, and who was most likely to wring an amendment from the Government? Was it the mild-spoken Gentlemen who spoke in whispers from the Back Benches of the Government, or was it the outspoken author of the Healy Clause, whom the Government thought it politic or right to detain in Richmond Prison during the Session?" Possibly the aberration of the farmers of Ulster would be a rather dear price to pay for the detention of Mr. Healy. Then he (Mr. O'Brien) said that in this, as in every other act of Lord Spencer's Administration—in these prosecutions, for which they were now asked to pay £40,000, they were rejoicing and gratifying those who lived and flourished on the enmity which existed between this country and Ireland, and were laying up for themselves among the people of Ireland a store of bitterness and resentment, the consequences of which he did not care to anticipate. At all events, he believed that it was the duty of the Irish Members, by every means in their power, to oppose this Vote, and all other Votes of money which they believed were spent in fomenting discontent in Ireland and in thwarting the aspirations of the Irish people.

MR. TREVELYAN

Sir, the hon. Gentleman has made an explanation, and it is upon that part of his speech that I rise to comment. I propose to make a counter explanation in answer to the hon. Member; and I trust, fox the sake of the public time, that no one will think it worth while to carry on that part of the controversy. The statement made by me last night was that the editor of United Ireland had been reckless in not observing the effect of certain articles—in not discontinuing those articles. The hon. Gentleman has challenged me to produce the substance of those articles. I will produce them in the shape of a few short passages.

MR. O'BRIEN

What I have referred to to-night was the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman last night, that I had held up to execration, and put their lives in danger, four persons in Ireland.

MR. TREVELYAN

I have not the materials, I admit at once, that will enable me to go into the attacks of United Ireland upon my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster). All I can say is, that when my right hon. Friend was being exposed to the hourly danger of assassination, leaders were constantly appearing in United Ireland taunting him with gross cowardice for surrounding himself with policemen, and sitting armed in his study. That formed a particular class of article which this paper published, and the passages themselves are so numerous that if I were asked to supply the House with the whole of them it would require a copious Blue Book to contain them. I now pass on to the case of Mr. Burke. I did not refer to the celebrated passage about "Castle rats." The first passage I referred to was one which began with "Down with the Bastiles." Then came a most objectionable article in United Ireland, issued on the 4th of May, but bearing the date of May the 6th, under the heading "Disestablishing the Castle," which contained this passage— But the money it spends, and the favours it distributes, and the foul toads who use it as a cistern to knot and gender in, are just the things which make the harmless travesty of Viceroyalty an offence and scorn in the eyes of Irishmen. The money is the wages which the tribe of Castle shopkeepers take for smearing over their shop fronts and their souls with announcements of their shame. And, again, the article went on to say— The toads are the gang of alien officials who nestle in the snuggeries of the Castle like so many asps in the bosom of the country. Down with the whole bundle of rottenness and imposture. That is a specimen from an article which preceded the death of Mr. Burke; and my statement was that if I had been the writer of that article I should have thought twice before I wrote an article in the same style against any other public man who, at that moment, was the mark of popular depreciation in Ireland. Now, the next person to whom I referred on the occasion was Judge Lawson. Here are some of the passages referring to Judge Lawson— Silence and veneration is demanded by the religion of English rule, and we bow before its sacred symbol—the gallows. Not often, even in the bloodstained records of Ireland, has there been a tragedy more pitiful, more horrible, than that of which Francey Hynes was the victim…A jury presided over by a Judge who from the commencement of the trial to its close did not even attempt to conceal his indecent longing for a conviction. It was not enough that his charge should be a speech for the prosecution. By nod and smile throughout the trial he emphasized each scrap of evidence that seemed to tell against the prisoner: by shrugs and deprecatory gestures he made light of the defence. Such things are good for a Judge to do; they are dangerous for a journalist to mention—a journalist who has but the one poor excuse of truth. Need we speak of the 'terrible' exposure that followed? Judge Lawson, in a tempest of virtuous indignation, decided that jury-packing and jury orgies were subjects too sacred for public comment. And then, again— The fabrication of the jury, the indecencies which preceded the verdict, and the even grosser judicial indecency which succeeded it, wrought up public indignation against the whole iniquitous proceedings to an unparalleled pitch. The foulness of the trial, too, set people examining the evidence, the vital point of which was the disconnected ejaculations of an almost speechless man in the throes of death. The result was a perfect agony of belief that a boy in the blossom of youth was being done to death, not only by foul means, but in utter innocence. And after that sort of writing, calculated in the highest degree to excite an imaginative people, comes this— So Marwood got his orders, and on Monday morning executed them—with more credit and humanity than functionaries higher up in the hierarchy of Government—by the rope. The poor youth who, at 23, was called out to die for Judge Lawson's dyspepsia and his jurors' headaches, died firmly and tranquilly. From first to last there was set forth an absolutely unfounded charge against the jury. The proof that this charge is unfounded I take to be this. When it was the duty of the Irish Government to examine into the charge, they took affidavits from all the jurors, and these affidavits were of a nature, as compared with the affidavits on the other side, to satisfy them. But, having come to that point, it was necessary to go a step further, and they went to the agents of the High Sheriff—the Under Sheriff, the bailiffs, and constables, who represented him—in other word, to the High Sheriff himself—who had to take charge of the jury, and see that they did their duty; and all of these made affidavits that the jury were in no sense under the influence of liquor, and that they did not speak to anyone concerning the trial. That evidence, as I say, comes as far as possible from the High Sheriff himself. With regard to Judge Lawson, I have read enough to show that he was attacked with what I called "ferocity," and we know what happened to Judge Lawson. I have here likewise some remarks about the jury, and will read one from United Ireland of the 7th of October last— The jury was as shamefully concocted, its partizanship was indecent, and the evidence was evidence upon which an English jury would not hang a dog. Now, what was the result of all this? There were the jurors in the cases of Walsh and Francey Hynes, some 30 gentlemen walking about the streets of Dublin, not one of whom was in the smallest danger from the assassins who were in the city. But what happened? One of these gentlemen, I say, was specially pointed out by name—I do not say pointed out to the assassins. In an article of the 7th of October, there were certain very strong remarks made about a Mr. Norris Goddard, who is connected with the Emergency Association. The article said— Once the word is passed to 'convict murderers,' a Metropolitan, Protestant, and loyal jury, under the eye of Mr. Norris Goddard, may be trusted to know a murderer when he sees him, without splitting hairs about particulars.…What is even more aggravating than a patent murder machine as a system of government is the Pharisaism which shelters the achievements of Mr. Goddard's pals under the venerable name of tithe by jury (sic,) and decries as a foe to public justice whoever cries out on the imposture. In the same paper, on the same date, there also appeared this paragraph— The incident of Mr. Field passing an affectionate billet-doux from the jury-box to Mr. Norris Goddard may be quite as innocent as Mr. Pickwick's 'Chops-and-tomato-sauce' communication to Mrs. Bardell; it only shows that, as a qualification for a Green Street juror, billing and cooing terms with a political partisan like Mr. Goddard is a different thing from the remotest suspicion of relations with a political partizan—say, Mr. Davitt. Why not, indeed, flirt with the chief organizer of the landlord faction in open Court, when one of his subordinate officials was thought good enough to take service on a life-and-death jury before? Well, Sir, in my opinion, it is extremely likely that this passage pointed out Mr. Field. I do not say that it was intended to point out Mr. Field to the assassins; but I do say that the editor of a newspaper which contained articles so very strongly written against the Castle officials, and articles of that peculiar class which it could do no one any good to read, for they are made up of denunciations and not arguments, and which preceded the murder of Mr. Burke, ought to have scrupled before he allowed to appear in that paper articles of the same character against Judge Lawson. And I say he likewise ought to have scrupled to admit articles against Mr. Field; and, further—although I may be personally prejudiced in the matter—I must say I think he ought to have scrupled to admit into his paper articles written against myself. These articles, which I will take this opportunity of referring to just for one moment, appeared directly after my speech at Hawick. There were three leading articles, the second of which, in stating that political crime stood on quite another footing to that of other crime, contained these words— Again, it is notorious that the English system invites crime. The English Government has no business here. And, farther on— That is crime for the present in Irishmen which will be quite other when Ireland is mistress of her own fortunes. In the next week's paper there comes this passage, which, I think, may be the precursor of many others of the same character which will probably follow. The "Letter from the House of Commons" begins thus— Mr. Trevelyan's speech on the Distress Question last night will probably have made him the most hated man in Ireland. Among Irish Members Mr. Forster begins to appear a man of sense and feeling in comparison. The Castle poison has turned the blood in the Chief Secretary's veins to gall. His speech last night was a Local Government Board Circular in its most insolent style, translated into an oration of studied callousness and bitterness. And then it went on to say— Except on the Irish Tory Benches, where Mr. Trevelyan is now the darling of the hour, his speech was received with nothing short of horror. To say that my speech was received with horror by the Liberal Party is to make a statement the object of which I cannot even conceive. I am sorry to have had to refer again to this subject, in consequence of the speech of the hon. Member (Mr. O'Brien). I do not think any hon. Gentleman desires to hear any more of it; but I am really anxious to show the House and the country on what sort of pabulum the minds of the unfortunate readers of this class of papers are nourished, and, at the same time, I wish to express my deepest sense of the favourable manner in which I have been treated by every other Member in the House, as distinguished from the treatment I have had outside the House from the Editor of United Ireland.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he need not inform the Committee that it was not his intention to trouble them with extracts from articles in the English Press in reference to Leaders of the Irish Party, which would undoubtedly parallel, without the justification, the extracts which had just been read from one of the organs of Irish opinion published in Ireland. He would, however, remind the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Se- cretary of the fact, which was probably present to his consciousness, but which he strangely omitted in his explanation, that it did not remain with the Editor of United Ireland to single out the action of a certain juror and his relations with a notorious agent of the prosecution against the Irish people. The incident of the friendly exchange of confidence between the juror and Mr. Norris Goddard was related in every daily journal in Dublin, and for days and days before any notice was taken of it in the columns of United Ireland, and it was then already the subject of common conversation and common reprobation from one end of Ireland to the other. That fact was just as well known to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, if he knew anything about affairs in Ireland, as it was to any Member of the Irish Party. He must also beg to correct an impression which was apparently in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman as to the view taken of his recent speech. He had quoted from private letters from the most peaceable, most tranquil, and the most non-political pastors in Ireland, with reference to the action of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. He received last night from a rev. gentleman, whom he never knew to take any part in politics before, a letter in which the name of the Chief Secretary was coupled with the name of a certain Mr. Cromwell, with whom Ireland was too unfortunately familiar. Though he must hold, in common with the Irish Party, the Chief Secretary fully responsible for his speeches and his acts, and the consequences of his policy, he could not close his eyes to one fact, that the present Chief Secretary held a very different position from that held by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster). He was was aware—and he wished to give the right hon. Gentleman all the benefit of the extenuating circumstance—he was aware the present Chief Secretary was excluded from the Cabinet; he was aware that he was, so to speak, only the instrument, and not actually a Colleague and co-partner, of those who had formed the policy that was now torturing Ireland. On the other hand, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) was a Cabinet Minister, and took part in the formation of the policy he carried out. He (Mr. O'Donnell) certainly thought that some share of that obloquy which had fallen not undeservedly upon the Chief Secretary should be borne by the responsible Heads of Her Majesty's Administration who shrank from exposing in the House of Commons to the criticism of the Irish Members the real authors of the Irish policy. Nothing could be more cowardly, nothing less in keeping with Constitutional policy, than that the Government should keep back from their responsible position in the House the men who were carrying out the Government's Irish policy. Earl Spencer was sheltered behind the immunities of the House of Lords, while the Chief Secretary was put forward to act as Envoy of the Cabinet. As the right hon. Gentleman had taken certain functions upon himself he must bear the responsibilities of his choice. They were indisposed to make the only Member of the Irish Government of Ireland who was present—the Chief Secretary'—responsible for all the acts of his Colleagues; still, as he had previously said, he could not condemn too strongly the cowardly and miserable policy which withdrew from the criticisms of the Irish Members the real agents and active authors of the detestable policy of provocation to crime which was now being pursued by Her Majesty's Government in Ireland.

MR. DAWSON

said, he desired to ask two questions. [Murmurs.] He was sorry hon. Gentlemen opposite could not contribute to the debate anything but inarticulate sounds. After having heard the deliberate quotations of the right hon. Gentleman to prove the charges, the dreadful charges—

SIR JOSEPH PEASE,

rising to Order, asked if the right hon. Gentleman's remarks had anything to do with the Estimates?

MR. DAWSON

said, he was simply referring to the quotations which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary made to warrant the dreadful charges which the right hon. Gentleman had made against the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien). He (Mr. Dawson) contended that the remarks were such as would appear in any English journals under similar circumstances, and would receive no condemnation from the British public, much less form the ground for such terrible charges as those the right hon. Gentleman had brought against the hon. Member for Mallow. [Murmurs.] He wished the hon. Gentlemen who murmured and indulged in inarticulate sounds would rise in their places, and show the cause of the faith that was in them. He challenged the Prime Minister, notwithstanding his powerful expression, to show sufficient reason why the hon. Member for Mallow should be convicted of inciting to murder. He (Mr. Dawson) did not want to say anything about the verdicts that were found in most of the agrarian murder cases in Ireland; but he did desire to say that in England it would have been utterly impossible, no matter how clear the guilt of the prisoner was, to get a verdict in such a case as Hynes's, if the conduct of the jury had been the same. The evening before the conviction, the jury in Hynes's case was given in charge of a sub-officer whom the Judge accepted in place of the High Sheriff. At the hotel the jury played billiards, smoked, and drank in the smoking-room; they moved about the corridors riotously, and some of them walked into the room in which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. O'Brien) happened to be sleeping. They might have walked into a dozen rooms, and had conversed with hundreds of people, for aught the Committee knew. He would be borne out by his legal Friends from Dublin, that recently in Tipperary, whilst the learned Judge had retired, the jury left the box for refreshments, but did not leave the precincts of the Court. The Judge, upon his return into Court, held that the jury by that act of dispersion had themselves abandoned the commission intrusted to them, and he discharged them, and swore a new jury. Apart from the question of the guilt of Hynes, he (Mr. Dawson) maintained that in consequence of their proceedings the night previous to the conviction, the jury found an illegal verdict. Hynes might have been guilty, but, according to law, he was illegally convicted.

MR. T. C. THOMPSON

asked the Attorney General for Ireland whether there was any check upon the employment of counsel in Ireland, or upon the fees they received? In England there was an officer appointed by the Treasury to tax the fees; £29,300 appeared to English eyes an enormous sum to be paid in fees, and he was sure the Committee would be gratified to hear that some check was kept upon them in Ireland.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Air. PORTER)

said, he was glad the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Thompson) had given him the opportunity of saying now what he should have said at a later period, in reference to the question of counsel's fees. There was, he thought, some misconception as to what occurred last night, when the question was raised by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). He (the Attorney General for Ireland) did not say last night that the £15,000, which was asked for in the present Vote, under the head of "Counsel's Fees," was asked for exclusively in reference to cases which had come into Court in consequence of the passing of the Crimes Act. He said if the Crimes Act had not been passed, the original Estimate would have been inadequate for the demands of the year. But he pointed out that the Crimes Act had been the cause of a very considerable part of the legal expenses of the year. That was a matter which must be perfectly obvious, when the Committee remembered that there had been, up to the present time, more than 20 exceedingly important murder cases, tried under the Crimes Act, tried in a venue different from that in which they would otherwise have been tried, and tried, under circumstances involving the greatest difficulty, complexity of evidence, and demanding the assistance of the ablest counsel whom the Crown could get. Those cases were quite exceptional, both in their circumstances and in the expense attending upon them. It would be borne in mind that in the year 1881–2 the expenses which were actually incurred under the head of Fees to Counsel were £20,500. The Government now asked for a Vote of £29,000 for the same purpose; that was an increase not of £15,000 but of £9,000. The whole of the increase was not for fees in criminal cases; £2,000 of it was for fees in civil actions, which were brought against the Government and which had to be defended. As to the keeping of a check upon counsel's fees, and the mode in which prosecutions wore conducted, he desired the Committee to understand the matter thoroughly. There were in each county two regular standing counsel, who were instructed by the Crown in every ease. The fees of these counsel were paid to them by the Crown Solicitor, under the supervision of the Attorney General, and also under the check of the supervision of the Treasury. The fees were fixed on an ordinary scale. They were not large, because the average fees for all the counsel engaged in the Assize Courts were 11 guineas in each case. If two counsel were employed in one case, that might seem a considerable amount; but it was not exceedingly startling. There were cases, of course, in which special fees were paid. Those special fees had to be given in particular cases, cases of great difficulty, requiring more than ordinary attention on the part of counsel. Special arrangements were in every case made upon the official responsibility of the Attorney General. The Attorney General for the time being had to give his sanction before any special fee could be paid; and before they gave their assent the Treasury looked, with great care, into the particulars of the case, to ascertain whether they warranted foes to counsel of an exceptional character. He could assure the Committee that there had been on the part of his Predecessor (Mr. W. M.Johnson), and there was, on his own part, the most close inspection of the fees and an anxious desire that there should be observed the strictest economy in the matter. It would, he was sure, be considered very poor and paltry economy, if every care were not taken to secure competent efficiency and to obtain the services of the most competent counsel the Government could command. He was not able to give, with any correctness, the number of the cases heard in Ireland in which counsel appeared. Many cases had not been sent for trial; but he believed he was correct in saying that about 4,000 or 5,000 cases were sent for trial every year, of which about two-thirds went to the Sessions, and about one-third to the Assizes. Those cases were conducted in the way he had described. He endeavoured to show that he and the Treasury had not been able to decide upon a more economical arrangement consistant with efficiency than the present.

MR. LABOUCHERE

said the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had made out a case against himself. The right hon. and learned Gentleman stated last night that less than 100 cases had come under the Crimes Act, and he had not now denied it. He had also said that £13,000 instead of £15,000 was alone spent on the prosecutions under the Crimes Act. He had not risen in sup-port of the views of hon. Gentlemen on the Irish Benches opposite, but rose strictly from an economical point of view. They ought to know how much of this money had been spent for prosecutions under the Crimes Act, in order that they might arrive at something definite as to the amount of money spent in each case. If they took £10,000, and there were less than 100 cases, that would give something like £100 in each case. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman had made his case really worse, for there were £15,000 for prosecutors. As he understood the right hon. and learned Gentleman, those prosecutors were, in point of fact, barristers who were employed by the Government.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. POSTER)

said, he had never made any statement to that effect. The expenses of witnesses bound over to prosecute were formerly defrayed by the Grand Juries from the counties; but now they were payable by the State, and these were what appeared in the accounts as "Prosecutors."

MR. LABOUCHERE

said, there were also £15,000 set down for the prosecuting witnesses, and an item of £10,000 for general law expenses. He did not understand what those were, but he took the figures for fees at £10,000; and even if he put the number at 80 that would mean £125 in each case for counsel. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had said that a great many of these cases were simply cases in which only 11 guineas were given to counsel. If that wore so, the fees upon the 20 cases of murder must have been something perfectly portentous; and it was upon that ground mainly that he agreed with a great deal of what hon. Gentlemen opposite had said as to the economical aspect of the question.

MR. PARNELL

said, he desired to ask the Attorney General for Ireland one or two questions with regard to the amount paid to counsel. He wished to know how much the trial of, say Francis Hynes, cost the Crown in the shape of fees to the prosecuting counsel, for solicitors and Crown prosecutors? Could the right hon. and learned Gentleman give any detailed information regarding any one of the trials—the trial, for instance, of the two Walshes, who were sentenced to death, and one of whom was executed, while the other was sent to penal servitude for life? He wished the House to be informed as to the very great unfairness displayed between the way in which the Crown accused and prosecuted prisoners, and the way in which they defended them when paid for the defence under the provisions of the Crimes Act. That Act provided where prisoners were brought from one county to another by a change of venue the Crown were to pay the expenses of the witnesses and the expense of defending the prisoners so removed. A number of prisoners were taken to Dublin from all parts of Ireland accused of murder, and many of them were afterwards found guilty and executed; but they were defended by junior counsel. Why was that? Was it because the Crown refused to pay senior counsel, or because the Crown had bought up, by this lavish system of expenditure, the services of all the valuable senior counsel in the country? He did not care which case the right hon. and learned Gentleman took; he might take the case of the men who were found guilty of the Maamtrasna murder, or of the murder of the Huddys, or the case of Francis Hynes, or either of the Walshes. He should be glad to know how much the prosecution of one of these cases cost the Crown; how much was paid by the Crown for the prosecution, and how much for the defence? He was aware that in the case of Francis Hynes the Crown had been asked for £250 for his defence; but, as far as he knew, they had, up to the present time, refused to grant that amount. Hynes' solicitor was told that the Crown would not provide senior counsel, but that they would give a fee for junior counsel not exceeding £3 or £4. He had informed the Attorney General of that fact nearly two months ago, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman had promised to investigate it; but he (Mr. Parnell) did not yet know the result of the investigation. How much did the prosecution to death of Hynes cost the Crown, and how much did they pay for his defence? If the Crown had paid anything for the defence of Hynes, then the right hon. and learned Gentleman might take some other case In these murder eases prisoners had not been able to obtain the services of senior counsel, because of the formidable array of the ablest legal counsel prosecuting them; and, therefore, they had been defended only by junior counsel. The persons convicted of the Maamtrasna massacre were defended by two junior counsel. The persons convicted of the Huddy murder were also defended by two juniors. He wished for some explanation of these circumstances now that the Committee was asked to pass this swollen Estimate, on the ground that it was necessary for the administration of justice in Ireland that this enormous sum should be spent. He wished to know whether it was true that the Government had spent their money only on one side; and, in consequence, would prisoners have any chance of proving their innocence?

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)

replied, that he could not state the cost of the Hynes trial, and said he was not one of the counsel engaged in the case, and was not then Attorney General. But with regard to the other prisoners' counsel in murder cases, under the Crimes Act, where a prisoner was unable to procure counsel, his expenses and those of his witnesses wore defrayed by the Crown. In that direction there had never been any complaint; and in addition to that, in every case, whether under the Crimes Act or not, where a man was on trial for murder, it was the practice in Ireland—though he believed it was not in England—not only to assign counsel for the defence of the prisoner, but to provide a fee for such counsel. That was a matter of rule in Ireland in the case where a prisoner was unable to provide counsel for himself. It was obvious that there was no extra expense put upon a prisoner, so far as the fee of his counsel was concerned, by reason of his being removed from one place to another; and as the representatives of the Crown carefully scrutinized all cases in order to ascertain whether the prisoners had means or not, they were satisfied that in most cases the prisoners had not sufficient means to provide counsel. What happened in Hynes's case was this—the first solicitor who appeared for Hynes informed the Crown Solicitor that there was a subscription fund of £100, which would be abundant for Hynes's defence. After- wards, however, the solicitor was changed; and, speaking to Mr. Morphy in reference to the defence, he said—"I suppose you are going to provide counsel." Mr. Morphy replied that he had no power in the matter, as it was for the Judge to assign counsel. No application whatever was made, either to the Castle authorities or to the Attorney General, in reference to the fee for Hynes's defence. Hynes had counsel for his defence, and there never had been any complaint from him or anybody else.

MR. GIBSON

asked whether the Judge assigned counsel?

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)

said, no application was made either to himself or to the Judge. As to other cases, although it was unusual and to a certain extent against the fixed rules, two counsel were assigned. Whenever an application was made, and they were not paid in accordance with the ordinary rule, they were paid what the Attorney General thought was a fair and reasonable, but not an extravagant fee. That fee was accepted without any complaint on the part of those who received it, and in each and every one of these cases where two counsel were remunerated, they were the two counsel selected by the prisoner's solicitor without any suggestion from the Attorney General. It did so happen in one set of these cases there were two junior counsel—nominally junior counsel—but both of them were men of very great experience in criminal cases. In the other case, there were two stuff gownsmen engaged; but they were men of the highest eminence, and were just as competent as any man in silk to conduct the defence. Again, in another case, one was a senior and one was a junior in the technical sense of those terms; but in each case the prisoners were provided with the means of having the counsel whom they wished, and the fees for those counsel were provided by the Crown without any complaint.

MR. DAWSON

said, this being a matter of figures, it required calm consideration. He did not think the right hon. and learned Gentleman had got out of the difficulty in which he had been placed. He (the Attorney General for Ireland) had said the fees were not enormous; but that had led him into a greater dilemma, because that required him to prove where the rest of the £15,000 went to. If only £11 had been paid in some of these cases, something must have been done with the residue; and he thought the right hon. and learned Gentleman ought to state the names of the gentlemen who had received these fees. On his own argument, the right hon. and learned Gentleman was committed to the dilemma as to how he got rid of a number of the payments. Could not he state to whom he had paid fees which went beyond all reasonable limits?

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

asked whether some of this money had not gone to the payment of informers? He wished to know whether the consideration and reward for these informers was not concealed under this Vote?

MR. PARNELL

said, he was sorry to take up the time of the Committee; but he must submit that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had not answered the point which he had brought before him. In fact, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had evaded the question. The question he had brought before the Committee, and to which he had invited the attention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, was the discrepancy between the cost of prosecuting the prisoners and of defending them. He had asked for some particulars relating to the trial of one of these prisoners either in Dublin or in any other part of the country. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had not given the Committee a single example; he had excused himself on the ground that in regard to Hynes's case he was not the Attorney General. But there had been other cases of a similar character which had happened since he had been appointed Attorney General, and of which he ought to be able to give some details. He had admitted that in almost every case where counsel were employed for the defence of prisoners they had been junior counsel faced by a senior counsel, and, in some cases, by the Attorney General and the Solicitor General, as well as by experienced Queen's Counsel, who were receiving heavy fees. There was another point to which he desired to call attention. In the Crimes Act there were two classes of payments provided by the Crown for the purpose of defending prisoners; fees to Queen's Counsel in the 1st section of the Act—that which provided for the trial of cases of murder by a tribunal of Judges without a jury; and fees to counsel for defending prisoners accused of murder, in addition to the cost of defending prisoners where the venue was changed. But the Government had refused, in such cases, to pay the expenses incurred by the solicitors for the defence in inquiring into the case in the locality itself. As he understood the matter, the Government had offered to pay the expenses of the solicitor while present in Dublin, or in the district to which the venue was changed, during the trial; but they refused to pay the expenses incurred by the solicitor in working up the case, and making the best legal inquiries he could in the district. He submitted that it was just as important that the case, for the purpose of defence as for the purpose of prosecution, should be properly inquired into in the locality. The case of the man Corry was an example. He was lately charged before Mr. Justice Harrison and a special jury in Dublin, composed of 11 Protestants and one Catholic, and was acquitted. The Crown evidently believed in the guilt of Corry, because they held him in prison for many months; postponed his trial from time to time, and, finally, brought him before a special jury in the City of Dublin, and selected a jury so carefully that they ordered 46 Catholics to stand aside. He was acquitted, for which he had to thank the fact that Mr. Justice Harrison tried him. He (Mr. Parnell) had the profoundest conviction of the innocence of the prisoner, and, out of a fund he had the control of, he had paid the costs of an investigation into the case by a solicitor. There could be no doubt that the investigation the solicitor had set on foot, the measurements he had been able to take, and so forth, had helped materially to bring about the acquittal of this innocent man, and save English justice in Ireland from the stain of sacrificing innocent life in that country. If this money—£20, he thought it was—had not been advanced, the man's life would most probably have been sacrificed. He submitted, therefore, it was fair that all the reasonable expenses of solicitors for prisoners in these cases should be paid by the State. If a man was not able to pay the expenses of counsel and solicitor while the case was being investigated by a jury, how could he afford to pay for the necessary preliminary investigation which had to be carried on to enable him to establish his innocence? In view of the charge now made upon the national funds in respect of prosecutions, the Government ought in fairness on the other side to give persons—innocent, at any rate, until they were proved guilty—small sums to enable them to acquit themselves, if possible, of the charges brought against them. He hoped the Committee would have some indication from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland as to how he intended to manage this matter for the future, so as to enable pauper prisoners to properly prepare their defence in grave cases of life and death.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he was surprised that the Attorney General for Ireland did not seem to think that the question just put to him demanded a specific and categorical answer. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) would repeat, for the benefit of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and other Gentlemen interested in this matter, the particular point on which they desired information. Why was it that the Crown thought it necessary to give large and extravagant fees, and to employ an extensive array of senior counsel in prosecutions, and contented themselves with giving small fees to juniors for the purpose of defending prisoners? The right hon. and learned Gentleman had dealt very largely in generalities in this matter. [Cries of "Divide!"] If hon. Members were under the impression that he was going to finish one minute sooner in consequence of cries of "Divide!" they were very much mistaken. It was now pretty generally understood that they were to have a Saturday Sitting; and he was willing to remain in that House to any hour until, at any rate, his mind was satisfied, however it might be with hon. Members who kept up such a boisterous interruption this evening. He trusted the right hon. and learned Gentleman would not allow his mind to be diverted by the several incidents which had occurred from the questions which had been put to him during the discussion on the Motion for a reduction of the Vote. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) would remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman that he had been asked to stand up in his place and say whether he believed that Mr. Harrington had intimidated the farmers of Westmeath who had returned him to Parliament during his imprisonment. He had been asked whether he could defend the treatment Mr. Harrington had received from the Governor of Mullingar Prison. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had also ventured to address an appeal to the right hon. and learned Gentleman to say whether, even allowing that the language which had been used by Mr. Healy was too strong for the circumstances of the case—which, however, he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) did not admit—he did not consider the time had come when the hon. Member could be allowed to take his place in the House, and when his constituents could be permitted to have the advantage of his assistance in the discussion of affairs in which they were interested. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) did not wish, even for the purpose of giving a retort to the hon. Baronet opposite and other boisterous Members, to repeat the views he had already expressed to the House; but again he asked—and he should avail himself of all the usages of the House to obtain an answer—why these bloated fees were given to counsel for the prosecution, whilst such small sums were given to junior counsel for the defence?

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

said, he did not rise for the purpose of unduly protracting this discussion, but with the object of reducing it to some practical result. He confessed he differed from his hon. Friends around him in their accusations against the Government of extravagance in the employment of Crown Counsel. His impression was that that part of the case had been satisfactorily met by the statement of the Attorney General for Ireland. The Treasury were too wide awake on both sides of the Channel to allow either the Attorney General for England or the Attorney General for Ireland to indulge in any extravagance in this matter; and from whatever experience he had had of the observation of criminal trials in this country, he could say that, as a rule, these gentlemen were very much underpaid. But the particular point on which he believed his hon. Friends were entitled to information was this—the Attorney General for Ireland had stated that the fees given to counsel employed in the defence of prisoners were fixed fees, and that he (the Atterney-General for Ireland) was unable to interfere in enlarging those fees. This was precisely the point against which, he thought, a protest ought to be made. He did not see why, since it was the primary object of the Crown to investigate cases impartially, counsel employed on one side should be more highly feed than those employed on the other; and he should like to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman who was responsible for the fixing of the paltry limit of £3 3s. for the defence of a man accused of a capital offence. This was the gravamen of the charge of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) that someone was responsible for fixing the amount of the fees, and that they were not adequate for securing the defence of persons supposed to be implicated in such grave crime. He was glad to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman speak in such complimentary terms of Mr. Teeling and Mr. Adams; but those terms had not been more complimentary than the gentlemen in question deserved. But was it for those gentlemen to incur the odium of defending prisoners in such cases as those with which they had to deal for such paltry fees? It might be the responsibility lay with the Judge; and if the Attorney General for Ireland was able to wash his hands of that responsibility, at any rate it was to be hoped that he would be able to bring some influence to bear on those whose duty it was to fix the fees to get them to raise them to a reasonable amount.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)

said, hon. Members had misunderstood what he had said. What he had stated was that there was a fixed sum to be paid counsel for defending prisoners, which sum could not be exceeded unless with the special sanction of the Attorney General for Ireland. It was a printed Treasury Rule. The fixed sum was not to be exceeded except in cases of special difficulty and importance, when the Attorney General for Ireland had power to increase the fees. He had increased the fees in cases in which he had considered it reasonable to do so—in cases where the counsel had had important and arduous and difficult tasks to perform for the benefit of the prisoners and the interest of the public. The hon. Member (Mr. Parnell) had assumed that the Crown Counsel received large fees, and the defending counsel small fees; and that he would explain. He had given the average of fees to Crown counsel; and as to the others, although he was not able to state the fees he had given in particular cases—there being no Return made of them—in many instances higher fees than those fixed had been allowed by him, and certified for in the ordinary form. To prevent a misconception in the matter, he must say that they were not dealing in these Votes with what had taken place under the Crimes Act merely, but with the entire of the legal prosecutions in Ireland for the whole year.

MR. KENNY

said, that the more they looked at these figures the worse would the attempt of the Government to account for them appear. In all Ireland the number of practising barristers was only some 200.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)

400.

MR. KENNY

Well, they would say 400. He was speaking of those who lived exclusively by their Profession. The sum demanded was £29,300—almost £30,000—which would give £150 apiece to all the practising barristers in Ireland, supposing the Crown engaged them all. If half of them were employed it would amount to £300, and if only 50 were engaged it would amount to £600, and so on. They were entitled to have from the Attorney General for Ireland some specific figures showing how much the barristers had received, how many had been employed, and how much the right hon. and learned Gentleman had received himself. Before they voted away public money, they were entitled to know how it was spent. He wished to know whether it was true, as the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) had suggested, that a great deal of this money had been spent in suborning witnesses and paying informers?

MR. DAWSON

said, that two gentlemen who had been mentioned—Messrs. Teeling and Adams—and who were known very well in that (the Irish Opposition) quarter of the House were, although only juniors, ornaments to the Irish Bar. He (Mr. Dawson) had had some opportunity of knowing that these gentlemen, at any rate, had not received the missing thousands. They had only had a few guineas, and the Irish nation would very naturally ask—"Where did the thousands go to? Into whose individual pocket—to smoothen whose promotion?" While the poor peasantry of Ireland were absolutely starving, it was an outrage on the country to have unaccounted for in this way thousands upon thousands of pounds. In justice to his own high Office the Irish Attorney General was bound to give them the names of those people into whose pockets these thousands had gone. [An hon. MEMBER: The pocket of the Land League.] He (Mr. Dawson) should be glad if the Land League were responsible, and were in a position to account for this money of the Government in a creditable manner. The right hon. and learned Gentleman should show into whose official pockets had gone all the money. If it was undenied it had been spent for scant value—if it was undenied that it had gone into the pockets of those who were not entitled to it, it would make the conduct of officials distrusted and doubted.

MR. SEXTON

said, he had to complain of the unstatesmanlike manner in which the Government were discussing this Vote; and also of the manifest discourtesy and obstinate silence of the Chief Secretary and the Attorney General for Ireland, in regard to specific inquiries addressed to them from that (the Irish Opposition) quarter of the House. He would presently refer to these inquiries, and insist, as far as he could, upon having an answer. In the meantime he would state that, after all that had been said about the payment of barristers in Ireland, the question was a very simple one. The fact was that with the multiplication of well-paid officers in Ireland, and the annual inflation of this charge for legal expenses, the Government had accomplished a complete system of the moral debauchment of the Irish Bar. At one time or another the Government got at every man with a fat fee, or a well-paid office. [Ironical cheers.] He supposed that hon. Members who cheered so much had been got at already. It had come to this in Ireland—that whether the number of barristers practising in that country was 200 or 400, it was impossible for anyone in a political case to get a barrister whom he could trust. It reminded him of an election contest he was once en- gaged in at a town in Ireland, where he found that the other candidates had bought up the two attorneys in the place, and there remained not so much as an attorney's clerk available for his instruction. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had pointed out that the expenditure of a small sum of money in making inquiries had resulted in the acquittal of an accused person; and he had asked whether the Government were prepared to promise, or give any similar assurance, that in very grave cases, where the lives of men were in danger, they would provide a small sum of money for the same purpose. And what reply had they obtained from the Government? They had been met with silence—not one word had been spoken. Yet hon. Members who had listened with obvious inattention to the course of the debate, and who interrupted him with cries of "Divide!" must understand that this question would have to be discussed that evening or to-morrow, and of these two occasions hon. Members could take their choice. Who could tell what was covered by the term "prosecutors," or how many bribes wore included under that head? Were the Government prepared to make any declaration of policy upon the cases of his hon. Friends the Members for Westmeath and Wexford. The Government had received from the farmers of Westmeath as stern and severe a rebuff as they had just received from the Government of France in the case of Mr. Byrne. They had accused Mr. Harrington of intimidating the farmers of Westmeath, and upon that charge he was found guilty by the magistrates and sent to gaol. Their blind policy, however, had produced the opposite effect to what might have been expected; the farmers of Westmeath replied to the charge against Mr. Harrington by saying that they were not intimidated, and they returned him as the Representative of the county. But although Mr. Harrington was now lying in gaol in Galway, he was a moral victor over the Government who had imprisoned him. The Prime Minister had repeatedly acknowledged in that House that if there was one Member who could compete with him as the student of agrarian reform, that man was the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy). But the Whig Party, he said, had struck a blow against their support in Ulster by seizing on this moment to imprison the most active and effective man that Irishmen ever sent to represent them. He again invited the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to declare whether he would stand narrowly and unintelligently upon the sentence passed by the magistrates upon these Members, or whether, having regard to the question of policy involved in their imprisonment, he would cause them to be released, and so put an end to this disgrace to the Administration in Ireland.

MR. TREVELYAN

The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) made a speech yesterday which I confess interested me very much, and in which he took occasion to remark, one after another, upon the cardinal points of our policy in Ireland; and to that speech I should certainly have replied almost as soon as the present discussion came on, were it not that my attention was necessarily diverted by the speech of the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien). At this stage of the evening I shall not speak at the same length as I otherwise should have done; but I am quite prepared to answer, categorically, the questions which the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) and the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) have put. The hon. Member for Sligo, repeating the question of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), asks whether the Government will be prepared to bear the expense of some such preliminary inquiry as was made in the case of the man who was tried on the alleged charge of murder and acquitted. The hon. Member, who advanced money in the case in question, must remember that no such custom exists in England, Ireland, or Scotland, as the Crown generally undertaking the defence of persons accused of crimes. The Crown only provides them with an attorney and counsel in capital cases. But in Ireland, in consequence of recent legislation, when the venue is changed, the Crown undertakes the expenses of the criminals during the trial; but further than that I do not see how the Crown can go, for in no part of the United Kingdom does it pay the preliminary expenses incurred by the fact of a person being put on trial. The hon. Members for Sligo and Galway have questioned me with regard to the imprisonment of the hon. Members for Wexford (Mr. Healy) and Westmeath (Mr. Harrington), and have asked whether the Government was prepared to release them. Sir, the policy of the Government with regard to what are ordinarily called prosecutions for speeches in Ireland is very simple and plain, and I will in a few words endeavour to describe what that policy is. The Government are very unwilling to prosecute for speeches, and have shown their unwillingness to allow speeches to pass without prosecution when they did not think it absolutely necessary for the public safety that an opposite course should be taken. It is a curious and significant fact that all the cases in which people have been interfered with for words spoken in Ireland come within an exceedingly short space of time. On the 13th of August there was one isolated prosecution under the Crimes Act, and with that exception all the nine cases in which persons have been brought to account for spoken words occurred between the 22nd of November and the 22nd of December last. I do not assume that what I say is convincing to Gentlemen who have raised this question; but it is right that I should state to the Committee the motives which actuated me. About the time referred to agitation began again in Ireland which the Government regarded as very dangerous. They endeavoured to keep their minds closed against that idea as long as it was possible to do so. But they came to the conclusion that there was a determination to excite and agitate people for purposes which the Government could not possibly admit, and that such agitation would once more take the country out of the influence of law and order, and would reproduce the state of things which existed at this time last year. The Government considered that it was their bounden duty to take such steps as would put a stop to this agitation or bring it within proper bounds, and in consequence of that they engaged in five prosecutions for intimidation under the Prevention of Crimes Act. Among these were the prosecutions of the hon. Member for Wexford and Mr. Harrington. The Government came to the conclusion that there was a primâ faciecase against Mr. Harrington; the words used by him amounting, in their judgment, to intimidation, and that of an extremely dangerous kind. After speaking of his inquiries into the condition of the farming class in the district, Mr. Harrington said— And I tell the comfortable farmers of Ireland that if they don't throw themselves into this movement they will have to face a movement which they have never had to face before. The labourers' agitation will be directed against them. Those words were considered by the Government to amount to intimidation of a very dangerous kind—dangerous when proceeding from a gentleman who knew very well what the effect of a labourers' agitation directed against the farming class would be. It is easy for persons living in England, where the strongest language only raises a temporary excitement, to think little of words of this kind. But when the fact is considered that these words were spoken in the midst of a society convulsed in the terrible crisis of a political movement, I must say I think they were very dangerous words indeed. But the Government, in such cases, cannot take the words alone so far as the prosecution of a particular person is concerned; although, as far as the decision of the Court is concerned, the actual words must be taken, and those only. When, however, you come to the question whether the Government is to prosecute or not, it must be considered what their collective effect must be. If the Government think the collective effect will be innocent, they will do wisely in not prosecuting; but if they think the collective effect will be dangerous to the public safety, then I think the Government is right to prosecute any person who has uttered words which have brought them within the scope of the law. Upon that principle the Government have acted. I have been asked by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) whether the fact of the unanimous election of Mr. Harrington by the Westmeath farmers was not a proof that he was not guilty of the offence charged against him? I cannot say that that is my opinion. A man may be elected against the will of a great number of individuals; and the most dangerous agitation is that directed by the few against the many. Then with regard to the hon. Member for Wexford (Air. Healy). This case was the same as that of Mr. Harrington so far as related to the reason which induced the Government to take notice of the words used by the hon. Member. Those words were, in our opinion, dangerous; they were spoken on the same platform as a speech attributed to a parish priest, to which the hon. Member for Wexford presumably listened, and at a place where the Government found the very worst and most dangerous were made at any time during the movement. Well, Sir, the hon. Member for Wexford was proceeded against, not, however, under the Prevention of Crimes Act, because, in the opinion of the Government, the speech did not come within the Intimidation Clauses. They proceeded against him under the powers which appeared to them to be suited to the occasion. They applied to have him bound over to keep the peace, and that was precisely what they were anxious to obtain. They wanted the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) to promise to keep the peace; but the hon. Gentleman was unwilling to say that he would not go on making speeches of the kind complained of, and so he and Mr. Davitt were committed to gaol. I venture to say that if Mr. Davitt and the hon. Member for Wexford had been allowed to continue making speeches of that nature, with such variety of language as they would have been obliged to use, within a month or two the country would have been in a very dangerous state of excitement. The hon. Member for Wexford was perfectly at liberty to give bail now, if he wished to obtain his release.

MR. SEXTON

asked if that would not amount to a constructive admission that the speech was one inciting to unlawful acts?

MR.TREVELYAN

I know that is the view of the hon. Gentleman; but, by refusing to give bail, the inference is that he thinks his speech was one he was perfectly justified in making, and one he is ready to make again. The hon. Gentleman, in fact, said so. The Government, however, on the other hand, thought that the speech was an extremely dangerous one in its effects. [Mr. PARNELL: The whole speech?] I alluded to the words which were brought before the notice of the Court. It was said the Government ought to let Mr. Harrington out of prison because he had become a Member of Parliament; and that they ought in the case of Mr. Healy to remove the necessity of his giving bail as a preliminary to his release, because he is a useful Member of Parliament. In so doing, the Government would be doing an injustice to the men who had not the advantage of being Members of Parliament; and I cannot understand the principle on which we would be acting. The Government were extremely sorry that it had to proceed against anyone for what they said publicly. They, however, considered they were bound, in the interests of the public safety, to prosecute these hon. Gentlemen amongst others. The fact of a man being a Member of Parliament is in itself a double reason why he should refrain from using such language as that in question.

MR. DAWSON

asked if the Committee were to conclude that men were to be punished for what other men said? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary said the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) was punished in consequence of what Father Delaney had said. The right hon. Gentleman said—"We are not punishing Harrington for the exact words he used, which, indeed, were very wild; but we looked to other things said throughout the country." They punished the hon. Member; but they had not the courage to punish the rev. gentleman whose speech was too bad for the right hon. Gentleman to read. Did the right hon. Gentleman ever hear of Joseph Arch, who had carried on the agricultural labourers' agitation in England? Did he punish Joseph Arch? Did he put him into gaol? Dare he do it?

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, that, in reference to the case of Mr. Harrington, he had, perhaps, a peculiar right to say a few words. Mr. Harrington was his Colleague in the representation of Westmeath, and he (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) was with his hon. Friend on the platform, and heard the speech in question from beginning to end. It was not for one passage, but for one single word in that speech, that Mr. Harrington had been sentenced to two months' imprisonment; and Mr. Harrington had been imprisoned upon the strength of a forced and Governmental construction put on that one single word. He (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) challenged a denial of his assertion. It was on the word "agitation" that the whole prosecution against Mr. Harrington turned. Mr. Harrington had said that the whole force of the labourers' agitation would be turned against the farmers if they did not, in a day of distress, try to open some employment for the labourers. It was felt at the time that the labourers of Westmeath, and, indeed, of the country, were in a state of destitution; and Mr. Harrington appealed to the generosity and the good feeling and the gratitude of the farmers to help the labourers in their day of distress. Mr. Harrington said the labourers were founding an agitation some time before, for the redress of their own grievances; but, he added— I took no part in it; I did not join it, because I do not like those class movements. But I tell you that unless you do something for these poor people, to whom you owe so much, the force of this agitation will he turned against you. He (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) denied it was a threat which Mr. Harrington used; he denied it was intimidation. The speech was not meant as intimidation, and it was not understood as intimidation by anybody except by the two or three policemen who came up and gave evidence to that effect. Why was there no farmer, large or small, no man of any other class, no civilian at all, brought up at the trial to testify either that he felt intimidated, or that he thought it likely other people would be intimidated, by the speech? Not a single person, save two or three policemen, were brought forward to testify to the intimidatory effect of Mr. Harrington's words. The prosecution was a fraud; it was an outrage upon justice; and he was really surprised the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary could find it in his heart to stand up in his place in the House of Commons and defend the prosecution and the continued imprisonment of the hon. Gentleman. Every day's imprisonment of Mr. Harrington was an outrage upon justice; every day's imprisonment of the hon. Gentleman tended to create, in the County Westmeath especially, and more or less in other counties, a feeling of hatred for the law under which the hon. Gentleman was imprisoned, and a feeling of discontent at the whole system of administration in Ireland. There was not a man in Westmeath who did not consider the imprisonment of the hon. Gentleman obtained under false pretences. That was his (Mr. T. D. Sullivan's) own belief and conviction. He regarded the prosecution as a fraud and a sham; he regarded it as an outrage on justice; and every day's imprisonment of Mr. Harrington was a shame and scandal to the British Government in Ireland. There was no getting over the fact that the three nomination papers of Mr. Harrington were signed by farmers, and that if three other nomination papers had been desired there were other farmers ready and willing to sign them, and there was no intimidation, there was no pressure put upon the farmers to take that course. They did so of their own free will and desire, and a more effective answer to the prosecution could not possibly be given than the fact that the farmers of Westmeath crowded in to assist in the election of the hon. Gentleman, and that, if any opposition had been attempted, the farmers of Westmeath would have overwhelmed it by their votes. He asked the Chief Secretary not to prolong the imprisonment of Mr. Harrington. Of all the prosecutions under the Crimes Act this of Mr. Harrington was the weakest. There was not a shadow of justification or foundation for it. True, a conviction was obtained; but the people of Ireland knew, and the people of England ought to know by this time, what was the value of a conviction obtained now in Ireland—the value of a conviction obtained before two of the special magistrates who took their law from the Law Advisers of the Castle. The Law Advisers of the Castle sent down one of the counsel—whose fees were included in the Vote they were now asked to pass—the Law Advisers sent down one of these gentlemen to conduct the prosecution of Mr. Harrington, and the two magistrates on the bench dare not dream of disputing the view of the case taken by the Queen's Counsel engaged. Mr. Harrington, in his defence, completely riddled the evidence of the police reporter; he showed that the man was perfectly incompetent; nevertheless, two months' imprisonment was decreed for Mr. Harrington, which he was now undergoing, a portion of which he underwent as a common convict in Mullingar Gaol, and the remainder of which, with some modification, he was suffering in Galway Gaol. He (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) asked the Chief Secretary not to let the Easter Recess go by without ordering the release of the hon. Gentleman, in order that he might do what he was elected to do—namely, to represent the people of the County Westmeath in the House of Commons.

MR. PARNELL

said, that before the Vote was taken he desired to point out to the Chief Secretary that it appeared to him that, under the Crimes Act, the Government could, if they wished, pay all the expenses and costs of the person who was placed on his trial. The section of the Act which enabled them to do this was that which provided for the change of venue. It was as follows:— Whore an order is made under this Act directing a change of venue, the proscribed Crown Solicitor, or other prescribed official, under the direction of the Attorney General, shall provide, where necessary, for advancing money for enabling the person to be tried, and the witnesses required for the defence of such person to attend the trial. His contention was that the money for enabling a person to be fairly tried should include the costs of the solicitor engaged to prepare the case for the defence. If the Government desired to put a fair interpretation upon the section of the Act he had read—an interpretation which, at the time the question of paying the expenses of the defence of persons taken out of their own counties for trial, was accepted by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary—he could not understand how they could evade the payment of the costs of the solicitor for the prisoner. The Crown were in a position to send engineers to the localities to take measurements, to make inquiries, to procure witnesses, and to get up their case for the prosecution in the most perfect manner; and he maintained that, according to the terms of the Crimes Act itself, and in fairness and common justice, and in order to carry out the understanding which was arrived at in the House of Commons when the Act was being passed, the expenses of the defence of the prisoners, the venue of whose case had been changed, should be also paid by the Crown. They were asked now to pass a swollen Vote, a Vote swollen to enormous size for the purpose of enabling the Crown to prosecute persons in Ireland. He thought he had shown the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary that he was mistaken when he said there was no power under the law to pay the costs of the prisoner. The words of the section were—" Where necessary for defence, money for en- abling the prisoner to be tried." That usually would include the solicitor's costs, the taxed bill of costs of the solicitor employed in defending the prisoner. It was utterly impossible for these poor prisoners to pay for their solicitors; and all he asked was that the taxed bill of costs should be paid for them.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had read the text of the Act, and had asked for a reply from the Chief Secretary. His hon. Friend ought to remember that the speech which the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) made yesterday against the policy of the Chief Secretary had only just been answered by the Chief Secretary; and that, consequently, he (Mr. Parnell) could not expect his present speech to be answered by the right hon. Gentleman until to-morrow. That was one satisfaction the Irish Members had. They could not be accused of treating the Chief Secretary cruelly, for the right hon. Gentleman was sure to come up smiling 24 hours after time. He observed that the Government did not intend to give any further explanation with regard to the case of Mr. Harrington. For his part, he thought the Irish Members might very well leave the case of Mr. Harrington alone. It seemed to him that the intention of the Government in prosecuting Mr. Harrington was a kindly one towards the National League. Down to the present it was undoubted that the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) was the leader in a special sense of the tenantry of Ireland. Of course, the hon. Gentleman was in a general sense the National Leader, but in an especial sense he was the leader of the tenantry of Ireland. It was suggested that the case of the agricultural labourers was neglected by the National League; but now, thanks to the Government, the agricultural labourers had been provided with a leader. Mr. Harrington was emphatically the leader of the forthcoming agitation for bettering the condition of the agricultural labourers. Mr. Harrington had been cast into gaol, subjected to every insult, clad in the convict garb, and ordered to perform the basest and meanest duties that it was possible to cast on a convict; and all because he said to the farmers of Westmeath— You ought to pay a fair day's wage for a fair day's work to these agricultural labourers, who have helped you so much in times gone by. Mr. Harrington was the leader, by the direct choice of the Government, of the agricultural labourers of Ireland; and he (Mr. O'Donnell) was certain there was not a day of the hon. Gentleman's imprisonment in a British Bastile in Ireland that would not be amply repaid in an increase of his political and popular influence, and in his chances of success in rooting out and extirpating the curse of foreign domination in Ireland.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 14; Noes 115: Majority 101.—(Div. List, No. 23.)

Original Question put, and agreed to.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £45,032, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1883, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Irish Land Commission.

MR. PARNELL

said, he wished to ask the Government to postpone this and the three other Irish Votes until the Afternoon Sitting to-day, as he believed it was the intention of the Government to take a Saturday's Sitting. It was very late to discuss an important Vote of this kind; but he feared that, as the Vote had been put, the only course he could take was to move to report Progress. He had been in hopes that if the Vote had been postponed by the Government, together with the three other Irish Votes, the Committee might then have gone on with some of the subsequent Votes which would not have required much discussion. He begged to move that Progress be reported.

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

MR. LABOUCHERE

said, he thought the hon. Gentleman had made a little mistake in thinking that the other Votes would not be much discussed. He had not the slightest objection to stop there till 6 o'clock in the morning, and he should certainly oppose a few of the Votes.

MR. GIBSON

said, he should decidedly oppose the Vote for the Land Commission, which was the largest Vote in the whole of the Civil Service Estimates, being taken at a quarter past 2 o'clock in the morning. This was a Vote evidently provocative of discussion, and one upon which he should claim his right to speak at a time when his remarks could be reported. He did not wish to press the Government not to take other Votes as to which there was no contention. He was not speaking from an Irish point of view only; but he thought there were probably many Votes in the series as to which there was no contention in any part of the House, and as to which he should not have the slightest objection. He objected, however, to this particular Vote being taken now, and it would be well that some arrangement should be made for it to stand over.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

said, he knew how strong was the dislike which was generally felt by the Committee to a Saturday's Sitting, and he thought it might be more convenient to the House to sit up to a late hour this morning in order to discuss these Votes, than that the House should be put to the inconvenience of sitting again on the Saturday; but if the Committee insisted that this Vote should not be taken at this hour, he did not think it would be possible for the Government to insist upon it. He should therefore be prepared to accede to the application to withdraw this and other Irish Votes upon which a long discussion might take place, and then propose that they might go on with the remaining Votes until they arrived at one upon which there was contention.

MR. LABOUCHERE

wished the Government to postpone two or three of the other Votes also. A good many hon. Gentlemen, he said, had gone away who had wished to express their opinion upon some of these Votes. There were only two or three Votes left, and as there was to be a Morning Sitting today he thought they might as well be postponed.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

said, the hon. Gentleman had himself just stated that he was ready to sit up to 6 o'clock in the morning. He thought it would be more convenient for the Committee to go on until about the usual hour.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Motion, by leave, withdrawn.