HC Deb 10 May 1883 vol 279 cc397-9
MR. HARRINGTON

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to an article in the "Kerry Sentinel" of Friday last, which complains of the midnight raids now repeatedly made by the police at a time when the county has settled down, and when outrage has almost disappeared; whether it is true, as stated in that article, that peaceable and respectable people are suffering as much now from police raids by night as they did a year ago from the terror of the moonlight gang; and, whether it is true, as stated there, that the police recently entered at night the house of Mr. Leahy, P.L.G., and, although his wife was dangerously ill, persisted in entering and searching the room where she lay ill?

MR. TREVELYAN

The police had very good reasons to search Mr. Leahy's house. Papers of a compromising character were found there. The search was conducted with as little as possible inconvenience to the inmates of the house. Respectable people have not complained of the searches which it has been necessary to make.

MR. HARRINGTON

asked whether Mrs. Leahy was not ill when the search was made?

MR. TREVELYAN

said, she was; but the police had very good reasons for going to the house. The case was a very serious one.

MR. HARRINGTON

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is true that Sub-Inspector Hamilton, stationed at Crossmolina, county Mayo, while prosecuting one of two searches for arms and treasonable documents in the house of Mr. T. A. Macaulay in November last, seized and still retains an empty powder horn and shot bag, and a photograph; if this seizure was not illegal; and, if he will make an order to have these articles returned to the owner; if it is true that two police inquire for Mr. Macaulay every day at his house, and are ordered to report where he is, and how occupied; and, if it is true that Sub-Inspector Hamilton has, on two occasions, entered his house with a party of armed police at an unseasonable hour of the night without a warrant, and without stating his business?

MR. TREVELYAN

I have to state that, for reasons of an urgent character, it has been deemed necessary to keep a close watch on one of the inhabitants of the house referred to, and to seize certain articles therein. I have no reason to believe that the action of the Constabulary has been in any respect illegal. With reference to this, and some other Questions that have been sometimes asked, I cannot believe that hon. Members are always aware of the motives which must actuate those who originally suggested the Questions. Between hon. Members and the persons in whose interest these Questions are asked I have no doubt there are intermediaries, and hon. Members are probably quite ignorant of the bearing of some of these Questions. But knowing what I know about several of them, including this one, I am positively appalled at finding the House of Commons used for such a purpose as that to which it is now put.

MR. HARRINGTON

Perhaps, after the observations of the right hon. Gentleman, the House will permit me to explain that my object in asking this and other Questions is to bring under the notice of hon. Members a state of facts in Ireland which is simply a scandal to civilization. With regard to this Question and the other Questions which I may have asked—

MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Member is not entitled to enter into an explanation.

MR. PARNELL

I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether this search, in reference to which the hon. Member for Westmeath has asked a Question, was made under the provisions of a section of the Prevention of Crime Act which the Government stated in the House of Commons Lord Spencer did not require, and the insertion of which in the Prevention of Crime Act was forced upon them by the Conservative Opposition?

MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Member is out of Order in making those statements.

MR. PARNELL

I wish to ask under which section of the Prevention of Crime Act this search was made? I ask the Chief Secretary in the absence of the Attorney General for Ireland.

MR. HARRINGTON

Inconsequence of the answer which I have received, I beg to give Notice that on an early day I will call attention to the gross inaccuracy and untruthfulness of the information supplied to this House in the answers to Irish Questions.

MR. TREVELYAN

I will give the House a specimen of what I mean. I was asked if a photograph had been seized. You might imagine from that that it was the photograph of the man's sweetheart. It was the photograph of a man in character, representing an assassin in ambush, with a revolver in his hand.

MR. O'DONNELL

I beg to give Notice that I will ask the Home Secretary if his attention has been called to the issue in England every week of portraits of assassins with various kinds of weapons in their hands?