§
Postponed Resolution [22nd July] considered.
(2.) "That a sum, not exceeding £109,544, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Local Government Board in Ireland, including various Grants in Aid of Local Taxation.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, that when this Vote was under consideration an argument was brought forward by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) in reference to the number of police for Ireland, as fixed by Act of Parliament; and the complaint was made that the free force was not fully distributed among the counties and cities of Ireland, and that, in consequence, a great grievance was imposed on the country. Now, the argument of the hon. Member had since that time been very carefully considered by him (Mr. Walker); and he confessed that it appeared to him that if it was a fact, as had been stated, that the free force of 10,000 men over and above the ordinary vacancies taken at 5 per cent was not really distributed, it was a case for favourable consideration; and, consequently, he was prepared to recommend that a communication should be made to the Lord Lieutenant to that effect. If it were found to be the fact that the free force was not fully distributed, the matter could only be remedied by legislation, because there was no means of remedying it except at the quinquennial redistribution, which would not take place before 1887. If the grievance existed, legislation would be introduced for the purpose, and he would be prepared to introduce a provision, making 233 the redistribution triennial, instead of quinquennial, as at present. To give effect to the arrangement, a Supplementary Estimate would be brought forward by the Secretary to the Treasury.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he thought the statement of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Walker) was very satisfactory, and he and his Colleagues felt very much indebted to him for his announcement. In the event of its being distinctly ascertained that the free force was not fully distributed at the last quinquennial period of redistribution, he understood the hon. and learned Gentleman to undertake to empower the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, by legislation, to distribute the free force at the first opportunity, and also to make this redistribution retrospective. That was a matter of considerable importance to the Irish ratepayers, and would be received by them as a boon of some magnitude, inasmuch as it meant freedom from taxation, which had hitherto fallen upon them to the extent of £30,000 a-year.
§ MR. COURTNEYsaid, he did not understand his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Walker) to make any statement with regard to the cost of the year.
§ COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, he hoped it would be remembered that this was a complaint of long standing, and had been brought before the House by the landlord class. He believed that the Treasury would do justice in this matter if it were possible.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he had to draw the attention of the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland to a circumstance of importance. The hon. and learned Gentleman would know that in Belfast Party feeling ran especially high. The working classes there, amongst whom there was a large number of Roman Catholics, were disposed sometimes to be rather vicious in their conduct, and in March last some girls who were coming out of a Roman Catholic Church were attacked by some persons of this class; one girl was thrown down and injured so much that she was afterwards unable to walk without a crutch. He had seen Mr. Ball with regard to the matter, who told him that it was a very trifling case, and that he should not take any notice of it. But he denied 234 that an assault in the public streets could be a trivial matter, and certainly not this case, in which a girl was seriously injured. Mr. Ball having done nothing in the matter, the father of the girl followed it up, and brought the party who injured the girl before the magistrates, who fined him. He might say that Mr. Ball disputed, to some extent, the words used by him at the time referred to, but admitted that he used words of similar import, which proved that the police were, of late years, inclined to take the part of those who misconducted themselves. He asked the hon. and learned Gentleman to say that he would communicate with the head of the Police Department, giving him instructions to order that especial care should be taken to prevent violent attacks upon children and young persons coming out of church.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, the effect of the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Walker) had been somewhat dashed by the remarks of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury. Was he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) to understand that the Secretary to the Treasury, by that oracular shake of the head, meant to say that the Government did not intend to remedy the injustice of the conduct they were pursuing? He was anxious to know exactly what the Government were going to do. They had been charging the Irish people with money which the Government themselves ought to pay. He contended that the remission of taxation should be simultaneous with the measure of relief for the taxpayers, and he hoped that next year it would be found the Government were resolved to effect this. He thought Irish Members had reason to congratulate themselves for having brought this measure home to the mind of the Government, and that the Irish taxpayers had also reason to congratulate themselves that they had escaped from taxation amounting to £30,000 a-year. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland had pledged himself most distinctly that the diminution of the extra police force should go on as rapidly as circumstances would admit. He trusted that next year it would be found that the pledge of the right hon. Gentleman had been fully carried out, and that the Irish 235 people would be entirely free from the burden imposed upon them by the Government in this respect.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he had given Notice that he should call attention on the Report of this Vote to the case of French; but, in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he and his hon. Friends found themselves at some disadvantage, and were not in a position fully to argue the case. He was bound, however, to express his opinion that nothing could have been worse than the conduct of Colonel Bruce with respect to French. That officer knew what was going on; he had summoned witnesses, and must have known the general character of French; he knew that he had filed an affidavit stating what was not the fact; and, in short, he allowed the whole thing to go on in the most shameful way. Colonel Bruce appeared to have winked or connived at corruption in high places in Dublin Castle, and it was not at all clear that a number of other persons in the Castle were not implicated. At any rate, it was evident that the greatest obstacles were being thrown in the way of the prosecution of this case by Mr. Kaye, Under Secretary at the Castle. He was hardly surprised at that. But the conduct of Colonel Bruce in allowing French to commit wilful and corrupt perjury in his own interest, and in retaining him on the books of the police, was, in his (Mr. Healy's) opinion, the worst of its kind that had ever occurred in Ireland. But Colonel Bruce, having got from District Inspector Maguire a statement of French's crimes, then sent one of his friends to Maguire to persuade him that he must be the subject of a delusion. That, he said, showed the connivance of Colonel Bruce in the whole of this business, and still more clearly proved to the people of Ireland that Dublin Castle was rotten from top to bottom. He thought that the way in which Irish officials had screened this man would sink deep into the minds of the Irish people, and that they would be convinced that from beginning to end there was nothing like decency to be found in that institution. He would not, however, dwell longer on that subject. Lord Justice Barry had recently condemned the conduct of the police, and he (Mr. Healy) asked the attention of the Committee to the fact that it was now 236 admitted that the police were in the habit of visiting the cells of prisoners and endeavouring to obtain evidence from them. The learned Judge said it was all very well that the evidence of informers should be taken in the interests of justice, but that it was a totally different thing for a policeman to go into the cells of prisoners, and, by threats and menaces, endeavour to wring confessions from them. It was but recently a felony to obtain evidence by that means; but, unfortunately, by that Statute Law revision which was going on every year, the Government had managed to repeal the Statute which made it felony, and he thought that the Statute Law Revision Committee should have amongst its Members some person who would look after this matter in the interests of the Irish people. He now came to what had been going on within the last two months, and he asked the Government to take note of this statement of facts. Sub-Inspectors Joyce and Corregan had visited a number of times the cell of a prisoner, sentenced to penal servitude for life, named James Flaherty. They brought with them a long written document, and asked him whether he was willing to swear to it; the document implicated a number of men in the West of Ireland, among them a newspaper editor, a newspaper correspondent, and several other persons well known, in a charge of conspiracy to murder. Now, he put this case to the House. Here was a man under sentence of penal servitude for life, who was offered a free pardon, a free passage to America, and a large sum of money, if he would make this deposition. It was in that way that the Government had obtained the evidence which had put in danger so many innocent men. He asked if this state of things was to continue, and whether or not the Government would find out by what means these officers had got leave of absence from Ballinasloe in order to visit the unfortunate man Flaherty in his cell? That opened up the very large question as to whether prisoners in their cells were to be open to this blighting system of inquiry at all. It was monstrous that convicted persons—not men committed for trial, but men sentenced to penal servitude for life—should have such enormous temptations to get rid of their punishment thrown in their way. He was bound to say that if the practice 237 was to continue the Prisons Vote would have to be very carefully scrutinized every year, in order that the public might have some guarantee that this system of intimidation would come to an end. He regretted to be obliged, at a time when Members of the Government were exhausted with the labours of the Session, to discuss these questions; but he must ask them to make inquiries into the circumstances he had narrated with regard to Colonel Bruce, Sub-Inspector Maguire, and the other officers, and as to what the latter had been doing in the month of July with respect to the prisoner he had referred to.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, it was his firm belief that both Colonel Bruce and Mr. Kaye were incapable of doing what they had been accused of by the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy). He did not believe for one moment, with regard to the allegation against Colonel Bruce, that any such thing had occurred. The statement as to Sub-Inspectors Joyce and Corregan were entirely new matter to him, and he would inquire into them.
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, Mr. Kaye had no more to do with crime and outrage in Ireland, except in the way of routine work connected with the state of the country, than anyone in that House. He would not go into the question of whether the Lord Lieutenant or the Irish Executive had screened French. He did not think they had, and these practices were, in Ireland, quite novel and little known. He was an Irishman, and had lived in Ireland all his life, and he knew that these practices were then novel; and he could quite understand any Executive Government hesitating before giving credence to such charges. As to Colonel Bruce, his position was clear and distinct with reference to these charges. It was very often asserted that the present Government, and the Government generally in Ireland, on whichever side of the House, laboured under the infirmity of being bequeathed the awful institution called Dublin Castle, and that there were there officials so nefarious that the Government could not shake itself free from the shackles of the Castle. It would hardly be believed that the present Government had had an opportunity of appointing to all the chief posts, and putting brand-new men 238 into the various Departments. There were the Lord Chancellor, the two Law Officers; Sir Robert Hamilton, the Under Secretary, who was sent over from this country on the assassination in Phœnix Park; Mr. Jenkinson, a perfectly new official, at the head of the new department of crime and outrage, and Colonel Bruce, selected, within the last two years, by the present Government, to head the Irish Constabulary, he having previously filled a subordinate position. The present Government had also appointed the Chairman of the Irish Board of Works, Mr. Holmes, the representative of the Treasury in Ireland, the head of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, and to a great number of other offices which had either fallen vacant or been created since 1880. As to the charge made, without the slightest foundation, against Colonel Bruce, that he connived at what was done by others, and screened French, what were the facts of the case as stated lately by the Chief Secretary for Ireland? The right hon. Gentleman had stated that Colonel Bruce's position with reference to the French case was that he had inquired into the matter. It was about the 26th of August when United Ireland made these allegations, and early in September Colonel Bruce inquired into the matter. But the matter was not confined to Colonel Bruce, for, on the next day, he sent an official Minute from the Constabulary Office, which was next door, sending a transcript of all the evidence he had taken, with his observations thereon. That was sent to the Chief Secretary's Office, where it could be read by the Lord Lieutenant and by the Lord Lieutenant's Secretary. Colonel Bruce's Minute was sent in at once in the ordinary course by Sir Robert Hamilton to the Lord Lieutenant; and the Attorney General for Ireland, having read all the facts and the Report of Colonel Bruce, gave an opinion on the evidence for the guidance of the Executive. It would be unfair to Colonel Bruce that he should be picked out and made a scapegoat. Colonel Bruce's Report having been sent in to the Executive, and submitted to the Attorney General for Ireland, the matter ceased to be Colonel Bruce's matter, or within his independent control, and became a matter for the Executive Government. Then it was said that Colonel Bruce was answerable for and connived 239 at perjury. [Mr. HEALY: He knew that perjury was being committed.] The charge was that he "connived at perjury," made by the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) in an affidavit to resist the remitting motion moved for by French in the case, who had denied that he had been suspended. The Executive Government became seized of all these transactions, and Colonel Bruce then had no means of knowing what they were doing. If that affidavit of French merely denied that he was suspended, he should be sorry to say that that was perjury. The position was this—French was on leave in September, and he was given a prolongation of his leave and told he need not report himself for duty until he received a further intimation from the Government. That was not suspension or dismissal. This was simply the case of a man who took up a charge of suspension, and denied that he was suspended. He (Mr. Gibson) was not concerned with French's case; he would not go into the general question; but he did think it was unreasonable that because French swore a certain statement, which Colonel Bruce could not contradict, and with reference to which he could take no steps, Colonel Bruce should be branded as a man who had connived at perjury. So much with regard to Colonel Bruce. He very much wished the hon. Member (Mr. Healy) had been more cautious in his statement that there were any number of persons about the Castle who were implicated in similar practices. That was a desperate and an awful charge to make. So far as he knew, and as he believed, the gentlemen about Dublin Castle were as honourable and high-minded as any men in or out of the Public Service; and a charge of this kind, which might hit anyone, was very much to be regretted. It was too often said in reference to these wretched charges in Dublin that they were due to the Castle. That was not so. He made no observation with reference to the people who were now charged. If they deserved it, let them be punished according to the utmost rigour of the law; but as to saying that Dublin Castle was tainted throughout that was a statement that would not be borne out by facts. French's office was in one of the buildings in Lower Castle Yard; but French was the only official he had heard of in connection 240 with these matters who was connected with the Castle. Cornwall's office was altogether outside the Castle; and he had nothing whatever to do with the Castle or the Executive Government. He had not to report himself to the Lord Lieutenant, or to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and was not amenable to their supervision, and, except on social occasions, he was never in the Castle. This was a matter he could say more upon; but at that period of the Session he would rather not say anything further in reference to it; but he thought the House would see that it would not be reasonable for him, having the acquaintance of the two gentlemen whose names had been mentioned, to be absolutely silent when he could say something to present their case from a reasonable point of view.
§ MR. HARRINGTONsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson) had always shown himself ready to come forward to offer his opinion, and to give a testimonial of character to any officials who were attacked in connection with the Administration. There had been certificates of character heaped upon certificates of character in this and previous Sessions; but, notwithstanding all these certificates of character, it happened that the very persons who had given these certificates of character were now employed in prosecuting those to whom they had given these certificates. It was all very well for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to say he knew Colonel Bruce, and believed that the charge of the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) against him was unfounded; but all that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had said could not do away with the facts which had been drawn attention to repeatedly, and he contended that those facts pointed directly to the conclusion that, if Colonel Bruce did not enter into a conspiracy to shelter French from the consequences of his criminal life, at least Colonel Bruce had been wholly deficient in the discharge of the duties which the country paid him so highly for, and expected him to properly discharge. He would give the right hon. and learned Gentleman the choice of two alternatives—either, according to his own argument, Colonel Bruce must have entered into a conspiracy to save French from the consequences of his criminal acts, or, at the time when 241 the Irish Government was professing to be dealing in an energetic manner with crime in Ireland, this gentleman, the head of the Criminal Department, was ignorant of gross and offensive crimes committed under his nose, and before the eyes of the police in Dublin Castle. What did all this lead to? That while it was competent to a private Member of that House, and to private citizens of Dublin, to make themselves acquainted with all the horrid details of this state of life in Dublin, Colonel Bruce, and all the official army whose inefficiency was borne testimony to so often in that House, and whose action in regard to some departments of criminal prosecution in Ireland was regarded as infallible—all that official army of police was wholly ignorant of the infamous crimes being committed among them in Dublin. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said it was not fair to make Colonel Bruce the scapegoat in this matter; but the argument that was advanced when the subject was drawn attention to was that the blame should be placed upon someone besides the Chief Secretary for Ireland. They were told it was altogether unfair—and he would admit that, to some extent, it was unfair—to accuse the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, or anyone connected with him, with an endeavour to shield from public justice these criminals who were now being prosecuted. If it was unfair to bring in the name of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and if, according to the argument of the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson), it was unfair to bring in the name of Colonel Bruce, upon whom was the criticism of that House to be directed?
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, Colonel Bruce had reported to the Government, and the Government became answerable.
§ MR. HARRINGTONsaid, he was aware of that; but when Colonel Bruce reported to the Government he was still aware of the specific charges made against French, and it was his duty to follow up the circumstances of the case from beginning to end. [Mr. GIBSON: He had no power.] That had nothing to do with the matter, though it was an ingenious defence. It was Colonel Bruce's duty, even after he had reported to the Government, and given them his views, to have watched the whole progress of the trial between the hon. 242 Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien) and French, with a view to seeing how far the criminal charge brought by the hon. Member could be established against French. If that was his duty, and if the matter had been brought officially under his notice, how was it that he, the official responsible for the initiation of prosecutions in Ireland—[Mr. GIBSON: He is not responsible.]—the officials were directly under him, and how was it that he knew nothing of the affidavit sworn to afterwards by French? That was an argument which the right hon. and learned Gentleman could not get away from. No argument or sophistry could free Colonel Bruce from the responsibility of having either deliberately connived at perjury committed in Court by French, or having been asleep at his post when this should have come under his official cognizance. In either case he was responsible. Either he knew of the perjury that was committed in Court, or he did not watch the progress of the trial. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, in the ingenuity of his argument, had endeavoured to give a meaning to French's affidavit which it did not admit of. He said Colonel Bruce said French was not dismissed, and he drew a fine distinction between a man who was suspended and a man who was not to return to his office. But the affidavit went further than that. It said his position was not interfered with—that was the point upon which the hon. Member (Mr. Healy) founded his charge of perjury against French, and against Colonel Bruce of having connived at it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said Colonel Bruce held his inquiry in September, and that the incriminating statements in United Ireland appeared in August. It was true that a paragraph appeared in United Ireland announcing the intention of the responsible editors of that paper to draw attention to the private life of certain officials, including French, and some others who were mentioned by name, in that paragraph. The specific charge against French was not mentioned, and no person except the writer of that paragraph, and some persons who had the information, could know that the article alleged any charge against French's private life; but it happened that after that article was written United Ireland did make another 243 charge against French of an entirely different character from that now sought to be established against him. That was a charge of having disappeared with certain funds which he had been intrusted with. It was then that Colonel Bruce made his inquiry; and that was before this evidence came out clearly showing the infamous and unsavoury charge now made against him, and which it was then believed by certain officials of the Crown in Ireland and certain members of the Constabulary could be established against French. Colonel Bruce might not be the scapegoat in endeavouring to shelter French from the consequences of this inquiry; but surely someone was responsible; and how could the right hon. and learned Gentleman reconcile the character he had given to Colonel Bruce with the character he had, at the same time, given to the whole circle of officials in Dublin Castle? The right hon. and learned Gentleman held that Colonel Bruce was not to be made the scapegoat; but at the same time he indirectly admitted that, if Colonel Bruce was not to be made the scapegoat, at least someone, or some class of officials, were responsible for sheltering from justice a man against whom legal proceedings ought to have been taken long ago. He was surprised that the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not see that in the terms he had used complaining of the endeavour to make Colonel Bruce a scapegoat, he admitted the case against the other Castle officials, and that if Colonel Bruce was not responsible, some other official was responsible for endeavouring to shield from justice a man who should be prosecuted. The defence which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland made for Colonel Bruce was that he had done nothing. That was about as bad a defence as could possibly be mentioned. That was the very gravamen of the charge against Colonel Bruce—that at a time when he should have vindicated the law, when a high official was found offending against the law, he folded his arms, and did nothing to cause justice to be done. With regard to the charge against Mr. Kaye, he had no specific evidence, and he should be sorry to make any statements upon it; but it was founded upon admissions by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and by Colonel Bruce himself—admissions 244 which brought him into clear connection with, and knowledge of, these crimes, and showed that for nearly 12 months he remained inactive, and left it to private Members of that House to discharge the duty which the Government ought long ago to have discharged—namely, of bringing these criminals to justice.
§ Resolution agreed to.
§
Resolution [2nd August] reported.
(2.) "That a sum, not exceeding £940,095, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Constabulary Force in Ireland.
§ Resolution agreed to.
§
Postponed Resolutions [4th August] considered.
(3.) "That a sum, not exceeding £25,670 (including a Supplementary sum of £11,080), be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Expenses of the Mixed Commissions established under the Treaties with Foreign Powers for suppressing the Traffic in Slaves, and of other Establishments in connection with that object, including the Muscat Subsidy.
§
Resolution agreed to.
(6.) "That a sum, not exceeding £20,951, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, in aid of Colonial Local Revenue, and for the Salaries and Allowances of Governors, &c, and for other Charges connected with the Colonies, including Expenses incurred under 'The Pacific Islanders Protection Act, 1875.'
§ SIR HENRY HOLLANDsaid, he regretted that he must detain the House at that late hour; but the question which he had to bring forward—namely, the labour traffic of the Western Pacific Islands, was of great importance; and it was from no fault on their part that he and his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst), who had taken great interest in this question, had failed in obtaining an earlier opportunity for discussing it. He felt bound to bring it forward, though he would do so as briefly as possible, and he hoped to receive a favourable reply from the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Evelyn Ashley). Now, two points were clear about the labour traffic. First, that if the traffic was to be continued, the present system must be improved, and stricter regulations 245 must be made and enforced; and, secondly, that such improvements and regulations must be made without loss of time. As to this second point, he need say no more than that the Royal Commissioners, Sir Arthur Gordon, Admiral Hoskins, and Admiral Wilson, who had lately reported on the subject, had expressed the strongest opinion that something must be done at once to regulate more efficiently the labour traffic. As to the first point, he was aware that many were of opinion that this traffic should be at once prohibited. He was himself, however, inclined in favour of the continuance of it, both in the interests of the employers and employed. There was a great need of labour in some places; and he thought that, as regarded the Natives employed, their condition was improved, and civilization was forwarded, provided the traffic could be properly regulated. Upon the whole, he was in favour of organizing and regulating the labour traffic rather than of prohibiting it. It had then to be considered what parts of the existing system required improvement, and how such improvement should be effected. In the first place, a more decided check was needed in respect of the engaging of Natives, with a view to secure a bonâ fide and proper consent on their part. It was satisfactory to learn from the Royal Commissioners that there were not now many cases of forcible kidnapping; but still there was no doubt as to the existence of grievous irregularities. In many cases purchases of Natives were made from the Chiefs—that was to say, money was given to those Chiefs who would force or induce Natives to consent to leave the Islands. Again, in many cases, sufficient attention was not paid to the authority of the Chief, and tribe, and family of the Native. The life of a Polynesian Native was bound up, as the Commissioners pointed out, with that of the community to which he belonged; and although the Native might give his personal consent, the authority of the Chief and tribe could not be ignored without causing much irritation. In the second place, more stringent regulations were required to insure the return of the Natives, after their terms of labour had expired, to their own homes. The unfortunate Natives were now frequently left on islands, amongst Natives whose language they did not understand, and 246 who were hostile to strangers. They thus suffered, not only hardships, but even danger of life. To improve this state of things he (Sir Henry Holland) would suggest that Her Majesty's Government should give effect to some, if not all, of the recommendations of the Royal Commissioners. He thought that it would be wise, in the first place, to transfer to a High Commissioner, who should be an independent officer, and not, as now, the Governor of a Colony with other duties to perform and other interests to look after, the whole control of the labour traffic. He should have full power to arrange the districts of the Deputy Commissioners, to issue licences, appoint recruiting agents, and so forth. Secondly, the number of Deputy Commissioners should be considerably increased. Each Deputy Commissioner should have a district assigned to him; he should issue licences for the traffic within his district, and appoint recruiting agents. He (Sir Henry Holland) attached great weight to this last point, as there could be no doubt that the recruiting agents were not, as a rule, efficient. They were now appointed by the Colonial Governors, who could not really test their characters or their special qualifications for the work required. But the Deputy Commissioner would know the men in his district, and be able to test their work, their knowledge of languages, and their general character and fitness. Thirdly, the pay of these agents should be increased, so as to secure, if possible, a better class of men to enlist in the work; and, fourthly, every licencee who was now bound by bond to return Natives to their homes should have to get a certificate from the Deputy Commissioner of the district that such engagement had been duly performed before being allowed to get more Natives. This, again, could not be secured without an increase of districts and Deputy Commissioners. There were other detailed improvements which, but for the lateness of the hour, he would have brought forward; but he would now content himself with having pointed out the main lines of improvement. He had only hitherto referred to the labour traffic, but he might observe that changes of the kind which he had indicated were also required to secure a more thorough supervision of the Islands, and to control more effectually both British subjects 247 and Natives. It was a moot point whether we should, by legislation, assume jurisdiction over Natives, and power to punish them for offences committed by them against British subjects, thus extending our present jurisdiction, which only applied to British subjects; and he did not propose to discuss that question now. But a stricter supervision of the Islands was needed, and that could only be secured by an increased number of Deputy Commissioners. He would conclude by again pressing upon the Government the necessity of speedy action, especially in respect of regulating the labour traffic. The Under Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Evelyn Ashley), in reply to a Question put some time ago, stated that action must be deferred until it was known what the Australian Colonies decided about federation. He feared that much valuable time would be lost if this view was adhered to; and he urged that steps should be taken at once, either in the direction which he had indicated, or in some other way, to regulate the labour traffic and secure better supervision of these Western Pacific Islands.
§ MR. EVELYN ASHLEYsaid, the hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Holland) had certainly succeeded in condensing his remarks upon this important question, and he (Mr. Evelyn Ashley) would endeavour to follow the hon. Member's excellent example. In the few words he had to say, he had little or no information to convey to the House; but he hoped before many days—he might say many hours—were over, that, in answer to Questions on the Paper on this subject, he might be able to give some important information. All he had to say now was that, in the opinion of the Government, it was impossible that the labour traffic could be—as was, apparently, the desire of his hon. Friend—taken under Imperial control. The Government were of opinion that the labour trade, if it was to continue, should be carried on under a much more strict supervision than it had been hitherto, but that it should remain under the control of the Colonial Government. In the despatch which would be laid on the Table shortly—the despatch from which he had read an extract not long ago—the Secretary of State said—
Her Majesty's Government have come to no conclusion as to the recommendation of the 248 Commission as to whether the Colonies should be consulted; but I think it doubtful policy to place the labour traffic under Imperial control.With regard to Colonial control, no doubt there had been great abuses, and, no doubt, there were great abuses; but if the matter were inquired into closely it would be found that during the past year or two a great number of the abuses had arisen from the trade of foreign ships and the misconduct of foreign crews, and that, really, until some international agreement was entered into for the control of this trade a satisfactory state of things would not exist. The Queensland Government, no doubt, had done a great deal to prevent abuses. As to kidnapping, there were still isolated instances of it; but that very day they had received information from Brisbane to the effect that the master and mate of a vessel in which there had been great abuses carried on had been arrested and taken to Fiji, where they were to be tried and punished for their offences. Then, as to returning Native labourers to the places from which they had been taken, the Commissioners issued an instruction to prevent the evils the hon. Member had pointed out; but that instruction could not be always obeyed, for sometimes the people concerned were ignorant of the places from which the Natives came. The Natives themselves were often ignorant of this fact. With regard to the character of the labour agents, unless higher salaries were paid it would be difficult to obtain better men. He must say, however, that a great deal had been done to improve the character of the labour agents. With regard to the control of the Colonies, he wished the House to remember that there was only one which had any interest in keeping up the trade, the others having little or no interest in it. Judging from what had taken place at the Sydney Convention, if the trade continued to lead to the abuses which it had led to in the past, there would be very little difficulty experienced in inducing the Colonies to agree to its abolition altogether. They might safely say that the labour trade was on its trial, and that if they could not succeed in putting an end to abuses that it would and ought to cease. He (Mr. Evelyn Ashley) would only say, in reference to the High Commissioner 249 and his functions—what jurisdiction he would have—and how they were to apply the £15,000 which he had told the House not long ago the Australian Colonies had consented to contribute, he must ask his hon. Friend and the House to wait until the question of the hon. Member for Lambeth (Sir William M'Arthur) was answered on Monday.
§
Resolution agreed to.
(18.) "That a sum, not exceeding £470, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for the Expenses of the Office of the Commissioners of Education in Ireland appointed for the Regulation of Endowed Schools.
§ Resolution agreed to.