HC Deb 08 February 1884 vol 284 cc303-6
MR. SEXTON

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the Government have in view the fact that the Lords Commissioners for the custody of the Great Seal of Ireland (of whom the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland was one) used the following language, in their Letter of 24th November last, to Lord Rossmore, suspending him from further acting in the Commission of the Peace— Your Lordship, on the day in question, took a leading and active part in a proceeding which was fraught with peril to the public peace… The Lords Commissioners cannot but regard your action, on the 16th ultimo, as one utterly subversive of the maintenance of the public peace.…. It cannot be allowed that magistrates should give the smallest sanction to such a course of conduct; whether the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, on the 24th December last, replying to Sir John Leslie, J. P., again specified the ground for superseding Lord Rossmore, and concluded— These considerations, if properly weighed, will, as the Lord Chancellor trusts, enable you and other magistrates to understand the conduct which ought to be pursued in the interests of the public peace, and the Commission which they hold upon occasions like the one in question; whether, after the publication of the letters referred to, a number of magistrates of Westmeath put their names to a document, since published, in which these words occur— We, one and all, declare that, under similar circumstances, we should feel bound to act as he did; whether manifestoes of a similar character, varying in language but identical in approval of the conduct of Lord Rossmore and condemnation of the Government for superseding him, have also appeared in the public Press, subscribed with the names of numbers of magistrates in King's County, and the counties of Derry, Waterford, Wexford, Carlow, Monaghan, Down, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Cork, Wicklow, and Donegal; and, whether the Lord Chancellor of Ireland will act on his opinion that it cannot be allowed that magistrates should give the smallest sanction to such a course of conduct as that of Lord Rossmore?

MR. TREVELYAN

In answer to the Question of the hon. Member, I have to state that while, as a general rule, I do not object to a Question being put in as concise a form as possible, yet, on the present occasion, I consider it necessary that I should read certain passages in the letter of the Lords Commissioners, which are omitted from the Question of the hon. Member. The Lords Commissioners in their letter say— The Lords Commissioners cannot but regard your action on the 16th ultimo as one utterly subversive of the maintenance of the public peace; and they have most distinctly to convoy to your Lordship that the position asserted by your Lordship's letter to them is altogether indefensible, coming from a magistrate. It must be obvious to your Lordship that you were not called upon to give any explanation of the holding of a counter demonstration on the day in question; loyal subjects of the Crown can, if they so think fit, hold their meetings to protest against what they deem to be sedition or disloyalty, or to assert their views in a legitimate manner upon any public question; but, in so doing, they must not either assail a meeting of those whose views they may think objectionable, or hold their counter-meetings in such close proximity thereto as to provoke or render imminent the risk of a hostile collision. Then comes in the words which the hon. Member quotes— They who act otherwise incur the gravest responsibility, and it cannot be allowed that magistrates should give the smallest sanction to such a course of conduct. The sanction to which the letter refers is the sanction which a magistrate gives by taking a part in a demonstration of the dangerous and objectionable character pointed out in the passage. I shall not enter into the general question of the conduct of these magistrates, who have blamed the Government for their conduct in the case of Lord Rossmore, as I do not think it comes within that passage.

MR. SEXTON

I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman, who is the Representative in this House of the Irish Government, of which the Irish Lord Chancellor is also a Representative, whether he will, in dealing with the decision of that official, consider what was the responsibility incurred by the magistrates who signed the Westmeath and other Circulars; whether that official's view is that it implies the cooperation of them in these disturbances; and whether, although it was stated in November last, That it cannot he allowed that magistrates shall give the smallest sanction to such a course of conduct, that now, in February, they would retain those who have expressed their determination to follow the example of Lord Rossmore?

MR. GIBSON

As I understand the Chief Secretary, the sanction referred to by the hon. Member for Sligo meant sanction by presence and not sanction by words. Does the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that Mr. Porter-Porter. Sheriff of County Fermanagh, did not make that distinction at all; but that he wrote on the 15th of December that He was present on the occasion with Lord Rossmore, and quite concurred in the course taken and the motives which actuated Lord Rossmore. Is the Chief Secretary aware that a reply was sent from the Lord Lieutenant on the 21st of December, by His Excellency's Private Secretary, to the effect that There was nothing in Mr. Porter-Porter's letter which would make it the Lord Lieutenant's duty to lay it before the Lord Chancellor?

SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

May I ask whether the right hon. Gentle man is prepared to lay the letter from which he quotes on the Table?

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

All the documents?

MR. TREVELYAN

I shall be perfectly prepared to lay all the essential documents on the Table—all those from which I propose to quote in case the subject is started this evening—and many others. It is quite true that several letters have been received by the Lord Lieutenant from magistrates identifying their conduct with that of Lord Rossmore; but, as I shall endeavour to prove in debate, the conduct of Lord Rossmore, in the opinion of the Government, was very much graver than that of anyone else at the meeting. It is one thing to express disapproval of the conduct of the Government in acquiescing in, or suggesting, the supersession of an officer; but it is another thing to imitate the conduct of that officer. Since Lord Rossmore's removal from the Bench no other magistrate has imitated his conduct. When any other magistrate does imitate that conduct the Irish Government will know what to do.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, the right hon. Gentleman had implied that any magistrate imitating Lord Rossmore's conduct would meet with similar treatment. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he stood by the assertion he made just now, that since the removal of Lord Rossmore no other magistrate had imitated his conduct, by appearing at counter demonstrations with armed mobs?

MR. SEXTON

asked, in view of the possible recurrence of such contingencies in Ireland, how the Government could continue on the Commission of the Peace a gentleman——

MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Member is entering on matter of debate.