MOTION FOR A RETURN. (Hansard, 11 February 1884)

MR. O'BRIEN
said, he desired to move for a Return showing the names, place of birth, religious denomination, and salaries or emoluments of persons employed in Government Departments in Ireland under various headings. He was astonished to find that the Government made some difficulty in granting the Return. [Cries of"Agreed!"] Hon. Members said "Agreed!" His object was only to elicit——

MR. O'BRIEN
Then I beg to move for the Return.

§ MR. COURTNEY
was understood to say that, with the assent of the House, in the absence of his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant (Mr. Trevelyan), he would reply to the hon. Member (Mr. O'Brien). His right hon. Friend had carefully considered the Motion, and had come to the conclusion that it would be impossible to grant the Return. It would be very difficult to prepare, and, furthermore, objection was taken to it on principle, because of its inquisitorial character. The policy of the Government was to steer, with an even keel, between the different religious denominations and the different Parties in Ireland, and he was quite sure that policy would be interfered with if they were to take the step proposed by the hon. Member for Mallow. The Government could not give their consent to the preparation of the proposed Return.

MR. O'BRIEN
said, he had some right to complain of the manner in which the Government had shilly-shallied with this Return. His object in moving for it had been to get some information concerning the people by whom Ireland was ruled. The Return, he believed, would show that almost all places of power were in the hands of Englishmen and Scotchmen, or aliens to Ireland by birth, and opposed in creed and political sentiments to the great majority of the population. If he was wrong in that supposition, he did not see why the Government should oppose the Return, as it would be unwise of them to do so, as it would be the strongest argument in support of their impartiality. The objection to the granting of the Return taken by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Trea- 550 sury (Mr. Courtney)—namely, that it would be of too inquisitorial a character, he could not regard as other than most comical, coming, as it did, from the inquisitorial Government of Ireland of the past few years. To say that it would be offensive to the officials in Ireland to institute an inquiry as to where they were born, or what their religious denomination, was very odd, seeing that hon. Members had just learnt that the Government had been ascertaining the religion of every magistrate in the country. He was hardly surprised at anything the Government did in Ireland; but he must confess that their refusal to grant this Return, and the reason they advanced for its refusal, had astonished him considerably.

§ COLONEL NOLAN
said, he wished to remind the Government that, periodically—every six or twelve months—there was a paper sent round to every officer in the Army, asking where was his birth-place, and what his religious denomination. No one ever supposed or dreamt that there was the slightest objection to this inquiry, or that it caused annoyance to anyone. If a man wished to change his religion, after making the return, he was at liberty to do it; and in the same way he (Colonel Nolan) could not see what possible objection there could be to the granting of the proposed Return. The reason why the Return was moved for was obvious. The religion of every official in Ireland was known to his immediate superior, and the Representatives of the Irish people had no means of bringing the authorities to book for the appointments they made, unless it was by such a Return as this—by piling up a mass of statistics, and leaving it to the public to judge whether Protestants and aliens were likely to be always so much better than Catholics and Irishmen in the management of the affairs of an Irish Catholic people. The Return, if granted, might show that there was no undue proportion of Protestants in the Irish Public Service; but, if there was an undue proportion, it was only right that the public should be made acquainted with the fact. Doubtless, it would be shown that the Protestant officials were valuable public servants; but it would be well that there should be no undue proportion. He did not attach so much 551 importance to the statistics as to the place of birth; but, no doubt, they would be important, inasmuch as the Irish Members were being continually twitted with wanting to obtain places for Irishmen in England; whilst, at the same time, excluding all but Irishmen from holding offices in Ireland. The Return would at once show whether all but Irishmen were excluded from official life in Ireland. He confidently believed that they would show that the English had a very good thing indeed in Ireland. The question at present before the House was, whether the Irish Members had or had not a right to the information they asked for? His contention was that they had a right to it, and if the Government would not give it them, the only assumption was that they desired to continue an injustice to Ireland. If they wished to redress a wrong, one would think they would find no difficulty in giving, in connection with Civil Departments of the Public Service, information which they made no objection to affording in regard to the Military Service.

§ MR. HEALY
said, as the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was not in his place, the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney), upon this Motion being made, had stepped into the breach, and was obliged to say something in reply. As the hon. Gentleman knew very little about Ireland and Irish affairs, they could not be surprised at the rambling statement that he had just made. The statement, indeed, contradicted itself. The hon. Gentleman said, in effect, that the Government could not furnish the Return asked for by his hon. Friend (Mr. O'Brien), because they were dealing so fairly with the Irish people that they did not want to show how fairly they were acting towards them; and he claimed that the Government did not wish to place in these offices persons of foreign blood. But, if that were so, what possible objection could there be to proving it? What better method of doing that could there be than to show it to be a fact that the majority of persons employed were of the native race, and of the native religion? But it must needs be that the hon. Gentleman feared the light, or he would not have refused to disclose facts which would show the 552 true state of affairs. He said that the Government had never made any Return. of the kind; but that statement showed how little he knew of the subject, because that very week a Return had been made, which gave the place of birth and the religion of the paid magistrates in Ireland. The same was being done in the case of the unpaid magistrates; and if they had succeeded in extracting these Returns from the Government, with what face could the hon. Gentleman oppose the production of the Return asked for by his hon. Friend? With regard to secret societies, secret societies ruled Ireland from the Castle; and no one had any chance of getting on there unless he was a Freemason. Even in the case of the humble policeman, on taking the oath, words suggesting that he should belong to the Order of Freemasons were put into his mouth—"I swear," ran the form of the oath, "that I do not belong to any secret society, except the Society of Freemasons; "and if the constable were a Freemason, he might rise in the Service to the rank of Sub-Inspector and Chief Inspector. The country was overrun with Freemasonry, and the only possible way open to Irish Members to show how Ireland was governed was by dragging out the facts by means of Returns such as that now asked for. What possible object could be served by withholding the Return? They had been told that the Government were "steering on an oven keel," and he would appeal to that ancient mariner, the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, in the hope that he would steer on an even keel into the Lobby that evening, and vote for the Motion of his hon. Friend, because, if the Government case was so strong as it was represented to be, it would be only strengthened by their giving the information asked for; and for that reason as well he trusted they would gracefully surrender the point. There was a saying that "When the cat was away, the mice would play;" and in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland the hon. Gentleman could easily make this concession to the just wishes of Irish Members. He (Mr. Healy) could inform the right hon. Gentleman that the Irish Members who were in favour of the Motion were present in force, and that it was thought better, in the absence of 553 the right hon. Gentleman, in the interest of peace, and in order to "steer on an even keel," to give way. If the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland were anxious to oppose the Motion of his hon. Friend, why was he not on the Treasury Bench to do so? Irish Members were present to do their best to get the Return; why was not the right hon. Gentleman in his place to do his worst against them? The hon. Member for Leeds (Mr. Herbert Gladstone) had described the system of government in Ireland as the worst in Europe; Irish Members wanted to see what were the nationality, religious denominations, emoluments, and salaries of those who constituted the worst system of government in Europe. As far as he could see, this system was carried on entirely by men who were not of Irish blood. They had a Lord Lieutenant brought over to Ireland, who appeared only to understand the cattle disease; they had his Chief Secretary brought over there, whose only qualification for the Office was that derived from the reputation of his uncle and his literary attainments; and besides these, there was the famous Mr. Jenkinson from Cabul or some such place. The difficulty was to find out where many of the persons who held these offices were born. In conclusion, for the sake of preserving the peace and unity which had existed up to the present period of the Session, he trusted the Government would furnish the Return asked for, and not put Irish Members to the necessity of fighting the question to the end.

§ MR. O'SULLIVAN
said, he could only expect from the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury that he would, in his position on the Treasury Bench, refuse everything which Irish Members asked for. He remembered that, on a former occasion, the hon. Gentleman said that there was no chance of obtaining what was wanted; but, on the following day, a Member of the Government came forward and stated that a mistake had been made, and that the Return would be furnished. He could see no reasonable objection to giving the Return now asked for. Information of the kind was given almost every day in matters connected with the Military and Naval Services. Why, then, should it be withheld when it related 554 to a matter so important as the government of Ireland? The Motion of his hon. Friend (Mr. O'Brien) was simply an appeal to the Government to allow the people of Ireland to see by what classes of persons they were governed; and the only hope that remained to him was that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant would come down to-morrow and say that a mistake had been made, and that the Government would grant the Return.