§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORI beg to ask your permission, Sir, and the permission of the House, for five or six minutes, while I make a personal explanation on a matter which I am compelled to bring before the attention of the House. Last Monday the hon. Gentleman the Member for Devizes (Sir Thomas Bateson) put a Question to the Chief Secretary for Ireland in reference to the action of the Executive with regard to the extra police in Belfast on the occasion of the recent visit of the Lord Lieutenant to that City. When the Question was put, I ventured to interpolate a Question to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, and I quoted from the Chief Secretary some remarks he had made in the course of a debate in the present year with regard to counter-demonstrations in the North of Ireland, and especially with regard to a counter-demonstration at Dromore. The words of the Chief Secretary were to the effect that there were bodies of armed men who came to those meetings prepared to use their arms, and to make a murderous attack, if necessary, upon the Nationalists. The Chief Secretary, in reply to my Question, admitted the correctness of the Question, and reiterated his statement that there were bodies of armed men at the Dromore meeting, and at other meetings in the North. After that answer I put another Question, and the right hon. Gentleman re-asserted his statement that there were armed men at the Dromore and other meetings. Immediately afterwards there was a Question by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) in regard to a case in which Mr. Murray Ker was engaged. The hon. Member for Monaghan asked whether Mr. Murray Ker was the same gentleman who had used the expression—"Never to fire their revolvers unless they were aiming at somebody." The right hon. Gentleman replied, stating that Mr. Murray Ker had used those words, and that an explanation had been given, that he had accepted it, believing the words to have been used for an innocent and not a guilty purpose. I therefore asked again the right hon. Gentleman whether he had not employed these very words of 1923 Mr. Murray Ker as an example of the incitements to violence which were employed by the Orange leaders during the campaign in Ulster, and the right hon. Gentleman again re-asserted his statement that the explanation of Mr. Ker as to the innocence of these words had satisfied his mind. But the right hon. Gentleman made no other correction in his previous statement. He adhered to every other statement he had made as to the character of these counter-demonstrations — that they appeared at the meetings with arms ready to use them.
§ MR. SPEAKERDid I understand the hon. Gentleman to say he desired to make a personal explanation? He appears to me to be debating a matter which was the subject of a Question a few days ago. If the hon. Member desires to offer a personal explanation the House will, no doubt, hear him.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORI will wind up by asking the Chief Secretary a Question. I am showing I have a personal interest in the matter.
MR. MACARTNEYI rise to Order. The hon. Gentleman says he is going to conclude with a Question. Is that a personal explanation?
§ MR. SPEAKERIf the hon. Member desires to ask a Question to clear up some matter which he thinks is necessary for some personal explanation affecting himself, he is at liberty to do so; but he is not at liberty to debate the matter in the manner he has been doing for some time past.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORI want to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary whether he has seen the following words attributed to him as his answer to my Question:—
Mr. Trevelyan—I admit that at the time I had used strong language as to the Orangemen, but subsequent inquiry convinced me that the facts had quite a different interpretation.These words appear in The Daily Express of Dublin, and I desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether that report, by the omission of some words and the insertion of others, does not amount to a misrepresentation so gross as to be an invention; and whether the right hon. Gentleman will take means to inform the public in Ireland that this report of his answer to my Question is a gross 1924 misrepresentation and invention of words which he never used?
§ MR. GIBSONHas the hon. Member for Galway given Notice to the hon. Member for Devizes that it was his intention to bring up this subject?
MR. MACARTNEYI also should like to ask whether the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken rightly described the Dromore meeting as an Orange meeting?
§ MR. TREVELYANMy answer will be very short. I noticed the report in The Daily Express to which the hon. Member refers. It was a report which by omission entirely and absolutely misstated what I had said. My attention was called to it by the very unusual honour paid me of having two laudatory articles in The Express. I thought the matter of sufficient importance to warrant my writing to The Express newspaper a letter correcting the report, which, I cannot doubt, will be inserted in to-morrow's issue.