§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, he wished to remind hon. Members of the House of the precise nature of the case which had been urged against the Government, by those who had carefully and fully investigated the matter in question, concerning what was known as the Maamtrasna murders. The locality in which these murders took place was a wild district in the west of Lough Mask. The district was poor, very wild, the holdings being small, interspersed, badly fenced, and in certain cases difficult to identify. Circumstances which had come to light proved beyond all doubt that, unfortunately, in the community who resided there, there was, it appeared, a local secret society established, and to it many of the people there belonged. John Joyce, the murdered man, who lived at Maamtrasna, was the treasurer of this society, and he had many quarrels with another member of the society named Casey. The latter had been repeatedly threatened by Joyce, but he did not inform the police, because Joyce threatened to make known to the authorities the existence and names of the members of the society. Several meetings of the society were held. Quarrels had occurred as to sheep and other matters, and in August, 1882, an attack, instigated by revenge, took place. At the meetings attended by the Joyces and Thomas Casey, who subsequently became Government informer, it was proved that those who took part in it were provided with disguises in the shape of white coats or coverings. The faces of the other six men were blackened with boot-blacking. John P. Joyce was disguised by having a soft hat; and Thomas Casey was similarly disguised. Then some of these men adopted for the nonce assumed names. Three of them were named by John Casey as the persons who actually participated in the murder. These men started from a house which was within three-quarters of a mile of Maamtrasna, went direct to the house of John Joyce, and the murder was committed. It was supposed that the two sons had also been massacred, but the younger son survived, and was still living. He and his brother, who succumbed within 24 hours of the 169 murder, gave depositions to the police, which were now in the hands of the Government. The truth was that Joyce had feuds with some of his neighbours, among whom were Anthony Joyce, John Joyce of Derry, and his son and others. Anthony Joyce, as could easily be proved, had, on more than one occasion, tried to wreak his vengeance upon John Joyce; but Anthony knew absolutely nothing about the murder. He was not near it, and only heard of it on the following morning. He, however, went to the scene of the tragedy, made a minute inspection, and then in conjunction with John Joyce of Derry and the son of the latter he concocted a false charge. This charge was supported throughout by the most palpable perjury. His story was that he was awakened on the night in question by the barking of a dog; he had looked out and saw six men passing his house; that he then went to his brother's house and aroused him, and accompanied him in search of the six mysterious figures whom they saw enter the house of Michael Casey, where they were joined by four others. Now, these men—Anthony, his brother, and his nephew—would have them believe that they tracked the 10 men for three miles, witnessed the entry of the house, heard the cries of the victims, and were able to return without being observed. Now, the men who committed the crime were perfectly well known, and some of them had confessed that they started only three-quarters of a mile from the scene of the tragedy. The story of Anthony Joyce was palpably false in every respect, as was clearly shown by the dying depositions of the son of the victim. The boy could not swear to the culprits owing to their disguise, yet the latter were identified by Anthony Joyce and his party on a dark night. Anthony's niece, Mary Joyce, was several weeks afterwards brought forward to bolster up this false statement. One of the informers, Philbin, produced by the Government to furnish the necessary corroboration, had nothing whatever to do with the murder; but the Government's agents arrested him and so practised upon him that he ultimately consented to enter into a treaty with George Bolton, the Crown Solicitor, in regard to giving evidence. Philbin knew perfectly well what he was required to say, 170 and was afterwards put into a yard with Thomas Casey, one of the accused, in order that his statement might be safely corroborated. Philbin, however, himself turned informer, and made two depositions, one on the 9th of November, which was so unsatisfactory that on the 10th of November he made another, each witnessed by Mr. Bolton; and at last Casey expressed his willingness to give some information. But before he did so, Mr. Brady, one of the Resident Magistrates, read over to Casey the deposition of Philbin, in order that he might know what he was required to affirm. Upon the testimony which they must have known to be perjured, the officers of the Crown pressed the case against the prisoners. That was a serious charge to make against the Administration; but he affirmed that the Courts of Queen Victoria in Ireland were no better than some of the Courts of Elizabeth, which Hallam had stigmatized as caverns of murder. Myles Joyce had been as deliberately done to death as had Lord Frederick Cavendish, and it was absurd to profess horror at one crime and to hide another as heinous. Last Session he had brought before the House a Motion to inquire into the proceedings of the Government with regard to certain charges made against high officials in Ireland. That Motion was refused; but subsequent events, the case of Cornwall against O'Brien alone, proved that that Motion was thoroughly warranted. It was known who had been concerned in these murders—J. Casey, J. Casey, junr., P. Leyden, Thomas Casey, Patrick Casey, Michael Casey, and Patrick Joyce. Of these, two men were executed and one man sentenced to penal servitude; but the determination of the Government to have victims sacrificed Michael Joyce, and sent four other men, equally innocent, into penal servitude. It was impossible to bring back the soul of Myles Joyce; but if any respect for the law was to exist in Ireland, it was absolutely indispensable that some indication should be given in this country that there existed some real desire to do equal and impartial justice in that country, and that they should no longer allow legalized murder to stalk with impunity throughout the Island.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, the 171 demand of the hon. Member was that the Government should review eight convictions, five of which had been obtained on the confession of the accused men, and this demand was made not to satisfy feeling in Ireland, but in order that public justice and the administration of the law might be discredited. It was asked to review convictions made in the presence of a Judge by a jury who were admittedly impartial, partly upon the unsworn statement of an informer, whose case was that he was a perjurer at the trial as well as the murderer of innocent men, and partly on the protestations of innocence made by convicted men. The charge of the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) was that Lord Spencer, Mr. Justice Johnson, Mr. Justice Murphy, Mr. Serjeant O'Brien, and others, had "feloniously, wickedly, murderously"—he used the words of the hon. Member—entered into a conspiracy to suppress evidence in order to obtain the conviction of innocent men, and to screen guilty ones. It was worth remembering that this demand for a reinvestigation of the case was made two years and three months after the trial. The hon. Member for Westmeath visited the scene of this outrage, as he said in one of his letters, "to strengthen the position of those who were demanding justice." There was one statement made by the hon. Member last night which impressed him very much, and that was that when he and the reverend gentleman who accompanied him were visiting one John Joyce and asked him a certain question, the man said, in answer to the priest—"Don't press me, father." That expression was an emphatic illustration of the process resorted to by those who were seeking to get up a case against the Government. Another matter dwelt upon by the hon. Member was the briefs of the Crown. The hon. Member for Westmeath, using a euphemistic expression, said—"They had fallen into his hands." For his own part, he attached no value to what was said in a brief which was abstracted from the Crown—stolen, very possibly, and which any man capable of stealing it would not scruple to alter and use. Would anybody standing up in the name of justice and in the interests of justice descend to the use of arguments from such a source? There were two periods when this case was under the consideration of Lord 172 Spencer—one, when he felt coerced to say the law should take its course; and the second in August last, when Lord Spencer reviewed all the statements made by the approvers, and all the facts of the case, and came to the conclusion that the trial had been a fair one. It would be difficult for anyone who listened yesterday to the statement of the hon. Member for Westmeath to have appreciated the evidence for the Crown. What was that evidence? On the night of the 17th of August, 1882, a horrible massacre of five persons took place at the house of John Joyce, Maamtrasna—the old grandmother of 80, the husband, the wife, the grown-up daughter, the son, were murdered, and an attempt was made upon the life of a child of nine. Old and young were included in that butchery in order that no trace of the murderers might be left. Was it to be supposed that those who prosecuted on the part of the Crown had any special ill-will to Myles Joyce, who was now said to be innocent on the unsworn evidence of a man who admitted that he was in the murder, and whose story, if he came into the box, any jury would be told to discredit. On the morning following the night of the murder three men came forward of unblemished character, without any motive—no reward had been offered, not one sixpence, at the time these men made their statement against those 10 persons. The three men came forward at once and gave information, and the 10 men were arrested and put upon their trial. It was true that John Casey also was arrested, and detained for a short time; but the Crown found that there was no case against him. It was said that the witnesses falsely accused the 10 men. But four of them admitted their guilt. It was said that that was a chance. Was it only a chance that the four men who admitted their guilt were among the 10, especially as one of the four, Thomas Casey, came from a place which was a considerable distance away? The prisoners were arraigned on the 1st of November, counsel and solicitor were assigned them, and the trials were adjourned until the 13th of November to enable the prisoners' counsel to visit the locality, and make up their case; and all that was done at the expense of the Crown. Mr. Malley, one of the most experienced counsel in Ireland in defence of prisoners, was assigned them, and he 173 was paid 20 guineas to enable him to go down and examine the locality. It was said yesterday by the hon. Member for Westmeath that certain depositions were not in the possession of the prisoners' counsel.
§ MR. HARRINGTONasked whether he was to understand that the depositions of Michael Joyce and Patrick Joyce were included?
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, that every deposition was in the possession of the prisoners' counsel. [Mr. HARRINGTON: That is not so.] The hon. Member should remember the difference between depositions and declarations. What he was stating now was literally correct, that not only these, but every deposition made at the inquest, including that which the hon. Member said was suppressed, was in the possession of the prisoners' counsel. The trial came on, and the three witnesses were subjected to a searching cross-examination, and there was no impeachment of their character. There were three trials by separate juries; no juror who served on one trial served on another; and in each a verdict of guilty was returned. And now he would give a short account of the evidence given at the trial. On that night in August it was beyond doubt that John Joyce's house was attacked by a party of murderers. In that wild country there was an old road which passed by the house of the two men, John and Anthony Joyce. One of the gang, Thomas Casey, came from some miles away, the others from the immediate neighbourhood. That old road would be the way the men would naturally take. [Mr. HARRINGTON: No, no.] He did not interrupt the hon. Member for Westmeath when he was making his statement.
§ MR. HARRINGTONI stated facts.
§ MR. SPEAKERI hope the hon. Member will allow the hon. and learned Gentleman to proceed.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER), resuming, said, he had himself taken the trouble to walk over every portion of the ground without asking any questions, but having with him one of the persons who gave evidence on the trial, and he took care to see that every spot identified was one about which there was ample grounds for identification; and if there was a 174 doubt they could not have failed to discover it. It was said yesterday by the hon. Member for Westmeath that the night was dark. The constable swore it was a bright, starry night. It was the fifth day of the new moon. There was evidence to show that the night was not too dark to see the murderers. Anthony Joyce, whose house was a short distance away, was awakened by the barking of a dog. He saw figures on the old road, and recognized six men whom he had known all his life. Some of the men lived almost within a stone's throw. The six men in question were Anthony Philbin, Thomas Casey, Martin Joyce, Myles Joyce, Pat Joyce, and Thomas Joyce. Anthony Joyce thought that they were up to no good, and accordingly he went by a short cut to the house of his brother John, which he reached before the murderers could pass it. John Joyce's daughter Mary, a grown-up young woman, saw her uncle Anthony entering her father's house and heard the conversation which passed. It was said that Mary Joyce did not give evidence until some months after the trial. In point of fact, she made a statement on the same day as her father and uncle. John Joyce went up over his house to see where the men were going. He saw that they went in the direction of the house of Michael Casey, a little further on. It had been admitted that Michael Casey was a participator in the murder. Ten men were seen leaving his house. Those men passed within a few feet of Anthony Joyce, his son, and his brother, who followed them along the mountain path until they took the fields in the direction of the house of the murdered man. There at last the witnesses arrived, and, from behind a bush, witnessed the 10 men enter the yard. They saw a rush at the door, and heard screams, after which they fled in terror to their homes. When Patrick Joyce was arrested on the following day on the information of the three Joyces, one of the first questions he asked was whether Anthony Philbin had been arrested. That was a most singular corroboration. It was asked why were these men not taken red-handed. It should be remembered that there were three against 10, and that the barracks was some miles away from the place where the murders were committed. [Several Irish MEMBERS: No; one mile.] It was stated yesterday that the barracks was five 175 miles away. The House should remember that all Joyce had said had been before three juries. It had been made the subject of examination and cross-examination, and had been dealt with in the Judge's charge. As to the motive which prompted the murder, it had been suggested that the old woman had given information with respect to the murder of the two Huddys which took place some time before, and whose bodies had been thrown into Lough Mask. But the hon. Member for Westmeath, in the letters he had written, had given an ample motive. The hon. Member had said that Patrick Joyce was the head of a Ribbon Society of the district, that John Joyce had been the treasurer of that society, and that the Joyces had given information. Everyone knew that if a member of a Ribbon Society gave information he might be murdered for so doing. It was obvious, however, that some strong motive must have induced the men to murder the old woman. When the evidence of the three Joyces was impeached, the House should consider what was said by the Judge in summing up. The Judge declared that the witnesses gave their testimony in a most satisfactory and trustworthy manner. He wished to point out that on the 23rd of August, 1882, in The Freeman's Journal, the very newspaper in which the letters of the hon. Member for Westmeath appeared, there was given a description of the witnesses at the inquest and of the alleged murderers, and it was stated that the people of the locality described the 10 men who had been arrested as the biggest devils in the district, who had long been the terror of the neighbourhood, and they shook hands with the witnesses and blessed them, and expsessed their rejoicing that this murderous gang had at last been run to earth. Public opinion was expressed at the conclusion of the three trials; he referred to the 2nd of November, 1882. At the conclusion of these trials on the 2nd of November, 1882, the same organ of public opinion said that the jury had done their duty, that they had been fairly selected, that it had been shown that Irishmen would not shrink from their duty when a case was proven, that the verdicts would be supported by the feeling of the country, that there was no justification for the charge of jury-packing to obtain a conviction, that the restoration of the Catholics of Ireland 176 to the jury-box had been vindicated, that they had retrieved the character of Irish juries, whose verdicts would cease to be received with dissatisfaction and murmurs of distrust, that there was a unanimous feeling that justice had been done in the right and Constitutional way, and that it was a satisfaction to the journal to have been an humble agent in achieving this great end. Such was contemporaneous public opinion as expressed in that newspaper when the verdicts were given. In United Ireland, which was a journal of still more extreme opinions, exactly the same commendations were expressed; it was said that the duty of the jury had been honestly and fairly done, and that in future the verdicts of juries would perhaps be rather more scrupulously respected. [Mr. O'BRIEN: At what stage were these remarks made?] They followed the sentence of Myles Joyce, they were made on the 25th of November, 1882, and they were followed by the declaration—
We believe the public are satisfied that the disgusting butchery has been avenged upon convincing evidence by juries fairly chosen.With respect to what had been said about the plea of guilty, he would ask whether it had ever been known in the experience of a criminal lawyer that a man charged with murder had said he was guilty when he was not? Indeed, it seemed to pass the limits of human imagination that it should be so. It was part of the case of hon. Members that not only Myles Joyce was innocent, but that the four men who pleaded guilty were also innocent. The first trial lasted three days, the second three days, the third two days, and two witnesses whose expenses had been paid by the Crown were present for the purpose of proving an alibi. Mr. Malley, counsel for the defence, appealed to the counsel to the Crown to know whether, if the four pleaded guilty, the capital sentence would be remitted; he was informed that no such hope could be held out. Mr. Malley would not take upon himself to recommend the withdrawal of the plea of not guilty by the five prisoners until they had seen their priest, and when they had seen him he advised them to plead guilty.
§ COLONEL NOLANIs it Mr. Malley's statement that no hope was held out to them by the officers of the Crown?
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, that he was stating it on the information of the counsel who was prosecuting. The counsel was told who was their priest; and he (the Rev. Mr. M'Hugh) came up, and having seen them he advised them to plead guilty. It was said that they had refused to do so when the Crown Solicitor asked them; but because they did so on the advice of the priest, we were asked to believe in their innocence. Was it to be said that the rev. gentleman, believing in their innocence, advised them to plead guilty, and yet never uttered a word in explanation to those who held in their hands the issues of life and death? He could not believe it. On the withdrawal of the plea of not guilty, Mr. Malley made an appeal to the Attorney General to be satisfied with the condemnation of the three most prominent of the culprits; and the Attorney General said that he could do nothing. In their subsequent memorial they said they did not enter the house and had no active participation in the crime; and upon that view of the matter the sentence was commuted. It was said there was evidence that could have been given that the men who committed the murder had their faces blackened and were unrecognizable; but when Michael Joyce made the statement on the 18th of August, he was dying; he had two revolver bullets in him which could not be extracted; he was unconscious and raving. True, he said—"Two or three men came in; they had their faces blackened." But to anyone representing the Crown that could not appear to be of the smallest moment. There was ample time for them to have blackened their faces after they left Michael Casey's house. But even if their faces were not blackened, there was nothing more likely than that, in the limited space of the cottage, to the boys awakened by the dying screams of their father and their mother, in the flickering gleams of bog oak torches, the faces of the murderers might well appear to have been blackened. Michael Joyce further said that he was asleep at the time, and he heard a dog bark; that the men said something to his father, and that he had been at mass the day before at Friney. [Mr. HEALY: It was a Catholic holiday.] No; it was not a Catholic holiday. It was the 17th 178 of August, and it had been ascertained that there was no mass there the day before. Then the boy went on to say that he had been sworn on a book not to say anything. It was obvious that it was impossible to attach much value to the evidence of this boy in these circumstances, and when he was passing away from life. So much for Michael Joyce. Then there was the evidence of Patrick Joyce, who recovered. He was a boy about nine, and he made a declaration on the 18th of August, in which he said that these men "had soot on their faces; they had a kippeen each; they lighted them in the house; I got three strokes; they had no coats on and wore bonneens." Anybody who knew the dress the Irish peasants wore in the West, he ventured to say, instead of saying that they were perfectly white, would believe that they were more nearly black. Thus his evidence was wholly inconsistent with that of Anthony Joyce. The point insisted on was that the prisoners' counsel did not know that a statement had been made that the faces of the men were black. The whole of the parties concerned in the trials were charged with having got up a murderous concoction to encompass the death of the prisoners. All he could say was that the depositions at the inquest which proved these statements of the boys as to the black faces were in the hands of the advisers of the prisoners, and they could have asked any question that they wished on cross-examination. It was not the duty of the counsel for the Crown to bring the matter forward. It was suggested that these depositions were kept back; but the fact was that they were published in the public Press and in The Freeman's Journal long before the trials, and the information was thus scattered far and wide. The Judge knew of them, as he had the brief of the Crown counsel before him. Then there was the question of the composition of the jury. Now, there was no challenge of the jury, which was about equally composed of Protestants and Catholics. With regard to the brief which was stolen, it was said that there was the letter "C" marked in it to indicate the word Catholic. Well, the newspapers had called attention to the fact that the number of Catholics and Protestants serving on the jury were equal. The letter "C," however, did not signify the 179 word Catholic, but "challenged." What the word "sturdy" meant he did not know, but believed that whoever stole the brief was quite capable of writing it. With regard to the boy, Patrick Joyce, the Crown had put him forward but did not examine him, and I am informed the counsel for the prisoners extracted that the boy did not understand the nature of an oath. The hon. Member for Westmeath had stated that the convicted men had written letters declaring their innocence. He would like to know whether it was very likely that any person would declare anything else in a letter which passed under the eyes of the officials of the gaol? The Crown had, he contended, only vindicated the law in the course which they had taken. With regard to the statements of Casey and Philbin, it might be that they gave false evidence, and it might be that their statement was false that Myles Joyce entered the house. Well, if he was there with the gang, he was as guilty in the eyes of the law as any of them. [Mr. KENNY: He was not there.] Myles Joyce was not in the house, but was there; that was the explanation which had been put upon the case by three juries. When an inquiry was made for compensation to the families of the murdered persons, the two approvers came forward and repeated the same story, although the proceedings were not conducted by the Crown. He would tell the House something more about Thomas Casey. His statement on the 28th of July last was that Myles Joyce was present at the scene of the murder, but did not go into the house. And on the 10th of August he said he had sworn falsely against Myles Joyce and five other innocent men, and that he suppressed the names of the real murderers because he had been paid money to do so by the son of one of the murderers. It was upon the unsworn statement of such a man that the House was asked to subvert everything which had been done by three juries and an upright Judge, and that John Casey, senior, and his son were asked to be prosecuted. Thomas Casey, no doubt, wanted to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the lawless people in his district. It was said Thomas Casey was induced to make his original statements by the Crown Solicitor, that Philbin and he were put into the prison yard to- 180 gether, and that he made that statement under protest. The first communication which passed between Mr. Bolton and Casey was a message sent by Casey to Mr. Bolton on November 11th, saying—"I have a little important statement to make to yer honor." The suggestion now put forward by Casey was that Bolton wrote down the statement which he desired him to make. That turned out to be utterly false. The statement was made in the presence of Mr. Bolton, Mr. Brady, the Resident Magistrate, and the prison Governor, and it was written by Mr. Brady with his own hand, and was still in existence to show that Mr. Bolton had not written any of it. This Amendment was supported by an appeal to the unsworn testimony of an admitted murderer and perjurer. It was a deliberate attempt to discredit the administration of all law in Ireland, and to make uncertain the verdicts of juries in Ireland.
§ MR. CALLANrose to Order. He desired to know whether it was in Order for an official of the Crown to charge a Member of that House with a deliberate attempt to pervert the course of justice?
§ MR. SPEAKERIf the hon. and learned Gentleman alludes to any Member of this House when he says there has been a deliberate attempt to pervert justice, he is not in Order in doing so.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, if his words implied such a meaning, he would withdraw. What he desired to convey was that the effect of this Motion would be to discredit the administration of law, and to make jury trials, which were the safeguard of law and order, uncertain. It would have the effect of making the evidence of informers impossible in a Court of Law, which would be a very convenient thing for those engaged in dark conspiracies. But it was well that the conspirators should know that there were amongst them those whom they could not trust, no matter how solemn the oath they took might be. He hoped the House would negative the Amendment.
MR. GORSTsaid, the question which had been raised by the Amendment was one of great gravity and importance, and he thought it deserved to be treated in a very much calmer and more judicial spirit than had been shown by the hon. 181 and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland. He did not apologize for taking part in the discussion, because they all were interested in justice being administered in such a manner that the people would have confidence in its administration. In the present case, there were two perfectly distinct questions. One was, whether there had been any miscarriage of justice? And the other was, if there had been any, whether that miscarriage of justice was due to any misconduct on the part of the officials who represented the Crown in Ireland? If it were important that the administration of justice in Great Britain should be free from suspicion, it was ten-fold more important that it should be free from suspicion in Ireland, because Parliament had thought fit to clothe the Executive Government in Ireland with extraordinary powers, and the only check of those powers was the careful and scrupulous administration of justice. Some years ago, he drew the attention of the House to the way in which crime in Ireland appeared to escape punishment, and to the way in which juries refused to return verdicts of guilty, even on the most conclusive evidence; but he should have been extremely sorry if he had supposed it could have been imagined for a moment that he advocated the establishment of tribunals which would exercise anything else than the most perfect and complete justice. When a case of this kind was brought under the consideration of the House of Commons, it was not, in his opinion, seemly that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland, as representing the Government, should get up and make a strong partizan speech, ignoring the real difficulties of the case, and, in fact, to tell the House that there was nothing whatever in it—that it was a mere attempt on the part of certain Members to cast discredit upon the administration of the law; and, indeed, that any person who regarded this as a grave matter, deserving earnest attention on the part of the Government, must be either a fool, or in league with disloyal persons. He (Mr. Gorst) could not help thinking that if the prosecution of criminals in Ireland was conducted in the same spirit as the case of the Government had been defended that night by the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland, he 182 was not at all astonished that the people of Ireland should have little confidence in the administration of justice. He (Mr. Gorst) had had some experience in Crown prosecutions. He was, while the late Government held Office, repeatedly in Crown prosecutions with the late Sir John Holker, who was distinguished for his fairness and impartiality in conducting prosecutions, as also for his ability and knowledge of law. He had not the slightest doubt but that the hon. and learned Gentleman the present Attorney General (Sir Henry James) would take most scrupulous care that every single fact of importance in a case, whether it went for or against the guilt of the prisoner, should be fully and fairly submitted to the jury. He (Mr. Gorst) did not know whether that was done in these Maamtrasna trials; but, certainly, it was not done if the speech of the prosecuting counsel was anything like the speech they had heard that night. He certainly never before heard a more reckless assertion than the one that had just been made by the hon. and learned Gentleman. The hon. and learned Gentleman had been careful to impress upon the House that the identification of the accused men was easy, inasmuch as the night was bright and starlight. He (Mr. Gorst), however, had always understood that a night could not be starlight unless it was somewhat dark. The hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) had asserted that the evidence of Anthony and his brother John and his nephew was uncorroborated, except by his niece Mary, and that Mary had not given her testimony until some time after her uncle had been examined. The hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland had met that assertion by a declaration that Mary's deposition had been taken on the same day as that of her uncle. In these circumstances, he had asked for the loan of the stolen Crown brief. He did not know how that document had been come by, but there it was, as clearly a genuine one as the redistribution scheme published by The Standard the other day; and on looking at that brief, he found, that whereas the deposition of Anthony was taken on August 20, that of Mary was not taken until August 28.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)That is what I stated.
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)I said the statements were made on the same day. Their depositions were made on different days.
MR. GORSTsaid, he had a distinct recollection of what the hon. and learned Gentleman had said on this point; and beyond that, there was no evidence with regard to their statements, but there was as regarded their depositions. The hon. and learned Gentleman had also asked the House to believe in the testimony of these witnesses, because their demeanour in giving their evidence had been so satisfactory; but their evidence had been given in the Irish language, and it was impossible that anyone who did not understand that language could judge of their demeanour. He should be sorry to ask the House to pronounce judgment as to the guilt or the innocence of these men, but certainly the hon. and learned Gentleman was guilty of exaggeration and would not carry the House with him when he declared that there was no doubt or difficulty in the case. For his part, he (Mr. Gorst) did not think that anybody could be quite comfortable in his mind with regard to the question whether the right men had been convicted and executed. The whole story that had been told by Anthony and John Joyce of the way in which they had identified these men was a most improbable one, inasmuch as they had given no explanation of their conduct in being out at so late an hour, and of following this gang of murderers to the house where the murder was committed, and in their running away. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland had said that there was no motive on their part for giving false evidence; but, on the other hand, there was no motive for the accused persons committing the murder. It might, however, be suggested that a substantial motive existed, in the minds of Anthony and John, to induce them to give false testimony, in the very large reward that was given in Ireland to those who gave evidence which secured the conviction of any person charged with murder. He was rather surprised that the hon. and learned Soli- 184 citor General for Ireland should rely so much upon newspaper criticism, because he did not know that the remarks which appeared in the newspapers were very much calculated to assist the House in arriving at a conclusion with regard to the matter. He must remark, however, that the eulogies which had appeared in the newspapers, and which had been read, were confined entirely to the conduct of the jury. No one was inclined to find fault with the conduct of the jury, for the evidence laid before them was such as ought to induce them to convict in any case. The hon. and learned Gentleman had dwelt with great force upon the absence of motive evinced for the fact that these five men had pleaded guilty, and no doubt at first sight that did appear to be a very remarkable fact if they were innocent; but with regard to it an important question was this—Had there been any hope held out to these men on the part of the Crown, or by anyone representing it, that if they pleaded guilty, their lives would be spared?—because, if so, that would afford an intelligible explanation of their conduct. It must be recollected that three men had already been tried and convicted upon exactly the same evidence as that which these five men knew would be given against them, and therefore they must have had little hope of escaping conviction, in which case they would have been sentenced to death and hanged, and, therefore, they would naturally have snatched at any hope that might be held out to them by the Crown officials that if they pleaded guilty they would save their necks from the rope. Therefore, what they did was perfectly intelligible. But there was a piece of very striking evidence which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland had entirely and absolutely slurred over. It appeared that they had been induced to plead guilty by the persuasion of their parish priest—at least, that was the effect of the evidence of a religious and respectable man; but what he said, and what the hon. and learned Gentleman had made no allusion whatever to, was very vital. The reverend gentleman said that, at the time, he was by no means sure of the innocence of these men; but that he was inclined to believe that they were so from their declarations. He further said that he had urged them to plead guilty, because 185 if they really were guilty their plea of guilty would do them no harm, and it would save their necks—how he obtained that information, except through the Crown officials, he (Mr. Gorst) could not conceive—while if they were innocent, he felt that eventually the truth would leak out, and that a huge wrong could not continue for ever, and that he saw a chance of the men being at length returned to their homes and their families without a stain on their characters. The reverend gentleman further declared that, in advising the men to plead guilty, he had not been influenced by a belief in their guilt; but that, on the contrary, he had rather believed them to be innocent. Now, the House would note how carefully the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland ignored all that. He came now to what he regarded as the kernel of the matter—the most preposterous and absurd argument that had been put forward by the hon. and learned Gentleman. He (Mr. Gorst) had been so much struck by the extremely partizan speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman, that, while the hon. and learned Gentleman was addressing the House, he had remarked to an hon. Friend near him that he should not be surprised if the hon. and learned Gentleman did not say black was white before he sat down, and the hon. and learned Gentleman had literally done so. The evidence on which these men were convicted was that the murderers had white faces and black clothes. But the two poor boys, on the day after the murder, the first opportunity after they had been struck down, and without the slightest chance of collusion between them, had stated that the men who had attacked them wore white coats, and that they had their faces blackened, and therefore they were unable to recognize them. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that the fact was that the men had white faces and black coats, and that in their delirium the lads had mistaken the white faces for white coats and the black coats for black faces. Now he (Mr. Gorst), on this point, must say that he considered the conduct of the Crown officials and the Crown Prosecutor, in keeping back the fact that the men's faces were blackened, was absolutely indefensible, and such as he was quite sure would never have been committed by the hon. and learned Attorney Ge- 186 neral for England, whom he saw opposite, nor by any of his Predecessors. The action of this case turned upon the question of identification on this "bright starry night." If there was one fact in the case more clear than another, it was that these men had blackened faces—in fact, it was in the Crown brief, and was there to be seen now. The morning after the murder, the people who came to the house found one boy of 17 years dying, and a little boy of 10 years also apparently dying, but who had since recovered. As he had said both these lads mentioned, and there could have been no collusion between them, that the men who had entered the house, and who had committed the crime, had their faces blackened, and that they could not recognize them; but the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland, indeed, would have them believe that the deposition of Michael Joyce was that of a raving maniac; but he found in that Crown brief, and he supposed it was a fact, that the deposition of this "raving maniac" was taken by one Mr. Brady, Resident Magistrate, and he supposed that Resident Magistrates knew their duties better than to take the declarations of raving maniacs; but it was not only that—the fact of the blackened faces was set forth in a further deposition, and was a prominent feature of the case, and when the guilt of the prisoners depended on the evidence of Anthony Joyce and his accomplices, and when the credibility of the witnesses rested on their power of identification on that starlight night, the fact that the faces were blackened was of most vital importance, and one which should not have been withheld from the cognizance of the jury. He challenged the hon. and learned Attorney General for England to say whether he did not consider that that fact ought to have been communicated to the jury by the Crown counsel; and whether, if such a case occurred in England, the hon. and learned Gentleman would not have taken the most scrupulous care that this important fact should be solemnly brought to the knowledge of the jury? Well, again, he noticed on the second day of the trial a most remarkable thing. In the report of the proceedings which he held in his hand, it appeared that John Collins, who was first in the house after the murder, deposed to finding 187 Michael Joyce still alive. That was on the morning of the 18th, and upon the witness making that statement, one of the jurors—a Mr. Pim—who appeared to be a most sagacious and intelligent man, inquired whether Michael Joyce had made any statement to him when he entered. The Judge, however (Mr. Justice Barry), interposing, said—"That question need not be answered. We have had already a statement of the doctors that Michael was raving, and unable to make any statement." Now, if Mr. Pim, instead of thus being interfered with, and cut short by the Judge, had been informed that Michael Joyce had made a statement to John Collins and to a police constable, and a dying declaration before a Resident Magistrate, in all of which he had given the blackened state of the men's faces as the reason why he could not identify them, he (Mr. Gorst) did not know but that that might have altered the verdict of the jury. He hoped the hon. and learned Attorney General for England (Sir Henry James) had read the evidence as he (Mr. Gorst) had done. He had done so very carefully, and he found that the case, apart from the informers who had recanted, rested on the evidence of Anthony Joyce, and he asked himself this question—If Anthony Joyce and his party could, on a starlight night, identify all these men, with their faces blackened, at a distance of 40 or 50 yards—[Mr. HARRINGTON: 150 yards]—well, it would serve his purpose—he asked himself how it was that, if they could that night identify anyone at that distance, Michael Joyce, awakened in the middle of the night with the light of torches around him, could have failed to identify the murderers, even if they were strangers? [Mr. HARRINGTON: They were cousins.] He (Mr. Gorst) had never been awakened in the night to see a murderous face; but if he were, he thought he would recollect that face to the end of his days. To him it seemed incredible almost that the Crown Prosecutor could have held back so much; and he could not think that even the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland could rest satisfied with a verdict so open to doubt as that. But he had just forgotten one further instance of the recklessness of the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland. 188 It was asked—Why did not these men, when terrified, go to the barracks? "Oh," said the Solicitor General for Ireland, "the barracks was five miles off;" and he (Mr. Gorst) thought no more of it, believing, of course, that the hon. and learned Gentleman would not say that if he did not know it was a fact. But the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had just informed him (Mr. Gorst) that he had measured the distance on the Ordnance map in the Library, and found it was under one mile. All he could say was, that if prosecutions in Ireland were conducted as this case would have one to suppose they sometimes were, and as the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland would tend to prove, then he was not in the least surprised that there was sometimes discontent amongst the Irish Members and people, and miscarriages of justice. The facts were that three men were found guilty and hanged, the third of whom died solemnly protesting his innocence to the last. The other two men made depositions, which the Government would not produce, admitting their own guilt, but denying the guilt of the unhappy man who suffered with them. Five other men were sentenced to penal servitude, of whom four asserted their innocence, and the fifth, according to an hon. Member, had said that he was guilty. An informer, upon whose evidence these men were convicted, came forward to say that he had told a tissue of falsehoods. The other informer, he (Mr. Gorst) believed, had made a similar statement. The whole case, in fact, upon which the Crown hanged Myles Joyce had crumbled away, with the sole exception of the statement of Anthony Joyce and his party, evidence which was open to the very gravest doubt. Could the Government be sure, in such a case, that there had been no miscarriage of justice? And would they not at least undertake that there should be a searching inquiry made on the spot, such as was made in Kilmartin's case, which had been attended with the best results, and that the witnesses should all be examined? They were not dealing with unknown persons. He thought the dying depositions of these executed men might very properly be produced. Now, there was a second allegation made on the responsibility of the Archbishop 189 of Tuam—namely, that there was misconduct on the part of the Crown officials, regarding which it was said there had been an inquiry. It was true that the Government had made an inquiry of some kind or other; but who had been the investigators? Why, the inculpated officials themselves. He did not hesitate to declare such an inquiry as that a complete farce. If ever there were a case in which the Executive Government of Ireland should have welcomed some independent inquiry, it would be a case of this sort. He (Mr. Gorst) could understand them refusing any inquiry at all; but, if they conceded any kind of a trial, he should have thought that, for their own sakes, they would have got hold of the most independent person they could lay hands on—an English Judge, for instance, such as Lord Bramwell—and would have invited him to inquire whether the administration of justice had been in accordance with the maxims and principles happily prevalent in the Kingdom of England. If Lord Bramwell had looked into the matter, and had acquitted the authorities, the Government would have had a triumphant justification before the whole of the United Kingdom; but for the Lord Lieutenant to write to the Archbishop and say that he sent him a Memorandum in which he entirely concurred, and when this Memorandum had obviously been drawn up by the inculpated officials, such an inquiry was a perfect farce. The inquiry which had been held was unsatisfactory and unreliable, and therefore he (Mr. Gorst) did earnestly impress upon the Government the paramount importance of placing the administration of justice in Ireland above all suspicion, and of selecting someone of the position, and with the authority, which Lord Bramwell possessed to inquire into the case. If that was done, he thought everybody would be willing to abide by the result of such an appointment.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he was sure that he spoke the sentiments of his Colleagues when he said that Ireland owed a deep debt of gratitude to the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) for the speech which he had just delivered. He (Mr. Healy) could not imagine any hon. Member voting against the Amendment before the House, for the two propositions it contained were 190 incontestable. It could not be denied that it was the opinion of large numbers of the Irish people that the Maamtrasna prisoners were innocent, and it could not be denied that the confidence of the Irish people in the administration of justice would be strengthened if the inquiry were made. In asking for it, the Irish Members founded themselves upon the promise made solemnly to them by the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for War (the Marquess of Hartington), that if the Archbishop of Tuam would come forward and make a statement, an inquiry would be granted. He (Mr. Healy) asked the noble Marquess, as a gentleman and as a man of honour, whether that promise had been kept? Could he lay his hand upon his heart and say that an inquiry by Messrs. George Bolton and Newton Brady into the acts of Messrs. Brady and Bolton was a fulfilment of that promise? Bolton and Brady were the very gentlemen whose conduct of the case was impeached by the Irish Members, and Earl Spencer interpreted the pledge for an inquiry by announcing that, after some secret colloquy, Bolton himself and Brady found themselves not guilty. If this were a matter of English concern, and the promise had been in regard to some conduct of Lord Wolseley in the Soudan, and a full inquiry were promised, would the noble Marquess be satisfied to know that Lord Wolseley had inquired into his own deeds, and found himself not guilty? The case had all along been "instructed" by Mr. Brady, and it was with great regret that he (Mr. Healy) impeached any statement of that gentleman. He had the honour of knowing his father, the Inspector of Fisheries, and no better official existed, and he much regretted having to impeach the conduct of his father's son. Upon him, however, heavily lay responsibility. What experience had he when, as Resident Magistrate, he began to investigate the circumstances of the murder? The crime was committed on the 17th August, 1882, and Mr. Brady was gazetted on the 1st of that very month. A magistrate of 17 days' experience, not knowing a word of the Irish language, was sent down from his desk in the Castle to a district where every man was an Irish-speaking person, and where Mr. Brady had no possible knowledge of the modes of thought or habits 191 of life of the people. It was curious that Irish Sub-Inspectors and other Constabulary officials were required to know French and German; but though their duties must bring them in constant contact with Gaelic-speaking persons, it was not held necessary that they should know one word of their own tongue—the Irish language. One of the chief points in the case rested upon the dying declarations of Patrick Joyce and Casey, who were hanged with Myles Joyce. These were given in Irish in Galway Gaol before the execution. They were volunteered on different days by two men locked into separate cells, who, being kept apart, could have had no knowledge of each other's intentions. They were taken in Irish and written down by Brady, through an interpreter. The Lord Lieutenant stated that though they tried to exculpate Myles Joyce, they were still consistent with his presence at the murder, although striking no blow. If what these men wished to express were not made clear, what a load of responsibility lay upon the head of Mr. Brady. But if there were anything in the depositions which left any doubt upon the case, why could not the Lord Lieutenant telegraph to Mr. Brady and ask him, so that the doubt might be cleared up. Lord Spencer, in his reply to the Archbishop of Tuam, said that he gave the depositions the most anxious consideration; but he also said that they were compatible with the fact of Myles Joyce having a guilty knowledge of the intended murders. Remembering that Lord Spencer did not adopt the course he had referred to, that he did not ask Mr. Brady to clear up any cloudiness in the dying depositions by putting the direct question to the real murderers, "Was Myles Joyce with you or not on the occasion of the massacre?" he looked upon the Viceroy's reply to the Archbishop as one of the meanest, most paltry, and most contemptible things that a Lord Lieutenant had ever been guilty of. He could not conceive a Nobleman occupying the position of Governor of the Irish people, who certainly had no want of keenness, putting forward such a statement, and hoping that it might obtain credence. It was said that these depositions did not say that Myles Joyce had no part in the murder. But why was not an endeavour made to extract from the condemned men exactly what they meant 192 to say? Why did not Mr. Brady put the question, "Was Myles Joyce there at all, or was he not?" For any defect in the depositions, Mr. Brady, who took them, was, in the first instance, responsible; and Lord Spencer, in the next place, seeing that he kept the Galway telegraph office open all night before the execution, could not be held guiltless for not asking his Resident Magistrate to extract from the murderers the exact meaning they wished to convey. If the Government were so very clear about the case, and that no injustice had been committed respecting it, what was their objection to granting an inquiry? Why not heap coals of fire upon the heads of the Irish Members, and bury them in the iniquity of having trumped up these charges? Why not take the revenge that they (the Government) must be so anxious to have upon them, by proving by means of this inquiry that he and his hon. Friends were in league with murderers and assassins? They gave the Government this alternative. Either they had a good case, or they had a bad one. If they had a good case, why not grant an inquiry? Since they would not grant an inquiry, what was the inference? And what had the Irish Members been accused of? They had been accused by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland of bringing forward this case to discredit the ends of justice. They were accused of discrediting the ends of justice, by demanding an inquiry which, if it failed, could only recoil upon their own heads. And they demanded an inquiry, with the full knowledge that on the only occasion on which an inquiry of this description had been granted—that conducted two months ago into the conviction of Bryan Kilmartin—that inquiry did discredit the administration of justice, and did not discredit the men who brought forward the allegations that Kilmartin was innocent. But great good the inquiry would have done Bryan Kilmartin, if the shot that was fired by the other man had taken effect. He would have been hanged; and, nevertheless, if a dying declaration, such as was made by Ganly in that case, had been brought to their knowledge, the Irish Members would have been bound in that House to have urged for an inquiry. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland began 193 his statement that night by taunting them with the fact that they brought forward this demand for an inquiry two years and two months after the trial. It was absurd, and he thought a little unjustifiable, to say that, when, as a matter of fact, if the hon. and learned Gentleman had been longer an official in the House, he must have known that the moment after Parliament met in 1883, they challenged in that House the conviction and execution of this man, Myles Joyce. The question was—What explanation was there now for refusing to lay upon the Table the depositions of these two executed men, Patrick Joyce and Casey? The Prime Minister, giving, of course, the reply that was provided and prepared for him by the Irish Government, said, to-day, that it was not usual to give statements made by persons under sentence of death. He was surprised that the Prime Minister, with his varied and vast knowledge, should have pledged himself to such a flimsy statement as that. Was the right hon. Gentleman not aware that in the Butterknowle murder, in the county of Durham, not three months ago, the Secretary of State for the Home Department released, unconditionally, one of the men convicted (Siddle), and that the man who was hanged for the crime (Lowson) declared that this man who was convicted with him was not guilty, and that this dying man's declaration was published to the whole world? They had also the case of the assassin, Peace, whose dying declaration exculpating the convicted man, Habron, for the murder of the policeman, Cox, at Manchester, was published to the whole world. Then they had the case of Francey Hynes, where all the Papers, in 1882, were laid upon the Table of the House. The Prime Minister said it was not usual, and was contrary to Departmental practice, to publish condemned men's depositions. He (Mr. Healy) said, that if it was not usual to give statements made by persons under sentence of death, it ought to be usual. What did the Irish Members care about the Government Departments? What they wanted was to have wrongfully-convicted men liberated, and sent back to their wives and children; and it was no answer to tell them that it was not the practice to publish declarations of that kind. These depositions existed; they declared the 194 innocence of Myles Joyce and of the other four still imprisoned men, and he (Mr. Healy) said that, if they had to wring them out of the Government, they would have these depositions. He, in common with the other Irish Members in that House, was independent of both the Whig and Tory Party. The Whig and the Tory Party had their exigencies, and they (the Irish Members) had before now wrung concessions out of the exigencies of British Governments. Therefore, when the Government came into a crisis later on, such speeches as that made by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite that night would not be calculated to help them over the stile. He told the hon. and learned Gentleman that they would yet have these depositions, although they were refused two years ago by Lord Spencer; and even if every man of them was to be consigned for months to the plank bed, they would make the whole country ring with the charge of murder against Dublin Castle. The noble Marquess opposite had promised an inquiry into this matter, and he (Mr. Healy) now declared that the Irish Members should take notice of that breach of faith in some marked manner. He further denied that the three independent witnesses were of the unimpeachable character represented, They were the scamps of the neighbourhood, and one of them, he believed, was himself in the murder conspiracy, and thus was able to hit on some of the right men. Others were then dragged in to gratify private revenge, and he would point out that, although the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland was technically correct in saying that no reward had been offered, the Joyces pocketed £1,500 blood-money. They were also told that these men were identified passing along the road. It was well known that the only thing in the shape of a road in the district was a stream that was dry at the time this murder was committed, and which a party on such an errand would have avoided as the only highway likely to be frequented up the mountain. He had expected a much more clear statement on that point; but, beyond the fact that he had visited the place, the Solicitor General for Ireland was careful not to draw upon his personal experience on that matter. It was, however, a well-known fact, which 195 he (Mr. Healy) could substantiate, having been at the scene of the murder, which he had visited out of curiosity, as he happened to be in the neighbourhood, and he maintained that it would be quite impossible for a person standing at the angle of the house, where these men stated they identified the prisoners, to see the road at all, or any person on it. Then they had the extraordinary fact that the identifying parties placed themselves some yards further on towards John Joyce's house when the murderers rendezvoused at Casey's. How did they know that they were going to John Joyce's house, and why should they have placed themselves above instead of below Casey's house, nearer instead of farther from the scene of the murder, as if they knew the subsequent destination of the party plotting inside? In addition to that, they had the personally conducted tour of the Solicitor General for Ireland, which that hon. and learned Gentleman appeared to have undertaken to the district. But he did not give them any explanation of one extraordinary fact, that the three independent witnesses said they identified these men from behind the house, and the approver Philbin said he placed himself in the exact spot where the three independent witnesses must have been lying in wait. All that the hon. and learned Gentleman did was to favour the House with a flimsy statement, omitting all reference to the points that were made in favour of the prisoners by the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington), and giving a rehash of the case for the prosecution at the trial of these unhappy men. The Government, relying on the Caucus, were sure of the votes of their supporters, and were, therefore, quite satisfied, no matter what was said; and English Members not unnaturally said they could not understand this fearful mixture of Joyces and Caseys. The Irish Members would be satisfied with a Select Committee to inquire into the case, and even if the majority on the Committee were their most determined opponents, they were content to stand or fall by the verdict of that Committee. But they would not be satisfied with Lord Spencer's summary mode of disposing of the case, by asking Bolton and Brady, "Are you guilty or not guilty?" and then complacently recording their acquital of themselves. This was 196 not an agrarian murder, so far as they knew, and why was the venue changed? No man was justified in advising the Crown to change the venue to the City of Dublin. It was simply criminal for the Crown to drag those unfortunate men, who did not understand a single word of the proceedings, 200 miles away from their own district, away from any help from their witnesses, and put them on their trial before a special jury in Dublin. It was one thing to pay for the defence, and another thing to consult the convenience of the accused. The accused applied for a postponement, in order that they might have the opportunity of rebutting the evidence of the informers, but that postponement was refused; and although the brief for the Crown was printed—and it was the practice in Ireland to give to the accused copies of printed documents—yet in this case the Crown withheld the brief. The right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Trevelyan) had resigned, and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was not yet in existence; and the right hon. Gentleman did not take the trouble on the previous night to attend and hear the arguments of the hon. Member for Westmeath. Although the Lord Lieutenant was chiefly impugned, yet the late Chief Secretary for Ireland could not, by simply jumping into the post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, completely wash himself free of concern or responsibility in this matter. Myles Joyce and his ghost would haunt the right hon. Gentleman for many a long day. There ought to be some person in that House capable of dealing with the arguments of hon. Members in a proper manner; and he totally objected to hon. and learned Gentlemen like the Solicitor General for Ireland, who replied to statements by omitting to notice every strong point. They had it from him that the two wounded hoys, in their dying declarations, were totally mistaken as to the colour of the clothes and the faces of the men who attempted to batter out their brains. A Solicitor General's £1,500 a-year enabled him to see at once that the boys were mistaken, and that the clothes of the men, although originally white, became in process of time considerably darker, and that their faces were, in reality, not black, but white, which was much the same colour! 197 When a statement was made by a dying boy, that he was murdered by a man with a black face and a white coat, it would take the nerve of an Irish Solicitor General to assert that the man had a white face and a black coat. But supposing the hypothesis of the hon. and learned Gentleman to be correct, why not let the jury know all about it? Myles Joyce, the alleged murderer, was a first cousin of these boys, and the others were near neighbours, familiar to them all their lives. Was it likely they would not have known them had the assassins been recognizable, as the "unimpeachable witnesses" swore? The Solicitor General for Ireland had made some strong remarks on the fact that his (Mr. Healy's) hon. Friend the Member for Westmeath had obtained possession of one of the Crown briefs, and he appeared to think that it was very dishonourable. But it was much more dishonourable for the Government to have withheld the facts from the jury. It was the business of the Irish Members to get hold of all such documents in the interests of good government. It was not half so dishonourable as when the Government were so unscrupulous as to steal their letters, as they had done for many years, and to open them as they passed through the Post Office. They could not take a peep at a Crown brief; but the Solicitor General for Ireland and the right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secretary for Ireland, who was that night in an an amphibious and ambiguous position, might spend a whole night in reading his letters, seized in the Post Office. Of course, he did not suppose the right hon. Gentleman did it himself. He had some deputy, or deputy's deputy, to do it for him, and unless the letters contained something of peculiar interest they would not be brought under his own personal notice. What objection was there to seeing the brief, if there was nothing to be ashamed in it? The hon. and learned Gentleman bad stated that the brief was stolen, and he left it to be inferred that his hon. Friend had gone up to Mr. George Bolton some evening, and picked his pocket. The hon. and learned Gentleman might well regret the loss of the Crown brief, because, in his (Mr. Healy's) opinion, a more disgraceful document had never been brought to light. First, they were told all the de- 198 positions were given to the accused. Then the Solicitor General for Ireland said it was all the depositions at the inquest; and then, being pressed further, he said the deposition of one of the boys was not given, because he was raving; but he omitted to state anything whatever about the deposition of the boy who was not raving. How careful they were not to embarrass the defence by not confusing them with a raving deposition! But this pleasant explanation did not hold good in the second boy's case, who was admittedly clothed in his right mind, and was now alive and well. Would the late Chief Secretary for Ireland give an explanation of that, or would he adopt his old plan of omitting to notice any strong point? The right hon. Gentleman would, no doubt, give them his Swan song that night. If so, would he do them the parting favour, so as to show them there was no ill-feeling, to take a note of that little point and explain why the deposition of Patrick Joyce was not given? The deposition contained the statement that the faces of the murderers were black, and that was a very important point. How would a boy nine years of age not know his own first cousin, who had lived within half-a-mile of him? Mr. George Bolton, with the astuteness which distinguished that wily man, who had stood the Government in such stead through many years in jury-packing and blood-spilling in Ireland, appended to the Crown brief in italics—"Patrick Joyce has recovered, but his evidence is worthless." Whether his evidence was worthless or not was a question for the jury. They did not complain of the jury. What they complained of was, that the jury had not got the evidence before them, and why were they not allowed to decide it? The Judge and the jury were blinded, befooled, and bepuzzled by the Crown officials in this matter. They impeached neither Judge nor jury—they impeached Mr. George Bolton, and Mr. Newton Brady, and Lord Spencer, and every other person connected with getting up the case; and they wished to know from the Government why the evidence of this boy, which was stated to be worthless, was not given to the jury? The Solicitor General for Ireland had come back from a few days' excursion to Maamtrasna, with the intelligence that Patrick Joyce did not under- 199 stand his catechism. He might not have understood his catechism; but, at least, he might have known the difference between black and white. Patrick Joyce, it was said, did not know who God was, nor what would happen if he swore a lie. But he was for three months under the thumb of the Crown officials in Ireland; and if they wanted him to know his catechism, it would not have taken very long to have instructed him. They knew it took less than three months to metamorphose Patrick Delaney, the Phœnix Park assassin, from a murderer, perjurer, and highwayman, into a respectable man, fit to swear away the lives of innocent men. Then, in addition to the dying declarations of the two men, they had the confessions of the informers Casey and Philbin. He (Mr. Healy) joined with the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) in saying that the statements of those men might be set down as worthless, unless they were corroborated. They were simply an element in the case. But what was the statement of the informer Casey? He (Mr. Healy) had himself questioned this man for about an hour, certainly in the most hostile manner. He took him over the entire case, and he had been perfectly unable to shake his testimony. How was his statement confirmed? He was a Roman Catholic, and, bad as he undoubtedly was, they must suppose him to be possessed of some relics of a conscience. Casey had gone to confession since the murder—although none of the other men had—and in the presence of an entire congregation the wretched man, believing as he did to the full in the consequences of what he was stating, made a declaration on this solemn occasion that his former statements were lies, and that he had been instrumental in hanging an innocent man. In examining this testimony, what did they find? That Casey had no knowledge of what the depositions were which were made to the Crown, and that he had no knowledge of the fact that the two boys had declared that the murderers had blackened faces. Yet, in this very first interview, he said that the men had their faces blackened and were white flannel vests. The Government attempted to make out a case by alleging, on their own mere dictum, that everything the Irish Members said was false, and every- 200 thing they said themselves was true; and they refused to grant any inquiry by which it might be determined which side was right. The dying depositions of the two men were another corroboration of the informer, and he asked why were not these depositions produced? The Irish Members said these corroborated Casey's confession, and they challenged the Government to deny it. His confession was also corroborated by the testimony of the men in gaol. They were confined in penal servitude, and did not know what was going on outside; and, moreover, they did not speak English. Yet these four men, in different gaols, continued to make protestations of innocence; and one, who was guilty, declared the innocence of the others, and admitted his own guilt. If the Government did not grant an inquiry, the public would draw the inference that, having hanged a man in the wrong, they were determined to brazen it out, even as far as the sacrifice of those other four men. Again, Philbin, the second informer, corroborated Casey's statement; and if those various pieces of testimony had gone to corroborate the statements of Casey, not when he was giving evidence of the innocence of those men, but when he was giving evidence before the jury, the Crown would have declared that they were entitled to every consideration. But, oh, the Government said—"We have the great fact, after all, that five of the men pleaded guilty." But the hon. and learned Member for Chatham had completely disposed of that argument. Why should those men not have pleaded guilty? The three men who were previously tried were found guilty by the jury—one of them after eight minutes' deliberation, another after 12, and another after six minutes' deliberation; and the jurors who were to be availed of heard the statement of the Judge that they had been convicted on the plainest testimony. There was, therefore, the best reason why those men, when they were promised their lives, should have pleaded guilty, because in doing that lay their only chance. The quotations which the Solicitor General for Ireland made from The Freeman's Journal and United Ireland were the best justification for the men pleading guilty; because they proved that the opinion in the minds of all reasonable men was that 201 the story of the witnesses was absolutely true. While there was life there was hope, and the facts that had come to light since the trial justified the men in deciding to plead guilty. It was untrue to say that they pleaded guilty at once on the request of their counsel, for, as a matter of fact, Mr. Malley could not get them to plead guilty, and it was only done when the priest laid before them the fact that there was a universal concurrence of opinion of their guilt. Again, it was asserted that Casey and Philbin only came forward now because they were safe, and would attain popularity in the district. That, however, was an entire mistake; because, instead of their being safeguarded by their declarations, they were in greater danger of being murdered in consequence of their confession than they were before. Casey, the informer, had made a statement which implicated the "gombeen" man, the leader of the Ribbon faction, a man of the district, and had denounced him as the real murderer in that case. There was, then, far more risk to the life of Casey and of Philbin than there was previously at any time in their careers. It was almost disgusting that the Solicitor General for Ireland should make statements in that House which the moment Irish Members heard them they knew to be grossly untrue. Of course, the hon. and learned Gentleman did not know it himself. Learned gentlemen were brought over, at great inconvenience, from Green Street to fill him with the information. Earl Spencer, in his Memorandum, attempted to make out that Casey was not pressed by the Crown Solicitor, and that it was not until the Attorney General for Ireland had been consulted that his evidence was accepted. Well, he (Mr. Healy) would brand that statement of whoever had instructed the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite as a deliberate and palpable falsehood. It was a falsehood beyond all doubt. What proved it, was the fact that the late Attorney General for Ireland, who had been a respected Member of that House, but who was now Mr. Justice Johnson, made no allusion to it in his opening statement. In opening the prosecution he made no allusion to it; and was it to be supposed that if the learned Gentleman had information of it two days in advance, he would not have made a tremendous point of it? It 202 was actually at the very moment he was making his opening statement that Thomas Casey was induced by George Bolton to come forward and implicate these innocent men. How did Earl Spencer deal with the case in this audacious Memorandum, than which a greater tissue of fraudulent and audacious statements had never been put forward by any official? Why did Mr. Justice Johnson, if the Lord Lieutenant's statement were true, from first to last make no allusion to the fact that Casey was to be one of the witnesses? They could, in this case, trace the slimy serpent trail of perjury and falsehood from first to last. There was the Crown brief of one of the Crown prosecutors, who might be at no great distance from where they were. They could easily, by the evidence of experts, decide whose was the writing on the Crown brief—"Suspect got him murdered," against "big" Casey's name. This man, who was suspected by the Crown to have got him murdered, was stated to be the head assassin of the district; and, in fact, the same statement was made by Casey the informer. How could the English Government expect to maintain peace and order when they had 4,000,000 of people in Ireland firmly convinced that the statement of Casey—murderer and perjurer that he had been—was perfectly true, and that Myles Joyce was innocent? Was that so light a matter? Their system of justice had broken down when they refused an inquiry into a case of that kind. In the case of the man Kilmartin, whose innocence had been established, the right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secretary for Ireland got up at that Table, and sneered at the most sacred feelings which were instilled into the bosom of every Catholic in childhood, and endeavoured to urge that the dying declaration of the man to his clergyman was but a new proof of the guilt of the other. Well, that inquiry was wrung out of him, thanks to the aid afforded by several hon. Members, and it was found that the jury had been packed and that the man had been wrongfully convicted. Circumstances had also come to light which showed his innocence. And so, some of the Maamtrasna prisoners were alive to-day, and would have the benefit of an inquiry, he trusted, sooner or later, for the evidence against the Government was too great. 203 It had sunk down into the minds of the people of Ireland. The Government dared not grant the inquiry, and let the truth be known. If the Government must keep up the Coercion Code in Ireland, they must use that tremendous engine with care. He must say that he never knew a case which carried conviction more than the Maamtrasna case. If they could not get the inquiry, and obtain the liberty of these innocent men, the Irish Members would go back to Ireland, and from the Giant's Causeway to Cape Clear they would ring into the ears of Earl Spencer and his associates a charge of foul and infamous murder.
§ COLONEL NOLANsaid, that there were two branches of this case, the first having reference to Myles Joyce, and the other to those men who were now lying under penal servitude. The latter branch of the question was the one to which he now wished to call the attention of the House. It would, perhaps, be said that no more impartial inquiry could be made than that of the trial at which they had been convicted; but it should be remembered that practically there was no Judge and no real jury. The general belief was that these men had pleaded guilty under the advice of the parish priest and of their counsel, Mr. Malley, who had certainly done his best for them. They were then sentenced to be hanged, and for some time the capital sentence was not respited. It was believed throughout the whole of the West of Ireland that Mr. Malley had advised the prisoners to plead guilty under an understanding with the Crown authorities that these men would not be hanged. Time still went on and their sentences were not commuted, and in consequence of that delay there was a set battle going on between Mr. Malley and the Crown authorities upon the subject, and eventually it was acknowledged that an intimation had been given that in no case should these men be hanged, and the sentences were commuted to penal servitude. That was generally considered to be the real object of the men in pleading guilty. Thus there had been practically no investigation at all into the case of these men on the trial. He believed that to be the origin of the strong feeling which existed in the West of Ireland in respect to this matter. A primâ facie case had been made out, and it was extremely 204 well worthy of further investigation. Again, he thought, that if ever there was a case in which pity should be shown towards accused persons, it was where they did not understand the language of the Court in which they were tried, or even of their advisers, which was the case with these men. Another point which he would impress on the Prime Minister, who had paid so much attention to Ireland, was that the Archbishop of Tuam, who had taken up the case, was a man who was entirely on the side of moderation, and was not likely to take up any case which he did not believe could be proved before the public. The confessions which the Archbishop received had been made in the most public manner, and although he had never made a similar request before, he felt himself bound to state his own primâ facie opinion that in the interest of justice an impartial further investigation was imperatively demanded. He did not think that the Government ought to refuse an investigation which was asked for by a large number of Irish Members. They had made no charges against the jury in this case, because they believed that upon the evidence before them the juries brought in a right verdict. What they complained of was that all the facts were not revealed. He did not believe that a reinvestigation would unsettle people's ideas of justice, but thought it would act in an entirely opposite manner. When the Irish Members asked for an inquiry in Kilmartin's case, they were told repeatedly that it would not be granted, and but for the interposition of the Prime Minister no investigation would have been held. The result, however, of the inquiry which was instituted proved that the Irish Members were right, and Kilmartin was released. He appealed to the Prime Minister to adopt a similar course in this instance, believing that, whatever the result might be as to the guilt or innocence of the men now in prison, it would at least have the effect of satisfying the people that the Government were desirous of acting justly.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid, that the discussion which had arisen on the Amendment of his hon. Friend was second to none in importance to the welfare not only of Ireland, but of this country. Questions of Colonial aggrandizement, foreign relations, and domestic 205 reform might come and go; but this Irish Question they always had with them, and any discussions which tended to throw a fierce light upon the action of the Executive officers in Ireland, and which revealed the true opinions and wishes of the majority of the people of that country, ought to be welcomed by all those who wished to see a speedy end of Irish disaffection and English injustice. The Solicitor General for Ireland had stated that the action of the Irish Members was taken to discredit the administration of justice. He believed that to further discredit the administration of justice in Ireland was well nigh impossible. English law meant Irish robbery, murder, and confiscation; and the so-called administration of justice by England meant in every department of social and political life in Ireland the persecution of the people at the hands of partizan Judges and packed juries. The rule of England in Ireland could have no satisfactory foundation so long as the administration of justice failed to command the confidence of the majority of the people. The present Liberal Government at the commencement of their reign in Ireland, with the shibboleth that "force is no remedy" on their lips, adopted a system of savage coercion, on the pretext that it was necessary to suppress crime which everybody knew their policy in the past had created. Power was placed in the hands of such men as Bolton and French, and he should like to ask the Solicitor General for Ireland whether that was the way to win the confidence and respect of the people? The effect of such a system upon the people was bad enough; but the effect upon the administrators of the law themselves was even worse. It was said by Englishmen that the bad old times were past and gone; but there was no use in laying that flattering unction to their souls. The continued exercise of tyrannical legislation and arbitrary power tended inevitably to injustice and corruption, and it was not at all to be wondered at that the results of such a system were a crop of hasty convictions and executions of the innocent. Ireland had passed through two terrible periods of misery and crime, and for those two periods Irish Members held the present Liberal Government responsible. The first was a period of "State-created crime," to use a phrase of Sir 206 John Pope Hennessy. Outrages were committed, and the perpetrators were not discovered. The period which succeeded was infinitely more horrible; the bloodhounds of vengeance were let loose among the people; Lord Spencer took Office to vindicate the majesty of the law, and he sought to punish a victim for every crime in Ireland; the ordinary process was to arrest a number of men on suspicion, to visit them in their cells, to tell them that others had confessed, and urge them to do so, and in this way innocent men were sent to the gallows and to penal servitude. The old watchword of English law—"Let the guilty escape rather than that the innocent should be punished," had been reversed by Earl Spencer, who had adopted as his motto—"Let hundreds of innocent men suffer in the convict cell and on the gallows rather than that one guilty man should escape." By mere chance Kilmartin escaped the gallows and was sent to penal servitude. When a man died in America declaring that he was the perpetrator of the crime, Lord Spencer remained unmoved, and the Chief Secretary glibly declared that he had convinced himself of the justice of the conviction. To satisfy the consciences of English Members inquiry was granted and the injustice of the conviction established, and then Kilmartin was ungraciously released "without impeaching the correctness of the original conviction," but because "subsequent information had created some doubt" about it. That case should be a warning to English Members not to place too much reliance upon the glib declarations of Irish officials. Such cases furnished a strong argument for some sort of criminal appeal. In the case now under discussion all that was asked was that the House should force the Irish Executive to grant full, open, and sworn inquiry, the contention being that one man who was executed and four who were in penal servitude were wrongly convicted, and that the two chief culprits, the paymasters and ringleaders of the gang, were at large, and were well known to the Government. As to the motive for the murder, the theory of the Government was that it was done to destroy possibly future evidence in connection with a crime committed at a considerable distance. There was not one tittle of evidence from be- 207 ginning to end in support of that theory. Subsequent revelations showed clearly enough that the murder sprang out of the operations of a Ribbon Society. The whole case against the prisoners rested on the most incredible story ever told in a Court of Justice of three men having tracked the murderers for about three miles across the country to the scene of the murder, and having recognized them on what they said was a bright starlit night. But the force of that evidence was completely destroyed by the declaration of the only living person who witnessed the murder—namely, young Joyce, who stated, as he had previously done in a solemn deposition, that the murderers had blackened faces; and that was confirmed by his elder brother. He wanted to know the reason for the suppression of that deposition, and also why Lord Spencer refused to give credence to the declaration of innocence made by Myles Joyce, fresh from the hands of his clergyman, and having made his peace with God? The hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) stated that such a suppression could never have taken place in any similar case in England. He would await with interest the speech of the late Chief Secretary, to hear whether the right hon. Gentleman could make a positive assertion that the men now in prison who protested their innocence had no hope of mercy held out to them to induce them to plead guilty. He and his hon. Friends did not go the length of saying that they had proved the men innocent, but they asked for an opportunity of proving it. The inquiry held in the Recess did not fulfil any one of the conditions of a satisfactory investigation. It was not full, it was not open, it was not upon oath. It was, in fact, a sham inquiry. In a back parlour of Dublin Castle, Mr. George Bolton was politely asked whether he was guilty of the charge made against him; and having, of course, replied that he was not, Lord Spencer declared himself perfectly satisfied. But if Lord Spencer was satisfied, the Irish people were not; they demanded a full and open investigation upon oath. They demanded the examination of those men who had made statements since the trial, and also the production of the dying declarations of the men who had been executed. Until these things were done, they would believe that Myles Joyce 208 was judicially murdered, that Lord Spencer knew it, and that his only motive for refusing inquiry was to screen himself and his subordinates. After the refusal to grant an inquiry, he believed the Irish people would say once for all that they had had enough of the administration of Earl Spencer. Probably, no English Administration that ever held sway in Ireland was so universally despised and detested as the present. If any Englishman should doubt the correctness of this assertion, he would remind him of the recent experience of Lord Spencer, when, surrounded by soldiers and guarded by detectives and policemen, he made a tour to the South of Ireland much in the same way in which the Czar travelled through his Dominions in Russia. In every town Lord Spencer visited the shops were closed, the shutters put up, and black flags floated from every house. That reception was in strong contrast to that accorded to Lady Burdett Coutts, who every where met with a most enthusiastic welcome. No confidence could be placed in the existing Administration, whose chief representatives to the Irish people to-day were the partizan Judge and the hangman, and whose hands were believed to be red with the blood of innocent Irishmen. Let no man tell him that it was their duty to tolerate such an Administration because they hoped to receive the boon of a Franchise Bill. The time had arrived when the franchise must be extended in England and Scotland, and Irishmen knew that no statesman dare withhold it from Ireland, and at the same time profess to govern the country Constitutionally. They cared not whether they got this boon from a Whig or from a Tory Government. In the circumstances, he did not hesitate to say it was the highest duty of the Irish Members to seize the first opportunity given to them of assisting in hurling from power this Government of coercionist Radicals and hypocritical Whigs.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he considered it as extraordinary that no Member of the Liberal Party sitting behind the Leaders of this precious Government had evinced the slightest anxiety to express an opinion as to the advisability of granting the inquiry which was asked. No doubt, they thought it far more important to shorten the debate in order that the 209 Prime Minister might make his two minutes' speech on the Franchise Bill; and, consequently, they would not give their minds to the very important question whether or not a case had been made out for inquiry and consideration. If it was a troublesome question to the Government, they had only themselves to blame for it; for if they had not thrown over Mr. George Bolton, who had served them long and well, the charges founded upon the statement of the informers would never have been brought forward. Looking dispassionately at this case, he must say that if hon. Members below the Gangway really wanted an inquiry, he doubted the discretion of their making an attack upon Lord Spencer, because the Government must stand by the Lord Lieutenant. Again, it was wrong to charge all the officials with being in a kind of conspiracy. No one who knew Mr. Justice Johnson could believe that he was otherwise than a highly honourable man, who would not lend himself to any conspiracy whatever to do injustice to anybody. He (Mr. Warton) did not agree with the hon. and learned Member for Chatham that the Solicitor General for Ireland had conducted the defence of the Government in a way to which exception could be taken. There was no doubt in this case both Judge and jury had acted properly, and a right verdict had been come to. It was quite clear that the suggestion as to the men's faces being blackened had been brought forward in the newspapers.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLremarked, that he did not think that the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) need be very much concerned because the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) disagreed from him, because, as far as he could gather from the somewhat rapid and not altogether coherent utterances of the latter, he appeared to betray the same want of information upon this question which characterized his general remarks. He must at the outset express his regret that the case of these Maamtrasna murders had not elicited from hon. Members opposite—many of whom, as far as he could judge, had listened to the discussion that had taken place with attention—any expression of opinion, because no Party question could arise out of this matter, inasmuch as both sides of the 210 House must be equally animated by the desire that justice should be fairly administered in Ireland as well as in England. He thought, therefore, that it would have been well—as no other Business of importance was likely to come on—if some hon. Members opposite had for the moment shaken themselves free from the shackles of Party that usually bound them, and had given the House and the public some idea of the opinion which they had formed of the manner in which the proceedings in question had been conducted. He had no doubt that the Government, in connection with this case, were in about as awkward a dilemma as, he supposed, they had ever been on any Irish matter since the present Parliament came together. The Secretary of State for War at the close of last Session, for the purpose of easing the progress of Supply, gave the Irish Party to understand that there would be an inquiry into this case by the Government, and, of course, Irish Members who heard that intimation desisted from their opposition to the Vote then before the House, believing that the promised inquiry would be of a kind that would be satisfactory to them. And, no doubt, the noble Lord, cautious though, he always was, did convey to hon. Members the idea that the inquiry to be made by the Government would be an impartial and an independent one; and it was in consequence of that supposition on the part of Irish Members that the Government were allowed to take the Vote upon the particular item of the Irish Estimates which was then under discussion, and which was at that time urgently required. The necessary Vote having been obtained, the pledge had to be fulfilled, and, as was the case with regard to many other Government pledges given with the object of escaping from a momentary Parliamentary difficulty, it became a question with the Government with how little impartiality, with how little sincerity, and with how little of bona fides their pledge could be carried out. Of course, when he was speaking of Government pledges, he had in mind those that had been given in reference to the Transvaal, and to Egypt, and of others. There could be no doubt in the mind of anyone as to what a bonâ fide inquiry was. The Government themselves had given the House a good specimen of one in the case of Kilmartin. 211 The Prime Minister had been very much impressed by the nature of that case, so much so that he had given a personal pledge, and undoubtedly the inquiry was a satisfactory one. It had been conducted by means of an independent barrister sent down to the locality, and who took evidence upon the spot, and the result was that the innocence of Kilmartin was clearly proved. Before he left the case of Kilmartin he wished to express his regret at hearing from the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. J. Redmond) that when Kilmartin was released, the Lord Lieutenant had taken steps to send him back to his home with every stigma of crime attaching to him. If that story were true, all he could say was that such a mean and wretched proceeding on the part of the Irish Government could scarcely be exceeded. Be that as it might, however, the inquiry itself was a bonâ fide and satisfactory one, and it was such an inquiry as that which the noble Lord the Secretary for War was understood to have promised would be made into the present case. But the inquiry into the present case could not be said to have been in any sense satisfactory, for it was in the nature of a Judge reviewing his own sentence. Lord Spencer having caused a capital sentence to be carried out, was called upon to say whether he had acted rightly in so doing. The noble Lord thereupon considered the matter in the recesses of the Castle, and on reflection he arrived at the conclusion that he had acted rightly. Now the matter had come up again, and Her Majesty's Government found themselves placed in a very difficult position indeed. The hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) had felt the importance of the case, and he had put it in such a way that the Government themselves felt the importance of it, and no one had more felt its importance than the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister himself, no doubt, would have liked to have made this concession to the Irish Members, which his own high sense of justice would urge him to make, especially when that concession would be of immediate political advantage. The Prime Minister must have two points of difficulty before him. He had to keep in view the Division on the Franchise Bill, which was likely to take place in that House before long, when it would be of vital importance to 212 him to sustain his numerical majority. And the Prime Minister had also to take into account that if, in order to maintain that numerical majority, he was to make this concession to the Irish Members, he would be met by the prompt resignation of Earl Spencer. It must be obvious to hon. Members opposite that if the Government made any concession that night to the Irish Members upon this point, that Earl Spencer must be discredited, and could not remain in Office. The inquiry that had been held into this case had been conducted by Earl Spencer himself, and he had written to the Archbishop of Tuam to say that after careful inquiry he had come to the conclusion that the judicial process had been properly carried out, and that his decision with regard to the execution of the sentence was a just one. It would, therefore, be perfectly clear to every hon. Member in that House that, if within a few weeks of Earl Spencer writing that letter, the Government were to come to the conclusion that his inquiry was worthless and that his decision did not deserve their confidence, Earl Spencer would have to come away from Ireland, and thus colour would be given for the suspicion that had been excited in the minds of the English people that there was some foundation for the suggestion that a bargain had been entered into between the Government and the Irish Party, of which such free mention had been made in the newspapers, and that the Irish Party would not support the Government unless Earl Spencer and Mr. Trevelyan were brought away from Ireland. It was clear, therefore, that whatever might be the immediate gain to the Government through making such a concession, it would be lost by them in another way. The House would therefore agree with him that the Goverment were placed in a position of great difficulty, a difficulty which arose entirely from the fact that the whole of their policy in Ireland had always been conducted, not with the view to the benefit of Ireland, nor with a view of securing the prosperity of the people of that country, but solely from time to time of taking such steps as their particular political difficulties might demand. When the Prime Minister introduced the Land Act of 1882, he said that he would be guided by the Divine light of justice, and that guided by that 213 light he could not possibly err. Unfortunately that evening the right hon. Gentleman had not been guided by the Divine light of justice, but solely by a regard for Parliamentary exigencies. The debate had been resumed about 5 o'clock, and, excepting the speech of the Solicitor General for Ireland, which did not count, the House had not yet been favoured with the views of the Government. No one could throw so much light upon these matters as the right hon. Gentleman who had said he was not a Member of the Government, and if that right hon. Gentleman did not feel in a position to-night to make any remarks, he hoped on Monday he would appear in the full-blown character of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and address the House. A careful and impartial examination of the Maamtrasna case led one irresistibly to the conclusion that an inquiry was necessary. It was not disputed that a very important piece of evidence was kept back from the jury by the Crown counsel, and that the counsel for the defence had no opportunity of bringing that particular evidence before the Court. These facts would cause the House to consider the mode in which criminal trials were conducted in Ireland. For some years there had been great difficulty in obtaining evidence in Ireland, and certain laws had been passed in consequence in order to facilitate the conduct of trials. The result had been that the officials charged with the vindication of the law had shrunk from hardly any process in order to obtain convictions, irrespective of the guilt or innocence of the accused. That was not the way in which criminal trials were conducted in this country. No one would condemn more strongly the course taken by the Crown counsel in the Maamtrasna case than the Attorney General for England, and he felt sure that such a course would never be followed by the hon. and learned Member. The time had arrived when Parliament should express its views on the question whether far greater caution ought not to be exercised in the conduct of criminal trials in Ireland. The Prime Minister, alluding to the state of Ireland, said the other day in Edinburgh that, as a result of the policy of the Government, the Irish people placed greater confidence in the administration 214 of justice. But how could the Irish people feel any increased confidence in the administration of the law after hearing of the great miscarriage of justice in the case of Kilmartin, and of the miscarriage caused by the conduct of the Crown counsel in the Maamtrasna case, in which case evidence immediately relevant to the issue was kept back from the jury? It was said that if the inquiry which was demanded were granted a severe blow would be dealt to the administration of criminal justice in Ireland; but were they on that account to refuse to do justice in this case? At Edinburgh the Prime Minister had also made a remark distinctly appropriate to the present issue, when, with reference to the conduct of another Assembly, he said that there was nothing more to be deprecated than the fear of being thought afraid. Were the Government afraid of being thought afraid to do justice in Ireland lest Judges and Crown counsel might have their credit shaken? Considerations like these, if allowed to influence them, were fatal to the cause of good government in that country. He appealed to the Government to grant the inquiry. If by giving way on this question they should secure a few Irish votes, he should not object, and they need fear no taunt from him. If the Government felt that the conduct of this trial was not such as to reflect credit on those who were responsible for it, or to conduce to a certain and sure result in the verdict of the jury—if they felt that, then let them get up and state to the House that though the result of an inquiry might be temporarily inconvenient to themselves, they would do this for the benefit of Ireland.
§ MR. TREVELYANSir, the noble Lord's speech did not contain many very definite propositions. He has asked the Government to meet the difficult situation in a way which he did not exactly define. He did, however, lay down one definite proposition. He said the Government were in a very difficult position. Now, in that respect, I do not agree with the noble Lord. The noble Lord tells us—if I slip out the word "we" in the course of the few remarks I have to make, I hope it will be understood what I mean—the noble Lord tells us that we have not only to think of the Divisions on the Representation of the People Bill, but that we have to 215 think of the existence of the Government. We may have to think of those things, but we do not think of them, and this matter concerns one of those departments of human life in which no Government has a right to think of any political considerations whatever; and I think that the noble Lord, if he had thought for a little while longer before he got up, would not have indulged in Party taunts in this matter of life and death, and liberty and detention of men in prison. Certainly, the Government feel that if they were to allow political considerations to influence them in a matter of this description—in a matter that concerns the question whether law and order shall exist in Ireland, and whether justice shall be duly administered in such a manner that Ireland can be a habitable country—they would be guilty of the greatest iniquity a Government could be guilty of. Such a course reminds me of the line of the Roman poet—
Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.We have come to a decision on this matter from considerations quite different from those which have been stated by the noble Lord; and I will endeavour to explain what the considerations are upon which the Government have acted, following, in the course of my explanation, two or three of the most marked speeches which have been made in the course of the evening. The noble Lord has said that my noble Friend the Secretary of State for War gave a pledge, at the end of last Session, which pledge has not been fulfilled with the sincerity and bona fides with which a Government pledge ought to be carried out. I have at this moment before me Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, as hon. Members are well aware, are very much the most accurate record of those proceedings which take place late in the Session, and on Money Bills, and my noble Friend desires me to say that he was so very anxious that the words of that pledge should be before the House in such a shape that they might be indubitable, that he forebore to make in Hansard those verbal corrections, and those corrections even of punctuation, which hon. Members feel themselves at liberty to make. He wished that Hansard should be an instrument of appeal 216 in exactly the shape in which his words were taken down, at the moment they were uttered, by the reporters in the Gallery. Now, what are the words of my noble Friend? He says—It has been stated by the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien) that these allegations rest, to a great extent, on statements which have been made in a formal and solemn manner before a certain dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church. If these statements are primâ facie of a bonâ fide character, and are vouched for by the dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church before whom they were brought, and are brought formally under the notice of Her Majesty's Government, they will receive consideration; and if there appears to be a case for further inquiry, that inquiry will be granted."—(3 Hansard, [292] 576.)Now, Sir, the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst), in a speech which I am told was considered by hon. Members to be singularly clear, as it doubtless was, and likewise singularly well informed in all branches of the subject—writh which I do not equally agree—the hon. and learned Member for Chatham said that the Archbishop of Tuam had brought a charge of misconduct against an official, and, therefore, that the Government to which my noble Friend belonged was bound to fulfil its pledge. But the Archbishop of Tuam does not bring the charge. He is but the person who conveys it. The Archbishop does not know anything about it himself. He depends on the testimony of another person; and who is that other person? None other than that informer and accomplice of whose testimony the hon. and learned Member for Chatham himself, a few sentences before in his speech, stated that his evidence was absolutely worthless. And that is the sole evidence which the Archbishop of Tuam has for the charge he makes against the Government officials for the manner in which they took the evidence of Casey. I consider that my noble Friend, who had not been informed of the circumstances of this case, was perfectly justified in making the promise he made last Session in the House of Commons; and I consider that when the Irish Government looked into the matter and found that the primâ facie case consisted merely of the evidence of a thrice-perjured man—[Cries of "Oh! "from the Irish Membars]—yes; a thrice-perjured man, coming forward not even with perjuries, but merely with statements, and that when those statements 217 were disproved by the three officials to whom they were referred, I consider that the Government were justified in saying that they had made a perfectly adequate inquiry under the circumstances. [Cries of "Oh!" from the Irish Members.] That is my opinion, at any rate. Now, it must be remembered that not only were these unsupported statements of Casey's tainted by the very source from which they came, but they were also the most reckless and ill-considered statements that ever were placed before the public. They consisted of a series of interviews, which I believe to have been reported with very great care by the persons with whom the interviews were held. One is by the reporter of The Freeman's Journal, and others by the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington). But these reports contain all sorts of discrepancies of a very serious character, and especially in connection with the reported interview with Mr. Brady, Mr. Bolton, and the Governor of the gaol. In The Freeman's Journal of the 11th of August, 1884, it is stated, in the report of an interview which took place between Thomas Casey and the special correspondent of that paper, that on the Thursday before the trial Bolton saw Casey in Kilmainham Prison by himself, and showed him Philbin's report. It is also stated that at Green Street, Bolton met Casey a second time, when he made his statement about the murder. I do not lay any stress upon the fact that it was the wrong day, but there was a very definite statement that Casey was informed first by Bolton reading the evidence of Philbin; whereas, according to the statement of the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington), whose extraordinary industry in getting up the case is a proof of his sincerity, Casey stated that he had been informed on the morning of the trial of what he had to say in a conversation he had with Mr. Bolton. Here, then, we have Casey stating to the correspondent of The Freeman's Journal that he was informed of what he was to swear on the Thursday or Saturday in the previous week, by means of having evidence read over to him, while afterwards, in speaking to the hon. Member for Westmeath, he stated that on the following Monday he would not have been aware what evidence he was wanted to give, had he 218 not been prompted vivâ voce by Bolton on the spot. In the hon. Member's sixth letter in reference to the case, dated the 7th of October last, it is stated that the confession took place in Green Street Court House on the first morning of the trial. As reported by the hon. Member, this is what happened—The next day was the day of the trial. When we were going into the van I saw Philbin going away in a cab. The other men went into the van. I was the last to go in, and I then said to the Governor that he might speak to Bolton. I had not given him an answer the night before. We were then brought to the Court. The nine of us were in the room at the back of the dock, and my name was called. I was brought a few yards to the right to a little room where Mr. Brady, Sir. Bolton, and the Governor of the gaol were. Mr. Bolton was the first who spoke. He said—'Now, Casey, you are going to make a statement.' He pulled out his watch and said I had only a short time. I said I'd like to give evidence fair. He replied that I had only 20 minutes to consider my neck. Mr. Bolton asked—'Who are the three men that went into the House?' I did not answer fast enough. Mr. Brady then said, low, across the room, to Bolton, 'I know them—Pat Joyce, Pat Casey, and Myles Joyce.' Then I knew what names I should say.Here we have Casey stating to one person that he was informed of what he should have to say on the Thursday or the Saturday of the previous week by means of having the evidence of Philbin read over to him by Bolton, and we have him stating, some time afterwards, to the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) that when the Monday, which was the morning of the trial, came, he was not aware what evidence he had to give, and had to be prompted vivâ voce on the spot. That is a very good instance of the inaccuracies which pervade the statements of Casey, and it is on these inaccurate statements, inaccurate in themselves as compared with each other, and frightfully at variance with the statement sworn to by Casey on previous occasions, that the Government are asked to go in the teeth of a solemn trial, and consent to an inquiry which, in my opinion, and in the opinion of the Government, would be a severe blow to the administration of the law, and would shake the foundations of justice in Ireland. Here is another instance. In The Freeman's Journal of the 6th of September, 1884, there is an account of an interview between a newspaper correspondent and Thomas Casey, when Casey stated that there were no such 219 people as Nee and Kelly, but that they were false names taken by two Caseys, father and son, alleged by Thomas Casey to have been at the murder. In the letter of the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) of the 2nd of October, 1884, Thomas Casey says—"Old Casey was Kelly, and John Casey, junr., was Nee." But in a statement made on the 28th of July, 1883, to District Inspector Stokes, Casey, the informer, said "Nee was Walsh" — a name which appears quite incidentally and then disappears again. Thomas Casey, on the same occasion, urged Inspector Stokes to prosecute Walsh and the two Caseys. Here, then, are three different statements which Casey makes as to Nee and Kelly, and this is the man, whose unconsidered statements, flying loosely about, but which he thinks will be for his own advantage, we are to take for the absolute truth.
§ MR. HARRINGTONMay I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the statement to Stokes was not made before the confession to the Crown officials?
§ MR. TREVELYANIt was made on the 28th of July.
§ MR. HARRINGTONBefore the confession?
§ MR. TREVELYANIt was a somewhat curious statement, because it came about half-way between the earlier statement on oath and the subsequent statement, and it differs very materially from both of them. Then there is another exceedingly important statement. At the trial, Casey, as is well known, swore that Philbin was present. The Solicitor General for Ireland gave collateral evidence also as to the presence of Philbin. It is a very interesting fact that the two men among the three Joyces, who knew Philbin by sight, also swore to his presence. He was not, however, sworn to by one of the three cardinal witnesses who did not know him by sight. The Solicitor General also reminded us how one man, who was undoubtedly guilty, and who was afterwards executed for this miserable murder, when he was arrested, asked the policeman whether Philbin had not been arrested likewise. Casey swore that Philbin was there; Philbin himself swore that he was there; and, in fact, the evidence which pointed to his presence on that occasion was clear and overwhelming, and the further evidence 220 of Casey, at a subsequent period, when his object was not to confirm his previous evidence—namely, at the trial for compensation for the murder—corroborated his former statement.
§ MR. TREVELYANYes, I have no objection to quote his statement when he did not come forward to give evidence as an approver.
§ MR. TREVELYANThe hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), in his remarks this evening, denied that this evidence had been given. He said that the statement of the Solicitor General for Ireland was absolutely without foundation. I will read the first few lines of the evidence—
I am one of them," said Casey, "charged with the murder of the Joyces. Anthony Philbin, my brother-in-law, was also one of the party on the night of the Joyce murder.That was all he said about Philbin in the course of the evidence; but I will read on if it is considered necessary. Well, Sir, here we have proof, by the most undoubted testimony of Philbin himself, of Casey, and others, of the presence of Philbin at the murder; and, again, since Casey appeared as a Crown witness to the murder, we find him giving evidence, in an incidental case, that Philbin was there; but now, in a statement made at random to persons who did not take testimony on oath, Casey says, in an off-hand manner, that Philbin was not there at all. But I will not be content with relying on the fact that this was a man who, by his own confession, was a murderer and, if everything that he said was true, was a double murderer of the most fearful nature. This man confesses that he took part in the hideous crime in the Joyces' cottage. He says now that he swore away the lives of innocent men. On the top of all this, I have shown that he has been in recent days, for motives into which I will not enter, but which are very obvious, and which the House may very well define, sowing broadcast, not, indeed, perjuries, but statements which, if there was any prospect of this inquiry on oath we are asked for, would very soon become perjuries of the deepest dye; and it is on this man's evidence, 221 and this man's evidence alone, that the House is asked to say that a primâ facie case exists for an inquiry. [Cries of "No, no!" "Not at all!" from, the Irish Memlers.] The inquiry promised by my noble Friend rests absolutely on this man's evidence alone, for the House is asked to grant that part of the inquiry which refers to the conduct of the Crown officials in the matter of getting this evidence solely upon this man's evidence. ["No!"] I say yes; there is nothing else.
§ MR. HARRINGTONThere was suppression of evidence.
§ MR. TREVELYANI say that, as far as the question of the conduct of the Crown officials in taking Casey's evidence is concerned, although possibly I might allow that there are other matters connected with the rest of the case—and, of course, I propose to go into those parts of the statement of the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington)—but as regards the inquiry into the conduct of Mr. Brady and Mr. Bolton, there is absolutely nothing but this man's evidence. The hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) went through this part of the case with, I thought, considerable moderation of language, although he now and thon broke out into vituperation, which I shall have to refer to by-and-bye. If, in the remarks I have to make, I attend a little more closely to the speeches which have been made to-day than to that which was delivered by the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) last night, it will not be from want of interest or attention to the exertions of the hon. Member, who certainly stated his case with the greatest care, but I prefer to confine my remarks mainly to those speeches which, are still fresh in the recollection of the House. The hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) has attacked the witnesses. The Solicitor General, who has been referred to, I think, by some of the speakers with almost unfairness, made a speech which I must say I thought was most exhaustive, and I am not going to apply any other phrase to it—it was perfectly exhaustive on this important subject, and was contained within a very moderate compass, seeing that it produced such a result. When we are told that it was a partizan speech, and a heated speech, I wish hon. Members to compare it, as far as partisan- 222 ship is concerned, with the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), or, as far as heat is concerned, with the speech of the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. J. Redmond). I do not think that the Solicitor General at any period of his speech passed the bounds of that honest indignation which is everywhere in place, and which is most certainly in place when the House of Commons is being turned into a Court of Appeal, and when hon. Members on one side or the other are speaking, to the disadvantage of the country, as legal advocates. This case rests primarily and principally on the evidence of three persons, who stated that they followed the band of murderers, and who absolutely identified them with one exception. One of the three witnesses did not identify one of the murderers—that is to say, Philbin—but Philbin himself confessed that he was there, and his evidence was supported by the evidence of a respectable female—I believe a very respectable female. Well, Sir, hon. Members and hon. and learned Members on the other side of the House have impugned the evidence of these witnesses. The hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor), who began the debate this evening, spoke of palpable perjury. The hon. Member used very strong expressions about the witnesses, and he has been followed in this respect by other hon. Members. I would ask hon. Gentlemen who sit around me to consider what chance they have of arriving at the truth about these witnesses—they who cannot see them, who cannot hear them give their evidence, and who cannot hear them being cross-examined. ["Oh!"] Obviously, they cannot see the witnesses.
§ MR. TREVELYANSurely, the proper course on a point of this sort is to refer it to those great committees of the nation which are appointed to inquire into these criminal cases—the Courts of Law—where men are trained and paid for the purpose of sifting evidence; where they give their whole time, and where they have the benefit of a long experience. Now, what was the effect produced by these witnesses upon the Court of Law? The Judge charged the jury to the effect that the 223 witnesses were, in his opinion—I am not sure of the exact words, but they were much stronger than those I will employ—that the witnesses were as respectable and as trustworthy witnesses as had ever appeared before him in Ireland. The words used were words to that effect, if they are not the exact words. The same Judge—Mr. Justice Barry—charged three juries in regard to these witnesses, and those juries all agreed in believing the witnesses, not only after hearing them give their evidence, but after they had heard them cross-examined by very able counsel—counsel who, as I shall show, had every means of knowing every point upon which the evidence of the witnesses could be broken down, if it was possible to break it down. Of what nature were the juries which were convinced by the evidence of these witnesses? I am not going to do so useless a thing in the House of Commons as to read over a second time what has been read already to the House by my hon. and learned Friend, although I am sorry to say that many hon. Gentlemen now in the House were not present when my hon. and learned Friend was addressing it earlier in the evening; but I can assure them that the strongest testimony to the character of the juries as being representative juries, not composed of one religion or being juries of one class, was given by United Ireland and by The Freeman's Journal, the latter being a paper which, on that point, deserves to be listened to with very great interest and all the more attention on account of the difficulties into which it brought itself with the Court in regard to this very subject of juries. Well, Sir, I take it for granted that every hon. Member of the House will admit that, at the time of the trial, all Ireland and every Irishman was satisfied—reasonably satisfied—with the composition of the juries. Why do I say this? It is for this reason—that this morning an extremely able publication has been placed in the hands of hon. Members, and I know too well by experience how much more an hon. Member is affected by an able publication which he can read than by a speech—generally not very able—which he can only listen to—a publication drawn up with great ability, in some respects with very great candour and fairness, because the Lord Lieu- 224 tenant's case is inserted at the end of it, but a publication which contains a preface and introduction of six pages, printed in large type, and just that sort of introduction which 10 men would read for every one who read the book from the first page to the last. In that preface, in large type, there is this passage—
Application on the part of prisoners' counsel for postponement, and for what is known as a 'view jury,' were refused. The juries were packed after the manner of all political and agrarian trials in Ireland. Eight minutes' deliberation sufficed to satisfy the mind and consciences of the first jury, and Patrick Joyce was adjudged guilty and sentenced to death. Patrick Casey was then immediately put upon his trial on the same evidence, and the jury gave 12 minutes' consideration to his fate.Now, can any hon. Gentleman who approaches this case without knowing anything about it read that passage about the packing of the juries, and the short time they took to consider their verdict, and not come to the conclusion that the writer of the passage was of opinion that the prisoners had been condemned with indecent and undue haste by a packed jury?
§ MR. HARRINGTONThirty-six jurors out of the special jury panel were ordered to stand aside by the Crown in the case of Patrick Joyce, and in the case of Myles Joyce there were 10 Protestants and only two Catholics upon the jury.
§ MR. TREVELYANI do not dispute what the hon. Member's opinion is, or that he has ever written anything in the least degree inconsistent with the opinion he now advances; but, seeing that hon. Members will have read the opinion of the hon. Member as contained in this publication, it was not, I think, superfluous on the part of my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General for Ireland to remind the House that United Ireland admitted at the time that the juries who tried the case were comparatively fairly composed.
§ MR. TREVELYANUnited Ireland said, in reference to the first of the prisoners charged with the horrible butcheries at Maamtrasna—
On the trial of the first of the prisoners charged with the horrible butchery at Maamtrasna—may we venture for once to hint post hoc, ergo propter hoc?—there were at least five 225 and, we believe, six Catholic jurors. Their duty was not less fearlessly done, and their verdict will be, perhaps, rather more scrupulously respected.After the third trial and conviction had come to an end, and when the rest of the prisoners had pleaded guilty, the same paper says—The Maamtrasna trials are over, and such of the miserable creatures as did not turn approvers have been sentenced to be hanged. We believe the public are satisfied that a disgusting butchery has been avenged upon convincing evidence by juries comparatively fairly chosen.That admission, considering the quarter from which it comes, is higher praise than the conduct of any criminal trial in my day in Ireland ever received before. The first three trials ended in the conviction of three prisoners, who were sentenced to be hanged; and now I come to the case of the other five prisoners. The other five pleaded guilty. They pleaded guilty with hesitation, and after seeing their priest; but they did plead guilty; and I emphatically say that the recollection of the Crown counsel is perfectly clear and vivid that they pleaded guilty with the knowledge that if they did so their lives would still be in danger. I come now—and this is a point to which I wish most anxiously to direct the attention of the House—I come now to the judgment to be passed on the action of the Viceroy. The Viceroy had to consider what he should do in this case. Three independent juries, after a careful trial, had condemned to death three men on evidence which convinced the juries thoroughly, and on the same evidence; and there were five men who, on going to trial, pleaded guilty, and gave up the case. I ask whether there was anything that could possibly have made the Viceroy think that it was his duty to spare any of those three men in the case of a murder so horrible and so general, unless he was a disbeliever in the efficacy of punishment altogether, in which case I conclude it would have been impossible for him to have undertaken the duty of dispensing life and death at all? I cannot possibly conceive what ground there is for saying that Earl Spencer did not do his duty on that occasion. The one argument—and even in that the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) is agreed—was the confession of the two men who were executed. With regard to that confes- 226 sion, which the Prime Minister has said cannot be laid before the House, there is nothing which a man says upon the scaffold which ought to outweigh a trial, the solemnity and certainty of which are absolutely overwhelming. I am not now talking about any of the matters brought forward and insisted upon by the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst). They were all subsequent; but at the moment these three men were sent for execution the case was this—three convictions and five confessions out of the 10 men arrested—seven of them having, as it were, agreed in the same story, three of the prisoners having been condemned on the evidence, and there being nothing against it except the confession of men about to ascend the scaffold. I do not consider that Earl Spencer had any choice in the matter; and if this Resolution is passed condemning the execution of Myles Joyce, I must say that the most unjustifiable and unjustified condemnation will have been passed on a public servant that ever was passed by the House of Commons. I will come afterwards to the incarceration of the four other men. I am brought to the end of the first period of the case, and now I come to the next period—the one to which the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) has directed most of his observations. Since this moment what has happened? Two things in particular have happened—or, rather, one thing has happened, and another thing has been insisted upon. That which has happened is that one of the informers, who was also one of the witnesses on the trial, has come forward and stated that he perjured himself, and sent these men to the scaffold in order to save his own neck. Well, Sir, it should be borne in mind that this witness's evidence was not necessary to the case; it was hardly important to the case. It was brought forward at the eleventh hour—so much at the eleventh hour, indeed, that the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. J. Redmond), arguing about the statement with regard to the sanction of the Attorney General for Ireland, said that the Attorney General did not use it. And why did not the Attorney General use it? It was because the witness was brought forward at so late an hour, that at the time the Attorney General was opening the case the evidence was being 227 taken down—not by Mr. Bolton, as Casey said, but by Mr. Brady. It was in Mr, Brady's handwriting from the first word to the last. As a matter of fact, it was evidence that was not in the mind of the counsel for the Government at the time they determined to open the case against the prisoners. All I can say is, that if the House consents to grant an inquiry into this case on the ground that an unimportant witness and informer, and an accomplice, two years after the event, came forward and said that he had sworn to a lie, there is no verdict in England or in Ireland that would hold good. All that a man would have to do, when he wanted to get off, would be to induce somebody to come forward and give some trumpery evidence—evidence important enough to induce the Crown counsel to accept it, and then afterwards say that the evidence he had given was false. If that were done, the verdict must be upset. What has been the conduct of Casey? It is a curious thing to watch the different stages of his conduct. As long as he did not see that his interest lay in any other direction he stuck to his original story. When he came forward about the compensation case, he thought that his interest lay in going to the Government and in turning informer again. Do not let hon. Members carry away the idea that the principal object of Casey was to save the life of anybody. His object was not that; but his object was to make himself important by bringing an accusation against three other men. On the 28th of July, in this year, he came and told District Inspector Stokes that he was prepared to swear away the lives of three more men in addition to those he had sworn away already. That was the first form in which Casey's additional evidence came. Then, in an incidental manner at the end of the conversation, Stokes asked Casey if Philbin was there, and Casey replied—"No; Philbin was not there."
§ MR. HARRINGTONWhy was Casey asked the question?
§ MR. TREVELYANI am unable to say. Probably, Philbin had not been mentioned in Casey's previous statement. Stokes asked him if Myles Joyce was there, and his answer was that Myles Joyce was there, but that he did 228 not go in. Now, there is no contention that Myles Joyce went in. Myles Joyce suffered on the scaffold, not because there was any evidence that he went into the house of the murdered man—
§ MR. HARRINGTONThere was direct evidence that he did not go in.
§ MR. TREVELYANMyles Joyce was sent to the scaffold, not because there was evidence that he went into the House, but because the evidence satisfied the jury that he had been with the murderous party who went to the house—a party which was watched not from the distances we have been told to-night, and by the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington), but in some cases from a distance of a very few feet by men who identified amongst them every individual composing the party. The hon. Member tells us that the localities are now thoroughly known and studied; that he has himself studied the localities with great interest; and he tells us, further, that the jury were not taken to the spot. Now, I do not know that it is the custom generally for a jury to examine the localities unless there is some important dispute on the question. I do not know that it ever has been the custom. What the custom is is this. If there is any doubt, the counsel for the defence goes down and examines the localities; and in this case not only did the counsel for the defence go down and examine the localities, but a special fee was paid to them for doing so by the Government. The Attorney General (now Mr. Justice Johnson) stated that the matter was of much importance; and, therefore, a special fee was given to men so eminent in order to make it worth their while to go down to the spot. Casey having found that this statement of his was received very coldly by the Government, and that the Government did not think there was any reason for proceeding against the three men he was anxious to implicate in the murders, turned round and told an entirely different story. Now, let the House reflect upon what the Government was asked to do. This was not a question of condoning or acquitting, but a question whether, on the desultory talk of one perjured murderer, we were to proceed against three men against whom a jury could get no fresh evidence unless they were to call upon men now serving their time in penal servitude, and who had themselves 229 confessed that they were guilty of a capital offence. But I would ask I any lawyer how often it is that an innocent man, much less five innocent men, declare themselves guilty of a capital offence? It is said that these men were told to do so by their priest; and a letter has been read from the rev. gentleman himself, in which he states that, although he thought the prisoners on the whole were innocent, he advised them to plead guilty. Did the rev. gentleman know that in that course he was taking away the last shadow of evidence which could have been offered in favour of the three men who had been sent to the condemned cell, and that he actually made it certain that they would suffer the extreme penalty of the law? I must say that that was the terrible and the awful result of such advice; and, putting aside the wickedness of the thing, I would rather prefer to think that the rev. gentleman is defective in his memory than to think that he did give such advice, because if he did the advice he gave certainly put the rope around the necks of the men who had already been convicted.
§ MR. HARRINGTONIt was already around their necks.
§ MR. TREVELYANThe right rev. Archbishop speaks, in his letter to Earl Spencer, of the immense importance of declarations made under clerical advice and influence. I cannot give his exact words at this moment; but I think the Archbishop will read with very great pain and wonder the comments which may be made on the advice thus given to these prisoners, as admitted in the letter of the rev. gentleman. How can the mere fact of clerical advice be an argument in favour of the truth of a declaration, when a rev. priest himself tells us that five men, whom he believed on the whole to be innocent, were persuaded by him to plead guilty?
§ MR. HARRINGTONWill the right hon. Gentleman allow me to correct him? It is due to the rev. gentleman to say that he did not state that he believed them on the whole to be innocent, but simply that he was rather inclined to that belief. He says there was nothing for him to go upon but their own declaration? Will the right hon. Gentleman read his statement?
§ MR. TREVELYANI will do so— 230
The case was then laid before me, and in the interest of the prisoners I considered it the wiser course to plead guilty. I was by no means clear at the time that they were innocent. I was certainly inclined to the belief that they were; but I had no grounds for such a belief but their own declarations to me. I argued with myself thus—If the men were guilty their plea of guilt can do them no harm, and will save their lives; and if they were innocent I felt that the truth would leak out, as, from my knowledge of the locality and the people, I believed such a huge wrong could not continue. In this way I saw a probability of these men coming back to their wives and families and homes without a stain on their character. This was the argument I made use of to the men themselves in the cell of Green Street Court House; and I dare say it was the argument which induced them to withdraw their plea of 'not guilty,' and enter a plea of 'guilty.' From this you will see that in recommending the prisoners to adopt this course I was by no means actuated by a belief in their guilt. On the contrary, I rather believed they were innocent.If I said anything stronger than that I will recall it; but I do not think that I did. There is one other point, and at this moment I can remember only one other besides this declaration of Casey, which has been insisted upon very much to-night, and upon which, before I sit down, because I really have come to the end of this story, I must say a few words. I refer to the depositions and the dying declarations of the two young Joyces. The House will, I hope, carefully distinguish—because it is an important point—between the depositions, which are referred to as having been made at the Coroner's inquest, and the dying declarations. At the Coroner's inquest, two persons—John Collins and Constable Johnson—came forward and gave evidence, from which I will read two or three words in each case. John Collins said that—"Michael Joyce"—that is to say, the older of the boys, and the one who died—"said he did not know the men, as they had their fanes dirty;" and Patrick Joyce, the boy who was severely injured, but who survived, told Constable Johnson that "he did not know them, as their faces were black." These depositions were made before the Coroner, and they were very notorious. They appeared in the public papers, and were quoted everywhere, and it is a fact that these depositions were actually in the hands of the prisoners' counsel. I wish the House carefully to mark that fact—namely, that those depositions were in the hands of the prisoners' counsel. 231 But besides the depositions there were two dying declarations made. Those dying declarations were taken by Mr. Barry, and in one case, I am glad to say, it turned out not to be a dying declaration. These dying declarations have been frequently read and referred to in the course of this evening. In both of them the boy stated the men had blackened faces; but the dying declarations were of a nature which the Crown counsel thought could not be put into evidence. [Cries of "Hear, hear!" from the Irish Members.] If hon. Members will be quiet I think they will find that my story, at any rate, has considerable meaning in it. These declarations were not put in evidence. Now, what is it that the Crown solicitors usually put into a brief? They put in those articles of evidence which they consider ought to tell for the conviction of a prisoner; and if they think a certain declaration cannot be substantiated, and ought not to be taken into account by the jury, they have no right to put it into the brief. It may be said that in that case serious injury was done to the prisoners. There was no injury at all, because the prisoners' counsel were in full possession of the fact that these boys had stated that four of the men's faces were blackened.
§ MR. HARRINGTONThat was secondary evidence which could not be used.
§ MR. TREVELYANI will come to that point presently. I would never venture to argue the question with the hon. Member unless I had a primâ facie case to go upon. No doubt, that evidence was secondary; but the Crown counsel, being anxious that it should not be secondary evidence, actually called as a witness the boy Patrick Joyce. They did not want him for their own purposes. They had no object in examining him; but they called him as a witness solely for the purpose of enabling the counsel for the defence to have an opportunity of examining him on various points, including the point of the blackened faces. But the counsel for the defence, being in full possession of the question of the blackened faces—
§ MR. HARRINGTONThat is a mistake; they were not.
§ MR. TREVELYANCollins and Constable Johnson were both examined as witnesses, and Patrick Joyce was produced.
§ MR. HARRINGTONThe depositions were not produced.
§ MR. TREVELYANThe boy Joyce was put on the table and cross-examined.
§ MR. HARRINGTONNo; he was not cross-examined.
§ MR. TREVELYANHe was produced, and the prisoners' counsel certainly put questions to him.
§ MR. HARRINGTONIf the right hon. Gentleman will refer to the trial, he will find that the prisoners' counsel did not ask the boy a question. He was asked by the Crown counsel whether he knew the nature of an oath.
§ MR. TREVELYANThe only object of producing the boy was that, if possible, the prisoners' counsel might cross-examine him; but the prisoners' counsel did not think it necessary to do so, probably for the same reason that occurred to the Correspondent of The Freeman's Journal as early as August, 1882, when he stated that in regard to the men's faces being blackened, the Irish-speaking witnesses used a word which, literally interpreted, meant "dirty," but did not mean to indicate that they were otherwise disguised. Possibly they may have put crape over their faces; or there is a much more tenable theory—that, at that hour of the night, the poor boys, being suddenly awakened out of their sleep, and almost immediately disabled by terrible blows, might very well, by the miserable light of the cabin, have thought that these murderous ruffians who were committing this deed had blackened faces. The counsel for the defence put so little stress upon that point that he made no use of it in the evidence that could outweigh the statements of the informers—perjured murderers as they might be—or the evidence of the independent witnesses. I hope the House of Commons will arrive at the same conclusion as the juries. It is not difficult to look for motives which might induce informers to turn their backs on their former evidence. It is only too evident that the life of a man who has given information about agrarian murder is one which men, and especially bad men, would do a great deal to escape from. The hon. Member far Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) himself 233 has given a very curious illustration of what the motives may be that would weigh with men of that sort by a Question which he himself put last Session in the House of Commons. I will read the Question, although I presume that the hon. Member knows it by heart. The hon. Member asked—
Whether it is a fact that Cole, the informer, examined in the recent Barbavilla conspiracy case, has been pardoned; has the Government in this case departed from the usual practice of requiring an informer to leave the country; have the Executive received a Memorial from the Catholic clergymen of the district in which Cole resided, stating their opinion that it would be dangerous to the public peace that he should come to reside in that locality; whether it is the fact that he has come to reside there; and, will he state whether the district or the county is to be charged for the extra police kept for his protection?"—[3 Hansard, [290] 1732.]Here we have the clergy of a district making a statement which, I presume, was understood by the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington), that the life of this miserable man, who had given evidence as an accomplice in an agrarian murder, was in such fearful danger that it was necessary to protect him by a police force stationed in the vicinity; and hon. Members tell us that these men would be in more danger now that they have turned back on their former evidence. The House will be slow to believe that Cole and Casey imagined that they would be in more danger than when they had to be protected by a large force from the anger of their neighbours. The life of such men is, indeed, a miserable one—God knows, in the case of the two men I have described, and certainly in the case of Cole—a life of deserved misery. But it is so miserable a life that a man would do almost anything to escape from it, even though we were not to attribute as the motive which induced Casey to go to Mr. Stokes the profit he might get by becoming informer. I have now, I believe, gone through this case completely. I think the points are very much fewer than hon. Members who have been listening to the debate to-night may have supposed. The case has been brought forward with singular ability; but against the deductions which have been drawn from the facts by hon. Members opposite I feel bound to make the very strongest protest. The hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. A. O'Connor) tells us that murder is now 234 legalized throughout Ireland; and the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy), using words which, perhaps, shocked me, who have read the writings and witnessed the caricatures which have been prevalent for so many months, less even than they may have shocked other hon. Members, told me that my pillow would be haunted by the ghost of Myles Joyce. I have seen Earl Spencer and myself portrayed in the shop windows as rejoicing in the death and murder of innocent men on the scaffold, looking on at unfortunate men suspended by the neck from the gallows. I cannot but turn for a certain amount of consolation to a paper which lies before me at this moment. That paper is to this effect. Since the day when the last undoubted execution for agrarian crime was carried into effect, up to the time when Francis Hynes suffered in the Government of Earl Spencer, there were 61 agrarian murders undetected and unpunished. That is the case of the Irish Government when they are asked if they are indifferent to the lives of the peasantry of Ireland. Who were these men whose lives are at this moment in question but the peasantry? What earthly motive could we have in hanging one peasant more than another for the murder of another peasant? Well, up to that time there were 61 undetected agrarian murders, and up to the end of the year 1882 there were something like 80 murders of that sort. They began then to be detected, and in the year 1883 there were only two such murders, while in the first nine months of the year 1884 there has not been a single murder entered upon the list as an agrarian murder. That consideration is a consolation to me for anything that may be said against the action of the Irish Government. I deeply regret if, in our action, any mistakes have been made.
§ MR. TREVELYANIf there was a mistake in the case of Kilmartin—
§ Several Irish MEMBERS: There was. [Cries of "Order!"]
§ MR. SPEAKERI must request hon. Members not to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. I have had, before this evening, to call attention to these repeated interruptions, which are unjusti- 235 fiable on the part of any hon. Member, and I hope they will not be continued.
§ MR. TREVELYANI am glad to have an opportunity of saying a word about the Kilmartin case. If His Excellency erred at all in that case, he erred on the right side. In the last paragraph of his letter it is stated—
His Excellency has determined to release Kilmartin. He does so without impeaching the correctness of the original conviction, or the bona fides of Hernon; but, subsequent information having created some doubt as to the identification of Kilmartin, His Excellency feels himself enabled to exercise the Prerogative of mercy on Kilmartin's behalf.Hon. Members will see that there were two cardinal differences between the statements. The very important subsequent information which was received would, if it could have been produced at the trial, have ended in the acquittal of Kilmartin. Unfortunately, that information was not forthcoming. Under the circumstances I have referred to, as Earl Spencer stated two years ago, he had no choice except to allow the law to be carried out. And I cannot think he would be now justified in recommending Her Majesty's Government to grant the inquiry asked for by the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington), which could only end in this random statement of Casey's being put forward, and perhaps another statement sworn to at variance with that, together with a statement of innocence by the men who are in penal servitude. If hon. Members think that such an inquiry would not shake justice to its foundations, I am bound to say that I must disagree with them. It would undoubtedly have that effect, and, therefore, the Irish Government are of opinion that the inquiry should not be granted, in which opinion they are supported by the whole body of their officers.
§ Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned,"—(Mr. Parnell,)—put, and agreed to.
§ Debate adjourned till Monday next.