RESOLUTION.

HC Deb 28 July 1885 vol 300 cc250-306

MR. CALLAN

I rise, Sir, to ask the permission of the House to call attention to a speech recently delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright). That speech is correctly reported, I presume, in The Daily News of Saturday, the 25th of July, because I find that in The Daily Chronicle and The Daily Telegraph the words of which I complain are ipsissima verba the same. The report which appears in The Times differs somewhat; but that paper has apparently condensed the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman. I should not have thought it necessary, under any other circumstances, to introduce a matter of this kind, but for the grave nature of the charges made against a number of hon. Members of this House, who, although not named personally, are charged by the right hon. Gentleman with "disloyalty to the Crown and boundless sympathy for criminals and murderers." I am aware that in this House, in 1882, the right hon. Gentleman the late Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt) took upon himself to charge an hon. Member, in his absence—for there is always prudence in the right hon. Gentleman's speeches—with sympathies of a similar character. But the speech of which I complain was delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) at a banquet to do honour to Earl Spencer, the late Viceroy of Ireland, not in an obscure corner, but on an occasion which will be memorable—I might almost say historic—in connection with the great Whig Party. The right hon. Gentleman, towards the close of the proceedings, indulged in one of his usual tirades against those whom he supposed had done him and his Party some wrong. I will read, Sir, the observations of which I complain. The right hon. Gentleman said— Whatever is due, Lord Spencer has had his share in the responsibility, and he must have his share in the credit and glory. (Cheers.) Well, now, in this meeting perhaps I may be permitted to ask who are his assailants? (Hear, hear.) They are to be found in some conductors of the Irish Press, and in some of those who profess to be Representatives of Ireland, and who sit in that character in the House of Commons. Now, these men—I speak of those who have brought these hideous charges against Lord Spencer—I say that they are disloyal to the Crown, and that they are hostile, directly hostile, to Great Britain. (Cheers.) Now, I say that I have taken the Oath of Allegiance; and I have attacked Lord Spencer. Therefore, I am stigmatized by the right hon. Gentleman as a perjurer, because I have taken the Oath of Allegiance that— I, A. B., do swear that I will be faithful, and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God. And I do not regard the words of the Oath, as some hon. Members regard them, as words of an idle and meaningless character. As a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I regard the taking of the Oath as a most solemn act, and I will take the description of how I regard the words of the Oath from the late Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote)—"I regard the Oath as a most solemn invocation of the Supreme Power." Nevertheless, as an assailant of Earl Spencer and some of his acts, I am accused in so many words of being disloyal to the Crown, and a perjurer—a charge I repudiate with scorn and contempt. The right hon. Gentleman in his speech proceeded to say— They have, so far as they could do it, obstructed all legislation which was intended to discover or to prevent or to punish crime. Throughout these years, ever since the late Government was formed, or nearly so, there has been nothing done in the direction of discovering crime or of convicting and punishing criminals which has not been directly and persistently obstructed by these men, who profess to be the friends of Ireland, and who have been the main and virulent assailants of Lord Spencer. —["Hear, hear!" from the Front Opposition Bench.]—I am glad to hear that cheer. I am glad to hear the endorsement of that foul and, I will say, that false charge. I am glad to hear that cheer coming from the Whigs and Radicals above the Gangway, and I hope the Irish people, both in England and Ireland, will bear that cheer in memory. The right hon. Gentleman further said— They have insulted and denounced every man in Ireland concerned in the just administration of the law. They have attacked the Viceroy in a manner that hitherto, I think, has been utterly unknown with regard to the great Officers of the Crown in this Kingdom. I will say that no great Officer of the Crown in this Kingdom, within my memory, has so rightly deserved these attacks as Earl Spencer. When we made these attacks, we made them in the face of the House of Commons, and not at a select meeting of our own partizans— They have attacked the men against whom no charge whatsoever of any kind could by any possibility be authenticated. We charged Bolton, we charged Cornwall, and we charged Erenoh—aye, and we proved our charges. Yet the right hon. Gentleman says that we "attacked men against whom no charge whatsoever of any kind could by any possibility be authenticated."

MR. JOHN BRIGHT

When I used the word "men," I used the word "Judges" before it. I said—"Judges, men against whom no charge could by any possibility be authenticated." The word "Judges" is left out of the report, so that what the hon. Gentleman is saying now has nothing to do with the matter.

MR. CALLAN

They are not the words upon which I intend to found a Motion; but I accept any explanation the right hon. Gentleman may offer. I hope he will be able to give a full explanation when he has the opportunity. In his speech the right hon. Gentleman went on to say— They have attacked the Law Officers of the Crown, and they have attacked indiscriminately every jury by which any guilty man has been convicted. (Cheers.) Now, what they have exhibited, on the contrary, is this—a boundless sympathy for criminals and murderers. (Loud cheers.) These charges against Members of the House of Commons constitute a distinct breach of Privilege, and in support of that proposition I will quote two precedents. The first is reported in Hansard, Third Series, Vol.41,1838, February 20th, page 104. The expressions complained of were from the report in The Morning Post of February 22nd, 1838, and were read by the Clerk at the Table— He (Mr. O'Connell) did not mince the matter. His words might appear in the public Press—he hoped they would. Ireland was not safe from the perjury of the English and Scotch gentry, who took oaths according to justice and voted according to Party. For that speech, Mr. O'Connell was brought before this House, and, having appeared in his place, he justified the words he had used. I am not going to justify the words, because they were voted to be a breach of the Privileges of this House, and Mr. O'Connell was censured. The next case upon which I rely for bringing the speech of the right hon. Gentleman within the Rules of the House in regard to breach of Privilege, is one which happened in the year 1873. On Monday, the 31st of March in that year, an article appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette, which was brought under the notice of the House on the following Thursday, April 3, by Mr. Munster, the then Member for Mallow. That article charged— That the Irish Ultramontane Members had resorted to any quibble discoverable in the technicalities of the law of Parliament to defeat or delay a measure like Mr. Fawcett's, which cuts the ground from under their venial agitations, and their traffic in noisy disloyalty. On that occasion, one Irish Member, who I perceive was at the dinner to Lord Spencer at which the charges of the right hon. Member for Birmingham were made, asked what was meant by the term "disloyalty." It was the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry).

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

The hon. Member for the County of Galway.

MR. CALLAN

I accept the correction of my hon. Friend. I am sure he does not wish to be mentioned as having been present at the banquet. The hon. Member for Galway County asked— What can be meant by the term 'disloyalty,' except to charge them with conduct that would make them unworthy to be Members of this House."—(3 Hansard, [215] 533.) The right hon. Gentleman has charged us with being disloyal to the Crown, and in language far more specific than that which was employed in the article in The Pall Mall Gazette. In the course of the debate upon The Pall Mall Gazette—and I think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham will do well to study that debate—the late Attorney General (Sir Henry James) said— Everybody must sympathize very strongly with the feelings of any hon. Member of this House who deems his character to have been aspersed and his loyalty called in question."—(Ibid. 535.) That was when we were supporting the Liberal Party, when the Irish Ultramontane Members were found day after day and night after night in the Lobby with the Whigs and Liberals. The right hon. and learned Gentleman then said that everyone must sympathize strongly with the feelings of the Irish Members when they deemed that their character was aspersed or their loyalty called in question. I do not know whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman is in the House at the present moment; but I hope that when I come to make my Motion, he will extend his sympathies towards the Irish Members who deem their conduct to have been aspersed and their loyalty called in question, by appearing in the same Lobby with them. The right hon. and learned Gentleman further said— No excuse or apology is needed on the part of the hon. Gentlemen who have brought this matter forward on account of the article to which they have called attention. Everybody must sympathize with them if the article were really intended to asperse the motives and characters of hon. Members."—(Ibid.) Will the Liberal ex-Attorney General express similar sentiments now? I am glad to afford to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham an opportunity for declaring that, in the language he used, he had no intention to asperse our motives or character. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said—and I suppose he is a great authority in this House on all questions concerning Parliamentary regulations and law— I agree with the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken (Mr. McCarthy Downing) that it is a serious matter if the honour and character of Members of this House are publicly aspersed. Certainly it is a matter which cannot be got rid of by a joke."—(Ibid. 536.) Referring to Sir Erskine May's Law and Practice of Parliament, I find it there laid down that— In order to constitute a breach of Privilege a libel complained of must concern the character or conduct of Members in that capacity. The right hon. Gentleman, after asking who Lord Spencer's assailants were, said— They are to be found in some of those who profess to be Representatives of Ireland, and who sit in that character in the House of Commons. That substantially brings them within the rule laid down by the late Attorney General—namely, that their character must have been aspersed and their loyalty called in question as Members of the House of Commons. That law I hold to be still good. The next instance which I wish to bring forward is one which was brought forward in this House by my Predecessor in the representation of the county of Louth—the late Mr. A. M. Sullivan—of whom, however much we may have differed on some occasions, I am glad to have this opportunity of saying that no man more esteemed his high personal and political character than I did and have continued to do. On that occasion, which is reported in Hansard, Third Series, Vol. 222, pages 330, 331, and 332, Monday, February 15, 1875, Mr. Sullivan brought forward a speech which had been made by the hon. and learned Member for Frome, now Mr. Justice Lopes; and I wish the House to compare the language of Mr. Lopes with that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham. The language complained of was this—Mr. Lopes had asked— What was the present position of the Liberal Party? In the House of Commons they were deserted by their Chief, who, by his fitful appearance in the House, disappointed their hopes. They were allied to a disreputable Irish band, whose watchword in the House was Home Rule and Repeal of the Union."—(3 Hansard, [222] 319.) We find the same words banded about again. The Liberal Party, when they find that we do not follow them as before, say that we have entered into an unholy alliance. We decline to follow them in their coercive policy towards Ireland, not because we love the Tories, but because we dislike the cant and hypocrisy of Liberal and Radical Members and the coercion of the Whigs more than we do the generous fair play of the Conservative Party. What did Mr. Disraeli say on that occasion? He said— I am not here to deny that it is a breach of Privilege to speak of any Members of this House in their capacity as such in terms which imply disgrace, or, as the hon. Gentleman said, 'ignominy.'… No doubt the Irish Members in their turn—at least a section of them—are sometimes spoken of in a manner which I do not at all justify—which would not be permitted in this House, or which, if any hon. Member had inadvertently so spoken here, would give rise to the opportunity now offered to my hon. and learned Friend of showing his regret for such language."—(Ibid. 330–31.) There was an excuse made on that occasion, that it was an after-dinner speech; but that excuse does not hold good in regard to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bright), because I find that the right hon. Gentleman, in drinking the health of Lord Spencer, said— I am now about to perform a duty in a beverage which is much more ancient than wine, and much more wholesome. But I am tolerant in matters of this kind. We all know that the right hon. Gentleman is prominently characterized by the tolerance of his opinions of those who do not agree with him. The right hon. Gentleman said— I am tolerant in matters of this kind as in most others; and, therefore, I do not ask everyone to follow my example. I am quite certain that if we had continued to follow the right hon. Gentleman, as we did for so many years, this language would never have been used towards us. Mr. Disraeli, on the occasion to which I have referred, went on to say— The hon. Member who spoke second in the debate (Mr. O'Connor Power) asks what we, on the Front Ministerial Bench, would have done if this expression had been used respecting us. Well, Sir, … I think I may say what all my Colleagues would have done would have been to take no notice of it. At the same time, I do not say that the course we should have pursued ought to prevent Irish Members from receiving the satisfaction to which they are entitled from my hon. and learned Friend, who has now an opportunity, in a full House, of doing that which is, I think, the privilege, as well as the duty of an English gentleman when he has done wrong … I mean frankly to express his regret … I hope my hon. and learned Friend will now make use of this opportunity, … and that we shall be able to extricate the House from the painful necessity of making this a question of Privilege."—(Ibid., 332.) Mr. Lopes explained, expressed regret, and withdrew the language contained of. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would follow the advice given by Mr. Disraeli to the hon. and learned Member for Frome (Mr. Lopes). The language which Mr. Disraeli addressed to Mr. Lopes I now address to the right hon. Gentleman. I hope he will now exercise the privilege as well as the duty of an English gentleman when he has done wrong—a course which will enable his friends to respect him the more—that he will frankly express his regret, and relieve the House from the painful necessity of making this a question of Privilege. I am afraid, however, that my appeal may not prove successful, especially when I remember that this is not the first time the right hon. Gentleman has made an appearance in a case of breach of Privilege. A little more than two years ago, he appeared in this House to answer a charge of breach of Privilege brought forward by Sir Stafford Northcote. On that occasion he had charged the Conservative Party with being in alliance with the Irish rebel Party; and upon that occasion he was extricated out of his difficulty by the right hon. Gentleman then at the head of the Government. I commend to the notice of the right hon. Gentleman the language then used by Mr. Gibson, whose absence from this House we all regret, although we, as Irish Members, are proud of his elevation to the Upper House. Mr. Gibson said that such a charge should be met by apology, by withdrawal, by explanation, or by frank and manly insistance. I invite the right hon. Gentleman therefore to withdraw, to apologize, or to stand by his words. I will not venture to trespass further upon the House, fearful that I may inadvertently drop some word which may give, or may appear to give, offence. I come here as an Irish Member hating and abhorring crime. I can tell the Front Opposition Bench especially that I have no sympathy with criminals, whether against the moral law or the law of the land. I have had my feelings outraged when I found cases of great criminality overlooked by the Home Secretary within the last few mouths. I abhor and detest crime. Every murder which takes place in Ireland makes me so unhappy that my greatest wish is to detect it. I have such an abhorrence of murder that for days I have not come to the House ashamed on account of some fearful murder which had been committed in Ireland; and yet, because I am an assailant of Lord Spencer now, I have been spoken of in the language used by the right hon. Gentleman. For years I entertained a high respect for that Nobleman. Of his first Administration in Ireland I have preserved a kindly memory; and neither in this House nor out of it have I said a word against Lord Spencer, until I may almost say the murder of Myles Joyce. From that moment I became acquainted with the Lord Lieutenant's action at the time of that man's execution I have assailed Lord Spencer in the House on every occasion on which I have thought proper, and I will continue to do so. And yet, because I am an assailant of Lord Spencer, I am to be stigmatized as disloyal to the Crown, and as having a boundless sympathy for criminals and murderers. I would ask the Clerk at the Table to read the words complained of, and then I will afterwards move the Resolution of which I have given Notice.

The said Paper was then delivered in, and the paragraph complained of read by the Clerk at the Table.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the expressions in the Speech of the Right honourable John Bright, delivered in the Westminster Palace Hotel on Friday night, the 24th of July, as reported in The Daily News of Saturday, the 25th of July, charging that certain Members 'who profess to be representatives of Ireland, and who sit in that character in the House of Commons, are disloyal to the Crown,' and that 'they have exhibited a boundless sympathy for criminals and murderers,' are a Broach of the Privileges of the House."—(Mr. Callan.)

MR. JOHN BRIGHT

Mr. Speaker, in offering a few observations to the House, I will begin by giving a little information to the hon. Member who has brought forward this Motion. There are Members from Ireland to whom my words apply; but as far as I know he is not one of them. I do not recollect, except on this occasion, and during his speech to-night, when he has made grave and, I think, almost horrible charges against Lord Spencer—I do not recollect, except on this occasion, hearing him say either in this House or that I ever read anything that he has said out of it, that would have justified me in including him in the number of those to whom reference was made in my speech the other night. I only say that for the sake of explaining to the hon. Gentleman that, at any rate, I have not done him, nor have I intended to do him any injustice; and if he has suffered from it I will now relieve his mind by telling him that not for one moment has he ever been in my mind as guilty of the charges that I have brought against some of his countrymen. The hon. Member I presume comes forward to-night in the character of a protector of his countrymen, and I have no objection at all to the question he has raised as to what I said some nights ago, or to the further consideration of it by the House and the country, which it will have, no doubt, from the discussion which is now proceeding. Let us see what was the object of the banquet in which this terrible speech was made. The object was to bring together a large number—I suppose there were nearly 200—of persons there, Members of the two Houses of Parliament, for the purpose of showing the general esteem in which the character of the late Viceroy of Ireland is held, and for the purpose, as it might occur, of meeting some of the charges which had been made against him. The hon. Member, and in fact the House, will know that Lord Spencer in his speech on that occasion did refer to a great many of the serious charges made against him, and gave such answers to them as he was able to give, answers which were certainly satisfactory to the 200 Members who were assembled there. It is a natural thing, in discussing these charges, to ask who it is that makes them, and what are the charges that are made; because the same complaint, coming from one source, might be very serious, while, coming from another, it might be very trifling. It seemed to me a proper opportunity of entering a little into this question, and I went into it, perhaps, a little deeper, although in much fewer words than those which were used by others who spoke on that occasion. Now, as to the charges that were made against Lord Spencer, what I have heard just now from the hon. Gentleman shocks me; and if I had heard him before that speech I think I should have been obliged to include the hon. Member in what I said. There is no meanness of which any man can be guilty—none which can be attributed to a Governor or Ruler in any position—that has not been constantly imputed to Lord Spencer; and more than that in the Irish Press, and I would not say not even by some Irish Members. It has been stated distinctly, over and over again, that Lord Spencer sent to the gallows men whom he knew to be innocent. If that charge is made, it is impossible to put into words a more grievous charge. The most guilty murderer who has gone to the gallows was not himself, if that be true, more guilty than Lord Spencer. Well, then, these are charges which the hon. Member himself in this House, and no doubt a considerable number in Ireland, and writers in the Irish Press, have brought against the Viceroy, the Representative of the Queen. If that be so, would it be a hard thing to say that such persons as these are disloyal? If Lord Spencer has represented the Queen in the City of Dublin, and as the Viceroy of Ireland, surely, if he has not been guilty of crimes as atrocious as those which have been imputed to him, no man would make such charges unless he was disloyal to the Viceroy and disloyal to the Queen. Now, as to the question of disloyalty, the hon. Member gives me the opportunity of referring to the case which was brought forward two years ago from this Bench by Sir Stafford Northcote. Sir Stafford Northcote evidently did something that he had no heart in at all. The proposition was merely this—and the whole proposition was quite absurd—Sir Stafford North-cote's only charge was that I said that when the Tory Party went into the Lobby they found themselves in alliance—that is, acting and voting together for the time—with the Irish Party. I did not say they had any special contract—nothing of the sort; but as both, went into the same Lobby, they were, for the time being, in alliance. When I came to answer Sir Stafford Northcote, I had the idea that he was going to complain of something more—that his Friends down here (the Irish Members) were termed by me "the rebel Party" in the speech I made at Birmingham, and which was called in question. But when I mentioned that in the House and spoke of them as the rebel Party, did any of them repudiate it? Do they repudiate it now? [Cries of "No!"] On the contrary, they accepted it, and cheered it.

MR. MARUM

I repudiate it, on behalf of my Party.

MR. JOHN BRIGHT

I have not the least doubt that many men of the Party would repudiate it. I will take my hon. Friend, whom I have known for many years, the Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy). I do not believe he is a rebel. But if hon. Members down there are to be taken by their own words, by their own writings, and by their own actions, there are some of them who have a fair claim to the title of rebel. [An Irish MEMBER: We rebel against the English rule, certainly.] The hon. Gentlemen to whom I refer constantly describe this House as a foreign House; and when we sat on the other side—I do not know what would be the term now—they said that we were a foreign Administration. I only bring that forward to strengthen the argument I have used, and to justify my words. But there has been a little incident which happened just now. If report be correct, a very important member of the Irish Party—I mean Mr. Davitt—has been asked to come to this House by one of the constituencies ready to return him. Mr. Davitt, except when a landlord is in question, appears to me to be a particularly honest man. I think that most persons who know him, however much they may disagree with him, still have a certain respect for him that they have not for some others. Well, but Mr. Davitt says that he will not come into this House, because he will not take the Oath of Allegiance to the Queen; and there are others—I will not name them, but I have heard of more than one—highly respectable and honest men in Ireland, who would be admirable Members of this House; but they cannot, in conscience, take the Oath of Allegiance, because they are not loyal to the Throne. That is one of the charges which I have brought against some hon. Gentlemen; and I think, from the way in which they have received my observations, it is quite clear that it is a charge they do not repudiate. I have said, further—I think it was one of the points to which the hon. Member referred—that these Gentlemen had done what they could to obstruct legislation in 1881 and 1882. Now, I am not about to defend the legislation of 1881 and 1882. I think that the legislation of 1881 was, unfortunately, a great mistake, though I was myself a Member of the Government that was concerned in it. But, as regards the obstruction, it must be borne in mind that a very large majority of the House of Commons supported those measures; and whether they were wise or foolish measures, at any rate they were believed by the House of Commons to be absolutely necessary, and, therefore, to be wise. Everybody who was in this House at that time knows perfectly well how much hon. Members obstructed. They may reconcile it with their duty, and I entirely separate this charge from other charges. I may remark that I am not going to complain of their obstruction. It is quite possible for me to conceive of circumstances in this House in which I myself might be tempted—though I do not think I should have persisted in it so long as they did—to do something in order to prevent a Bill from passing which I thought would be injurious to the country. But that they did obstruct nobody in the House of Commons can doubt. And I believe that the only time in which they allowed a particular clause to pass, which the Government did not want, was when they went out of the House and took up a position in the Gallery in order that the Government might be placed in a minority, and that a clause might be put into the Act which the Government did not want to have put into it, but which those hon. Gentlemen thought would make the Bill more hateful to their own country. Well, I said that Lord Spencer had been assailed—the hon. Member (Mr. Callan) has done a little in that line to-night—and that they had also assailed the Judges. In the speech, as read, the word "Judges" is left out. It comes before the word "men." I said they assailed the Judges; they assailed the Law Officers; and they assailed the juries. They have said over and over again—I do not point to any particular Member here now, but I believe some hon. Members have said it in Ireland; the hon. Gentleman has almost said it here to-night; but it has been frequently said in Ireland, and it has been stated in the Irish Press—that Lord Spencer hanged innocent men, knowing them to be innocent. Then, again, they have assailed the Judges, and declared them to be partial and partizans. They have assailed the Law Officers of the Crown, and charged them with packing the juries. And then, finally, they assailed the juries, because, being packed juries, they would easily be rendered corrupt. That is what they have done; but it has all been done on one line—namely, that of sympathy for criminals who were in prison, or men under trial; and I have never heard any emphatic declaration in this House, or out of it, nor have I read, with scarcely any exception, declarations against the criminals, except at the time when the Phœnix Park tragedy took place, and when men even on those—the Irish—benches were astounded and were cowed by the feeling that then prevailed throughout the whole country. And then they did express what I cannot but believe they really felt—that a great crime had been committed, and that great sorrow had been spread throughout all our people, and throughout Ireland, I hope, not less than throughout England. Suppose, instead of saying what has been read at the Table—suppose I had said that the Irish Party, every man of them in the House of Commons, was loyal. Suppose I had said that they were particularly friendly to Great Britain—suppose I had said that they all encouraged and supported the discovery and the punishment of crime—suppose I had said that they trusted and supported, so far as they could, the Viceroy in his difficult task of governing the country—suppose I had said that they supported the Judges and the Law Officers, and that they had really condemned, in strong and emphatic language continually, all those who committed these great crimes, and offered the spectacle to the country of such criminals—suppose I had said that they had exhibited great grief at the violent and murderous crimes which had been committed in Ireland—suppose I had said exactly the opposite of what I did say, and if that had been read from the Table, what would the House of Commons have said, or the Gentlemen who were present at that dinner table, or the public, or the Irish Members themselves? They would have said that I was a fool, or something worse, for making statements which were absolutely untrue, and they would have laughed me to scorn, and said that I had spoken for the sake of insulting them. Therefore, what I have to say of the speech is this—I will not say that every syllable is accurate, for there are words left out, and where the word "every" comes in with regard to juries it is not accurate; it should be "many" juries, and the word "Judges" requires to be put in. But, with that exception, I say that every word of the speech is accurate and true. I say, as I said to 200 of the first gentlemen of England, that every Member of the House of Lords and the House of Commons might accept it as such; and scores of them have told me how entirely they accepted and agreed with every word I uttered. Then comes one other question, and I will have done in a sentence. Supposing all this is true, was it a desirable thing to make that statement on that occasion, and to bring those charges against any Member of this House? Well, I will not contest the point at all. It is for you, Sir, to say whether such a course is a breach of the Privileges of Parliament. I think that it is likely a Rule of that sort may be used on very insufficient basis and ground; but if I said anything on that occasion which is contrary to the Rules of Parliament and the decisions of yourself, Sir, or of previous Speakers, all I can say is that I regret it very much, because no man has a right, in a great Assembly like this, to set up his own opinion against the opinion of the Assembly, and against the opinion of its presiding Officer; and if the House of Commons thinks that observations like mine, and all others of an unpleasant kind against Members of the House, made out of the House, are a breach, of the Rules and Privileges of Parliament, I myself shall regret that I have committed myself so far. But, so far as the truth of what I have said is concerned, nothing in the world will induce me to withdraw an atom of it. I was a friend of Ireland in the politics of this country when some of the men whom I have seen on those Benches were in their long clothes. For more than 30 years past I have done all I could to lay before the public, both in Ireland and in England, to lay before Parliament and the country what I believe to be the grievances which that country endures. I have suffered strong attacks from newspapers and from public speakers in both Houses of Parliament on account of the line I have taken in regard to Ireland. I believe the sufferings and the ill-treatment of that country within the last 150 years can scarcely be exaggerated, and my sympathy for it has been as strong as the sympathy of any man on those Benches. And, Sir, if I had seen a combination in Ireland—such as I once advised a meeting of Irish farmers to form—a combination that would deal fairly and justly with all questions affecting that country, which would not be rebellious to this country, which was not concerned in criminal actions, which, was not in alliance with the enemies of England beyond the Atlantic, which did not receive money from them, which did not receive, as friends, the criminals they sent over to this country—if I had seen an Irish association which dealt with some regard to moral laws while urging the great justice of the claims of their country, I should have been one of that association, and no word would ever have escaped my lips to lessen the influence of those men in the country which they represent. Sir, I have done; I have only to repeat that if you decide, or if previous Speakers have decided—for I presume you will be guided very much by precedent—that to make charges, such as I have made, against Members of this House, is not to be allowed, and is contrary to the Rules and practice of the House, I submit and express my regret that I said what I did on that occasion. That being so, I must leave it to the House; but, as to regretting what I have said, nothing can change my opinion, if I know it.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

rose to continue the debate.

MR. SPEAKER

As the language attributed to the right hon. Gentleman is now under the consideration of the House the right hon. Gentleman will follow precedent by withdrawing.

MR. JOHN BRIGHT

Cannot I stay here, Sir, if I do not vote?

MR. SPEAKER

The course generally followed is to withdraw; and the right hon. Gentleman will follow precedent by withdrawing.

MR. JOHN BRIGHT

then withdrew.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

I confess that I, for one, very much regret that the Rules of the House compel the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham to withdraw while the debate is going on, as for many reasons, some of them personal, I should prefer that the right hon. Gentleman were present to listen to the few observations I shall have to make. My hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) told me of his intention to bring forward this Motion only after he had already taken steps to put that intention into action. Had I been consulted, and had he asked my advice as to bringing forward the Motion, I would have had no hesitation in recommending the hon. Member to take no notice whatever of the charges made by the right hon. Gentleman. Personally, I am not fond of appealing to the judgment of the House, which I know, in the main, to be hostile, for the vindication of my honour and character, or the honour and character of those Irish Members who act with me. I would much rather leave the decision of the question to a future and a wiser time, when passion and prejudice will not rage quite so strongly as at the present moment. I would say something more. There was a time when a word of censure or a question of my motives from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham would have affected me deeply, and caused me the severest pain. That was in the days so honourable to the right hon. Gentleman, when he showed himself the friend of Ireland, when he was not nearly so severe upon Parties who were opposed to him, and I whom he now calls rebels—days when the right hon. Gentleman did not stigmatize and denounce as rebellious every opposition made to an English Viceroy—days whan he himself told me, I then holding the opinions I now hold, that I was not nearly National enough, and that if he were in my position he would fight much more strongly, and go much further then I did. But times have changed with the right hon. Gentleman; perhaps an unconscious change has come over him; but from the moment that his own Party came into Office he left the path he had followed with regard to Ireland, and he renounced the principles he had previously held. From the very moment that his Party came into Office, from the moment that any objection was raised to the coercive measures of his Colleagues, he, who had denounced coercion in other days with an eloquence no other man can pretend to, became impatient of any opposition to coercion, and by rapid degrees became the enemy of Ireland, and of the Party which he knows alone represents the Irish people. We know that of late years the right hon. Gentleman has got into the habit of expressing himself rather strongly against those who do not agree with him in opinion; and, therefore, when the right hon. Gentleman applies to anyone the words "rebel," "knave," and "traitor," we feel that that is only the right hon. Gentleman's way of announcing that he does not agree with something someone may have said or done. As the right hon. Gentleman has done me the favour to allude to me as a friend, and to say that he does not believe I am a rebel, although a Member of a rebel Party, I would say that the friendship of the right hon. Gentleman was one which I was once most proud of; but of late years that feeling has drifted away from my memory, and his appeal does not awaken quite so strong an echo as it might once have done. What does the charge of rebel imply? I am not a rebel, because I believe that rebellion is unnecessary and impossible of success. I am not a rebel, because I believe we can accomplish very great changes in Ireland by following out in the English House of Commons the course we have pursued for the last five or six years. I am, therefore, not a rebel, nor a Member of a rebel Party; but if the right hon. Gentleman, who regards a charge against the Viceroy as identical with a charge of disloyalty against the Sovereign—if the right hon. Gentleman were to ask me in the face of this House what my sentiments are in regard to the rights which we claim from this House, I would tell him that rebellion has been justified over and over again when it has been necessary, but only as a last resort; and I hold that I should be amply justified in being a Member of a rebel Party if it were not possible, by peaceful agitation, to overthrow a system which I know to be bad and vicious. Having made that declaration I will say no more.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH)

I would venture to express a hope that this matter need not occupy much time. I regretted very much, when I saw the report of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright), that he had not imitated the excellent example set by the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Hartington), and by Lord Spencer himself, in the moderation of the observations which they made on the subject of Ireland on that occasion. The noble Marquess opposite entered into some topics with regard to which I cannot admit the justice of his criticism. I allude to his references to the action and the policy of the present Government. But not one word which fell from him, or from Lord Spencer, could have been objected to as improper to be used in debate in this House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham, however, felt himself impelled on that occasion to use the language which has been quoted by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan), and of which I can only say that if the right hon. Gentleman had used it in his place in the House of Commons he would have been called to Order by you, Sir, and directed to withdraw it. If I am right in that opinion, I think it follows, from what was said this evening by the right hon. Gentleman himself, that he would be disposed to admit, at any rate, that his remarks were out of place. But, Sir, the question, to my mind, is not whether the language which has been used does or does not constitute a breach of the Privileges of the House of Commons, but whether the House of Commons is well advised on this, or on similar occasions, in taking notice of such language as a breach of Privilege. Allusion has been made to a debate raised by the late Mr. A. M. Sullivan, then Member for Louth, with reference to some observations made by the present Mr. Justice Lopes, who had characterized certain Irish Members who at that time followed the Leadership of the late Mr. Butt as a disreputable band. Lord Beaconsfield, on that occasion, made some remarks which, are well worthy the attention of the House of Commons. He called attention to the fact, which I am afraid grows on us every year, that there is at these after-dinner meetings, and on many occasions of political discussion out-of-doors, a kind of conventional language used by persons in regard to others of opposite political opinions, which is certainly not Parliamentary language, and which sometimes, as he observed, is not even the English language itself. Lord Beaconsfield went on to say, in reply to questions addressed to him by some Irish Member—I think by the hon. Member for Louth himself—that if he and his Colleagues on the Treasury Bench had been called a disreputable band he should have taken no notice of the observation at all. Well, the hon. Members for Louth (Mr. Callan) and Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) have for themselves entirely repudiated the applicability of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham. They have repudiated those remarks with indignation. Does it not follow from the very fact of that repudiation that they may afford, at any rate, to leave the remarks unnoticed, as we should leave them had they been addressed to us? The House should remember that we are on the eve of a very hot electoral campaign. We have already had some foretaste of what may be said of the Government in that campaign from the right hon. Gentleman the junior Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain), who accused us the other day of political immorality, if not of something worse. Well, we do not intend, whatever may be said by that right hon. Gentleman—and we know that the weaker his case the more violent is his language likely to be—we do not intend to ask the protection of the House by declaring any language that may be used against us to be a breach of Privilege. I think that the hon. Members for Louth and Longford, and those who agree with them in the opinions they have expressed, might with propriety follow that example; for I am sure it would not be desirable for this House to sot up the precedent of treating as a breach of Privilege remarks or writings out-of-doors directed, not against individual Members, but against the Members of a political Party. Were we to adopt that course, we should not know where to stop, and the adoption of it would lead to debates in this House which would embitter our political differences, materially interfere with the progress of that Business which we are anxious to forward, and in the end would not be satisfactory or creditable either to the House or to the country. Therefore, Sir, for these reasons, without reference to the language which may have been used, and quite irrespective of anything which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) has said to-night in his justification, I feel myself unable to support the Resolution which has been proposed.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

I need scarcely say that I entirely agree with, and intend to support, the conclusion at which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has arrived. I understand that the right hon. Gentleman intends, if this Motion is pressed, to give his vote against it, and to recommend those who follow his Leadership to do the same. In that advice, as I have said, I entirely concur. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright), in the speech which he has just delivered, has done, in my opinion, all that which the House can expect from any one of its Members. While maintaining the accuracy and truth of the statements which he has made, he has submitted himself to the judgment of the House as to the appropriateness and legality of the use of such terms as be employed at the banquet given to Lord Spencer respecting any of its Members. He has submitted himself to the judgment of the Speaker of the House and of the House itself. Now, Sir, I presume that if you had considered that the language which was used by my right hon. Friend constituted in itself a breach of the Privileges of this House, you would have considered it your duty to give some intimation of that fact; but, as you have not done so, I conclude that you consider it is a case in which it is not necessary to give a ruling of the kind which I have described, and that the question is one for the House itself to decide. I think the House will be of opinion that language of this character—language such as has been used by my right hon. Friend—is not language with which it is desirable to deal as language involving a question of Privilege. But, although I entirely concur in the conclusion at which the right hon. Gentleman opposite has arrived, I must say that I feel some disappointment at the tone of some of the remarks with which he prefaced that conclusion. The right hon. Gentleman said that he greatly regretted the language which has been used by my right hon. Friend. But, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman paid no attention, and made no reference whatever, to the explanation given by right hon. Friend, nor had he a word to say as to the conduct or the language which has been used on previous occasions by those on whose conduct my right hon. Friend was remarking. The language used by my right hon. Friend, although it was strong language, although it applied to a greater or less number of the Members of this House, was, in my opinion, in its application careful and guarded language. My right hon. Friend did not apply the language complained of to any Party or body of men in this House; he carefully guarded himself against any such application of it to any Party in this House. What my right hon. Friend was careful to say was this—"I speak of those who have brought these hideous charges against Lord Spencer;" and everything which my right hon. Friend said which is complained of applied, not to the Irish Party—not to the Party which follows the lead of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), but to the men who have brought these hideous charges against Lord Spencer. Is the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who has so calmly expressed his regret for the language of my right hon. Friend, prepared to say that that language was too strong, or too inappropriate, or inapplicable to those men who had, in this House and out of it, persistently brought these hideous charges against my noble Friend? Does the right hon. Gentleman think that it is tolerable, that it is consistent with good government, with the maintenance of peace and order in Ireland, that no notice whatever should be taken of men who habitually, in season and out of season, bring hideous charges against the head of the Irish Government, and that it is unseemly and improper that energetic and strong language should be used in describing the conduct of those persons?

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH)

I really must protest against the suggestion of the noble Marquess. I think that both he and Lord Spencer himself, on that very occasion, alluded in fitting terms to charges of the nature which he describes; and, as for myself, I have said plainly that they have disfigured our debates in this House. I protest against such charges as strongly as any one can; but the fact that such charges have been made against Lord Spencer—charges which never ought to have been made—surely does not justify such language as has been used, if that language could not have been used in debate in this House. That was my point.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

I entirely differ from the right hon. Gentleman. There has been a vast amount of language used about Lord Spencer and about the Irish Government out-of-doors and in the Press which could not have been used in this House. It has, however, been used, and it has not been considered necessary or desirable that notice should be taken of it here. But I say that the fact that such language has been used—that it has notoriously been used—does, in my opinion, not only excuse, but justify the language of my right hon. Friend respecting those who have made these charges; and I differ from the right hon. Gentleman opposite in thinking that it is to be regretted, or that it is a matter of reproach to my right hon. Friend in any way whatever, that he should have deliberately used the language which he did use respecting men who have made the charges. Well, Sir, as I have said, I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that if the House should decide to deal with this question as a question of Privilege, it would be departing from all its precedents—at all events, from all the precedents that I recollect. It has not been very infrequent, during recent years, that language used out-of-doors has been made the subject of discussion in this House; but, so far as I recollect, the House has never decided to take any action with regard to it, and in that I think it has done wisely. The most recent case I can recollect, or of which I have any knowledge, in which the House has acted otherwise, was the case of Mr. Pelham, who brought certain charges against certain Members of this House; and the House, after hearing Mr. Pelham, resolved that the imputations made against two of its Members were wholly unfounded and calumnious, and did not affect the honour and character of the Members concerned. Well, Sir, it seems to me that, if criticism on the conduct of Members outside the House is to be made the subject of discussion at all, a Motion such as that should be founded upon it; and I must confess that my own opinion—which I trust will be the opinion of the great majority of the House also—is that upon the statements we have heard made to-night, or upon any statements that could be made, it would be absolutely impossible for this House to come to any such conclusion as that the language used by my right hon. Friend, strong though it was, was in any degree unfounded or calumnious. I have already said that the language of my right hon. Friend was carefully guarded, and was not applied indiscriminately to any body of men in this House. Now, Sir, I want to know what part of the language of my right hon. Friend is impugned, and, still more, what part of it is denied? Is it denied that hideous charges have been made against Lord Spencer and the Executive Government of Ireland? [An Irish MEMBER: They are true.] An hon. Member says that they are true. Can it be denied that charges which were in the nature of hideous charges have been made against Lord Spencer? It is not denied even now; and, that not being denied, are the other allegations made by my right hon. Friend denied? Is it denied that those who have made themselves conspicuous by bringing these charges against Lord Spencer and the Executive Government have obstructed legislation aimed at the prevention of crime? Is it denied that they made attacks upon the Judges, upon the Law Officers, and upon the juries? Is it denied that they have shown unbounded sympathy with murderers and criminals? [Mr. CALLAN: Yes.] I expected that that allegation would be denied. It is quite certain that unbounded sympathy has been shown by hon. Members of this House with men whom they may perhaps consider innocent, but whom they have seen convicted by the tribunals of their country after a full and legal trial, and whom I am entitled equally to consider as murderers and criminals. And I say it is notorious that sympathy of the most open and unblushing character has been shown by Members of this House with convicted murderers and criminals. Well, Sir, I am not going to attempt—this would not be the time or the occasion in which it would be possible to make any such attempt—to prove, in detail, the allegations that were made by my right hon. Friend. I could not do so without going through an immense mass of evidence and examining an immense number of speeches which have been delivered both inside and outside this House; but what I am prepared to say and aver as my own opinion, forming the best judgment that I can of the speeches—some of which I have heard and some of which I have read—made by the Members who have brought these charges against the late Irish Government, is that there is nothing in the allegations which were made by my right hon. Friend which is incapable of proof; and I believe that, if the opportunity were offered, every one of the allegations would be capable of proof. Well, then, Sir, under these circumstances, I not only concur with the right hon. Gentleman in his intention to vote against this Resolution of breach of Privilege, but I go much further than he does, and I stand by my right hon. Friend in the opportuneness of his language which has been impugned. Such a Motion as this would not only set an inconvenient precedent, but it would, in my opinion, impose a most mischievous and inconvenient restriction upon the liberty of speech; and it would, moreover, impose that restriction upon liberty of speech in favour of those who are endeavouring to subvert the Government of this country, and who are endeavouring to subvert the cause of law and order in Ireland. I say, Sir, it would impose a restriction upon freedom of speech in favour of those men as against the loyal and law-abiding portion of the population of this country; and I must say I am astonished that such a Motion should have been brought forward by any Member of the Irish Party. I cannot believe that it has been brought forward with the general assent of the Members of the Irish Party. I cannot believe that men who have habitually allowed themselves such liberties—indeed, I think I may say such licence—of speech as many of that Party have indulged in, would be the men to come whining to this House to complain, upon the first occasion, that one of the greatest orators in this House has expressed to the people in this country, in language which I believe is admitted to be true by nine-tenths of the people of this country, the opinions he holds as to the conduct which has been pursued by some of those Members.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

I may say, on behalf of my Colleagues and of myself, that we have seen with considerable satisfaction that the Head of the Liberal Party in this House has adopted the language of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright). I am delighted to have the opportunity of knowing exactly the position in which the Liberal Party stand in regard to the Irish Party. The noble Marquess who has just sat down has adopted the language of the right hon. Gentleman. That language, if used in this House, would be, admittedly, a breach of the Privileges of the House. I should have thought that the adoption, by a Member speaking inside the House, of language used by another Member outside the House, which if used in the House would have been admittedly a breach of Privilege, amounts to the same thing as making use of that language in the House, and that the noble Marquess, in so adopting the disorderly language of the right hon. Gentleman, is himself guilty of a breach of the Privileges of the House. The noble Marquess has spoken of hideous charges made against the late Lord Lieutenant, and he adopts the charges made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham against us. What are those charges? That we are disloyal; that we have unbounded sympathy with murderers; and that we have done everything in our power to rescue murderers from punishment. And when an hon. Member complains of a right hon. Gentleman for accusing Members of this House of being traitors and sympathizing with assassins and perjurers, he is said to have come whining to the House. The noble Marquess has said that these charges were not made against the Irish Party in the House, but against particular individuals; but I will point out that the charges which have been made against Lord Spencer have been made by the Irish Party as a body. We stand by those charges as a body, and we will allow of no separation of one individual from another as Members of that Party. We all have made them, and we all believe in them, and we all stand together as a Party, with no discrimination between one man and another. Therefore the charges of the right hon. Gentleman were made against the Party, and not against any individual Member of the Party. The noble Marquess has spoken of the slander which has been cast upon the Administration of the late Lord Lieutenant. Before this debate closes I hope the House will hear a few words from some other Member of the Front Opposition Bench. The right hon. Gentleman the junior Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) has taken his seat since this debate began. Does the right hon. Gentleman believe in the policy of Lord Spencer? Has he not, on the very first occasion, taken the opportunity of denouncing a policy which was inseparably connected and associated with the conduct of Lord Spencer. Therefore, if I am to be accused of slandering Lord Spencer, I am quite content to take my share of the vituperation of the noble Marquess in the goodly company of the right hon. Gentleman the junior Member for Birmingham and the right hon. Member for Chelsea (Sir Charles W. Dilke.) The right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) has laid down a perfectly new doctrine, which is certainly astonishing in a Radical Representative in this House, that the words, and the person, and the conduct of the Viceroy of Ireland are to be held as sacred as the words and the person of the Sovereign herself. But does not the right hon. Gentleman, and everybody in his senses, recognize the fact that the Lord Lieu- tenant of Ireland is an active Member of a great political Party, and as such is liable to the same criticism as any other Member of the late Government? What are the charges of the right hon. Member for Birmingham? The right hon. Gentleman has complained of the association of the Irish Party with America; but if there is one man more than another who has tied that association closely together, and who has fervently and zealously preached the doctrine of the association of the Irish in Ireland with the Irish in America, it is the right hon. Gentleman himself. Taking a cursory glance at the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman I find that he has pointed out this— We may depend upon it that the Irish in America who have left this country and settled there, with so strong a feeling of hostility to British rule, have had their reasons; and if, being there imbued with that feeling of affection for their native country which, in all other cases in which we are not concerned, we should admire and reverence, they interfere in Irish matters, and have stirred up the sedition which now exists, we may depend upon it that it is because there is in the condition of Ireland a state of things which greatly favours their attempts. That is a passage from a speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman in the year 1866. And what was the condition of Ireland then? Then, again, in a speech delivered on the 30th of October, in the same year, the right hon. Gentleman reminded his hearers that when a follower of Mahomet engaged in prayer he turned his face towards Mecca. So, also, the Irish peasant, when he asked for food, and the blessing of Providence, turns his eyes to the setting sun, and, in spirit, grasped hands with the West. What was the situation of Ireland at that time? In 1865 there had been a Fenian outbreak, and in 1807 there was another. And anybody who knows anything of Irish history knows that insurrection is born, organized, sustained, and largely developed by the Irish in America. In these two cases both outbreaks were brought about by the Irish in America; and the right hon. Gentleman, with all the resources of his eloquence, eulogized the teaching of Irish history, and drew, from the disaffection of the Irish in America and their association with the Irish in Ireland, a moral as to the evils of the system of Government under which Ireland was ruled. At the present moment, if I wanted to stimulate my countrymen in America towards giving us assistance in the movement in which we are engaged, I would not use any weak words of my own, but I would quote the eloquent language of the right hon. Gentleman. The second charge of the right hon. Gentleman against the Irish Party is that they have had boundless sympathy with crime and criminals, with assassins and assassination. I have not been able to find, in this expurgated edition of the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman, any of his speeches bearing upon that question; but I have a perfect recollection of some of them. And I would ask what was the meaning of language like this, "That if it were not for English troops the Irish Land Question would have been settled before this, or the Irish landlords would have been assassinated by wholesale?" That is the language, or practically the language, which was used by the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Birmingham at a time when the assassination of landlords was rife in Ireland; and to say that there would be wholesale assassination of landlords in Ireland until the Irish Land Question was settled was certainly to be guilty of sympathizing and giving encouragement to assassination. What did the right hon. Gentleman say on another occasion? Speaking of the outrages which had been committed in Ireland, he deplored them; but at the same time he admitted their necessity, and almost eulogized them. What the right hon. Gentleman stated was that crime and outrage were necessary, if only to serve for a beacon and warning to statesmen who were to come after. Could any words be a more direct encouragement, incitement, and eulogy to crime and outrage in Ireland? And yet he has now the coolness to attack us, who sympathize with our brethren in Ireland, for having exhibited boundless sympathy with crime in that country. I am extremely glad that the right hon. Gentleman and the noble Marquess have taken up the position they have on this subject. There are several hon. Members now sitting on the Liberal Benches who owe their seats to Irish votes in English and Scotch constituencies, and who obtained those votes by a distinct pledge to oppose coercion in season and out of season. I would appeal to those hon. Members and their own consciences to say whether they have kept that pledge; but, as I have no very great confidence in the tribunal to which I appeal, I will appeal to another—to the Irish voters in England—before whom they will have to appear before long; and, in view of the charges brought against the Irish Members by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham, who has denounced them as disloyal, as perjurers, and as sympathizers with crime and outrage, and by the noble Marquess, I would urge them to vote against all Liberal candidates at the next General Election. I hope that my hon. Friend will withdraw the Motion. The noble Marquess is right in his supposition that the Resolution has been brought forward by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) without consultation with his Colleagues. Though I sympathize with the hon. Member's object, I would have been disposed to treat the charges of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham with scorn and contempt.

SIR PATRICK O'BRIEN

Sir, I must confess that I belong to an old-fashioned school of politicians. I say "old fashioned," because, in olden times, an expression of gratitude was not excluded from the consideration of the qualities of a great public man. Notwithstanding the attack which has been made upon my right hon. Friend (Mr. John Bright) to-night, I do not forget that when the position of the Roman Catholics in this House was very different to what it is now, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham endeavoured in every way to forward and assist their interests. We are favoured with the presence to-night of a distinguished Irish Ecclesiastic (Archbishop Walsh), who is now, I believe, seated beneath the Gallery. He holds a high and important position among the Roman Catholics of that country; and he will have learnt how hon. Gentlemen, who are not unaccustomed to the use of strong language themselves, especially in Ireland, treat the opinions of a right hon. Gentleman who happens to differ from them. ["Hear, hear!"] I hear the cry of "Hear, hear!" from the enthusiastic lungs of hon. Gentlemen to my left; but their position is a very different one to-night from that which it was some years ago, when they were fighting, as it were, for the very existence of their religion and their liberties as a people—when prejudice rode rampant on both sides of the House, and every effort was made to keep them out of the privileges they now enjoy. It has not flown from my memory that in those days, when we wanted an able intellect, oven if accompanied by a flippant tongue, the right hon. Gentleman was always to the front, endeavouring to serve the interests of the Irish Roman Catholics. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) has spent some 10 minutes in reading the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman. May I ask what was his object in doing so? Was it to find fault with any of the expressions of opinion which he read from the pages of Hansard? Was it to disclaim any of the statements made by the right hon. Gentleman 10 or 20 years ago? Nothing of the kind. It was simply an attempt in this House, on the part of a clever pressman, to inflame public opinion in Ireland against the right hon. Gentleman by reading remarks which, at the time they were uttered, would, if the hon. Member were consistent, have met with his entire concurrence, and even be received with the highest compliments. The hon. Gentleman has used phraseology in regard to the right hon. Gentleman which, if it had been applied to hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, he would have been the first to repudiate and resent. I have had for years the honour of the personal acquaintance of many Irish Members who sit below the Gangway; and I would repudiate, on their behalf, the charge of disloyalty, or the expression of atrocious sentiments, which, I thank God, I believe could only be justly brought against a few of them. But the right hon. Gentleman made no such charge, nor would it apply but to very few public men, and to very few writers in the public Press. I was not at Lord Spencer's dinner the other night; but either here or anywhere else, caring little for the unpopularity I may gain by it, I am ready to express my detestation of the degradation into which men can fall who are prepared to make statements, knowing that they cannot be collared for having made them. It is only an exemplification of the adage that cowards will make statements which brave men will scorn to make. And I have deeply regretted to hear an imputation cast against a man who, however rightly or wrongly he may have acted, has been actuated by a sense of conscience that he had allowed men to be sent to the gallows with the knowledge that in sending them there he was hanging innocent men. Irrespective of all considerations of entering this House again, I am here as an Irishman, and as representing thousands of other Irishmen, who will re-echo my statement, to thank Lord Spencer for the manner in which he has administered the Government of Ireland, and to assure him that we look upon the charges which have been made against him with disgust and horror.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL)

I think the House will probably be of opinion that this discussion need not be very much longer continued; but before it comes to a close there are one or two observations which may possibly commend themselves to the common sense of the House; and, if not to the common sense of the House, at any rate to the common sense of the public out-of-doors. The right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) has been accused of infringing the Privileges of this House by applying to Members of this House the term "rebel," and by accusing them of disloyalty to the Crown, and of having boundless sympathy with criminals and murderers. The noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Hartington) has justified all those expressions, and has not only avowed it as his belief that those expressions are absolutely true, but he has also implied that they are expressions which may be well and conveniently used not only in public, but in Parliamentary discussion. That being so, I should like to point out to the noble Marquess and his Colleagues who sit near him how very inconvenient that might become in a future Parliament. It is possible that in the next Parliament there may be a change in the representation of Ireland, and there may be a very large Party of Irish Members in this House holding the same opinions as those who now sit below the Gangway opposite. It is also possible, though not probable, that the noble Marquess may occupy a position of authority in the next Parliament; and I should be glad to know whether he is of opinion that for Members of Parliament to bandy backwards and forwards between each other such accusations as that of being rebels, of being disloyal, and of having boundless sympathy with crime and outrage would be likely to promote the peace and harmony of the next Parliament, or the progress of Business? However, that is entirely for his own consideration; only I believe it is absolutely without precedent for a Member of this House to get up and to point to one Member after another, and say—"I do not call so-and-so a rebel," but to insinuate that there were, no doubt, others whom he did call rebels. Whether Irish Members may be rebels or not it is really not my business to say; I cannot undertake to say or offer an opinion on that point. But suppose that I, in this place, were to call the right hon. Gentleman the junior Member for Birmingham, who sits next the noble Marquess (Mr. Chamberlain), a rebel, and accuse him of being disloyal to the Crown, would the noble Marquess, if I were to make an accusation of that kind, stand by me with the same heroic courage as he has done with regard to the expressions used by the senior Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright)? I will quote to the noble Marquess a speech made a short time ago by the right hon. Gentleman his Colleague the junior Member for Birmingham, speaking as an ex-Minister, and giving to the public the results of his experience as a Minister of nearly six years' standing. These are the words he used, and I commend them to the consideration of the House. The noble Marquess has been justly indignant, like everybody in this House outside the Irish Party, at the extravagant nature of the charges which have been brought against the personal character of Lord Spencer; but it is possible that the noble Marquess would not have been so unmeasured in his indignation if he had known of the language which had been made use of by his late Colleague with regard to the system under which the Irish Government was carried on by the Government of the noble Marquess. The right hon. Gentleman the junior Member for Birmingham, speaking at Islington on June 17, is reported to have used these words, which I do not doubt are correct, because they are remarkable words; and I am sure that if they were not correct the right hon. Gentleman would have contradicted them— I do not believe that the great majority of Englishmen have the slightest conception of the system under which this free nation attempts to rule a sister country. This meant that the majority of Englishmen have not the smallest conception of the nature of the system by which Ireland was governed by the Colleagues of the noble Marquess. The right hon. Gentleman goes on to say— It is a system which is founded on the bayonets of 30,000 soldiers, encamped permanently, as in a hostile country. It is a system as completely centralized and bureaucratic as that with which Russia governs Poland, or as that which was common in Venice under the Austrian rule. [Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Hear, hear!] Yes, Sir; the right hon. Gentleman cheers; but I wish to remind him and the noble Marquess that it is under that system that all the proceedings have taken place of which the Irish Members complain. The right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) justified his charge of disloyalty to the Crown on the part of the Irish Members by the fact that they had more than once asserted that the British Government was a foreign Government. That was one of his great charges; and he said that the statement that the British Government was a foreign Government justified his accusation of disloyalty to the Crown on the part of the Irish Members. Very well, then I take the words of the senior Member for Birmingham and apply them to the junior Member, because I find———[Cries of"Order!"]

MR. SPEAKER

I must remind the noble Lord that the subject immediately before the House is whether certain expressions used by the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) are a breach of the Privileges of this House. I have thought it my duty to remind the House of the nature of the question before the House, because the debate is now going into other matters which, have nothing to do with the question whether the expressions used by the right hon. Gentleman were a breach of the Privileges of this House or not.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL)

I would not have intervened in this de- bate, nor would I have asked the House to allow me to trespass on its time, if it had not been for the serious misconstruction which the noble Marquess opposite placed on the words of my right hon. Friend (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) when dealing with this question. It is in order to show to the House the extreme inconvenience of the Leader of the Opposition differing from the Leader of the House, and maintaining that the expressions used by the senior Member for Birmingham were not breaches of Privilege, but were, on the other hand, expressions which may be conveniently used—it is in order to show the danger of that doctrine that I am pursuing this course. The charge made by the senior Member for Birmingham was that of disloyalty to the Crown on the part of the Irish Members, and it was supported by him in his contention that the Irish Members more than once had described the British Government as a foreign Government. The junior Member for Birmingham, in the speech which I have already quoted, wont on to say— An Irishman at this moment cannot move a step—he cannot lift a finger in any parochial, municipal, or educational work—without being confronted, interfered with, controlled by an English official appointed by a foreign Government, and without the shadow or shade of representative authority. The right hon. Gentleman continued— I say the time has come to reform altogether the absurd and irritating anachronism which is known as Dublin Castle, and to sweep away altogether these alien Boards of foreign officials, and to substitute for them a genuine Irish Administration of purely Irish business. I only wish to point out that if the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Birmingham is within his right, and is acting within the privileges and custom of Parliament in applying the term "rebel," in bringing forward an accusation of disloyalty to the Crown and an accusation of sympathy with crime and outrage on the part of the Irish Party—I hold that, if that opinion of the noble Marquess is correct and founded on Parliamentary practice and Parliamentary tradition and Parliamentary precedent, if I like, or any other Member of this House likes, we should be justified in applying exactly similar charges to the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Chamberlain). It is because I believe that my right hon. Friend has advised the House rightly in this matter—it is because I believe the noble Marquess has, in defending the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. John Bright) to the extent he did, advised the House wrongly, and has set up a precedent which may be used with a fatal effect in the next Parliament, that I protest against the misinterpretation and misconstruction which the noble Marquess placed upon it.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

I think, Sir, I may congratulate the hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway on one result of the Motion made to-day. It shows them and the country that the compact into which they have recently entered is still being observed by the other Party with the most praiseworthy fidelity. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) in his speech, perhaps, loft something to be desired; but I am sure that the most earnest of the hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway can have nothing to complain of iii the speech of the noble Lord who has just sat down. Now, Sir, the noble Lord has been good enough to call the attention of the House to some remarks which I made recently in a speech at Islington; but I do not quite follow his object in troubling the House with such a matter. It is true that he prefaced his reference to the speech by asking my noble Friend near me (the Marquess of Hartington) what he would do if the noble Lord opposite were to call me a rebel. I do not suppose that my noble Friend would be much moved; and I can assure the noble Lord that I should not, in the circumstances, if he ever likes to apply that appellation to me, trouble the House with a Motion of breach of Privilege. The noble Lord has never yet made a speech in the country which could not be made the subject of a breach of Privilege. I remember perfectly well a speech made by the noble Lord not long ago in Prince's Hall, St. James's, Piccadilly, in which he called the then Government traitors to the Queen, and traitors to the country.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL)

Have you got the words?

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

No; I have not got the words; but, surely, the noble Lord does not deny the general accuracy of my statement? If he does so, I will content myself by saying, in general terms, that the names which the noble Lord was in the constant habit of applying to his political opponents would have justified a Motion of breach of Privilege every week during the last five years. But, now, why does the noble Lord think that he would be justified in calling me a rebel? What was there in those paragraphs of the speech which the noble Lord quoted which would suggest any such idea? It appears that I spoke of the English Administration in Ireland as a foreign Administration, and that I spoke of the English officials as foreign officials. But does the noble Lord make that a matter of condemnation? Does he not know that this language has been used by many distinguished Members of his own Party? Does he not recollect the celebrated speech of a Gentleman who once had the confidence of the Conservative Party, Mr. Disraeli, in this House, in which he said that the Government of Ireland was an alien Government, and that the evils of Ireland proceeded from an alien Administration and an alien Church? What is the difference between alien and foreign?

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL)

What is the date of that speech?

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

I do not think the date has anything to do with the question. If Mr. Disraeli might apply that language without suspicion of being a rebel, if he might call the Irish Government of his time an alien Government, I think I may also, without doubt, in my mild way, speak of the Irish Administration of my time as a foreign Administration. But the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) was good enough to say that if he were an assailant of Lord Spencer he rejoiced in being in company with me in that matter, he, also, having in his mind the same speech to which the noble Lord has referred. I cannot accept the alliance of the hon. Member for Galway on those terms. I beg to assure him that he will not find in that speech, or in any speech which I have ever made, any attack whatever upon Lord Spencer.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

Will the right hon. Gentleman pardon me? What I said was that I claimed the right hon. Gentleman as a Colleague in assailing the policy of Lord Spencer, and I went on to say that the policy of Lord Spencer in Ireland was coercion, and that that policy had been condemned by the right hon. Gentleman.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

I am glad to have the explanation of the hon. Member. I was afraid that he had gone further. I have always expressed in public and in private my highest admiration for the character of Lord Spencer, and for the ability and the courage which he brought to bear in his administration of Ireland. Now, when the hon. Member goes on to say that he claims me as an ally in the condemnation of the policy of Lord Spencer. I will admit that sometimes I may have differed from him; but the point of the speech to which the hon. Member and the noble Lord have equally referred is a condemnation of the system which Lord Spencer, in common with previous Viceroys for generations, had been called upon to administer. In condemning that system I have the approval and support of Lord Spencer himself. It is perfectly well known that Lord Spencer himself has been for a long time desirous to make great and important reforms in the system of administration in Ireland. It is also well known that he himself would like to see the abolition of the Viceroyalty. Then I say that in condemning the system of administration in Ireland I have not condemned Lord Spencer or his policy. As to the charge made against my right hon. Friend and Colleague the senior Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright), I think it is not fitting that the time of the House should be occupied with such a matter. I do not think that the Irish Members need be so very thin-skinned; for they have been accustomed to speak strongly both in this House and out of it of the public action of their opponents, and nobody has thought it worth while to challenge them. It is, moreover, difficult to understand how Irish Members can challenge the opinions expressed by my right hon. Friend, because they have themselves to-day accepted them, and accepted them cheerfully, as representing the views which they hold. My right hon. Friend said he charged some of them with being rebels, and they did not deny the charge. There was a cheer from an hon. Member below the Gangway when it was made, and I well remember a Gentleman—Mr. Dillon—a much respected Member of this House, getting up in his place and saying—"I am a rebel; and if I could I would at this moment draw the sword for Ireland;" but that in the circumstances he was unable, and it would be ridiculous for him to attempt it. Mr. Dillon openly avowed his position. Then, under the circumstances, how can hon. Gentlemen complain of being taken at their own valuation? My right hon. Friend said he charged them with obstructing measures that were designed and brought in to promote law and order. Do they deny that? Was it not the fact that they were suspended because they would not allow a certain Bill to proceed? Surely, then, it is childish to object to a statement, the truth of which is not denied by hon. Members below the Gangway, and for which they take credit and pride to themselves. Lastly, my right hon. Friend is accused of having said that they showed sympathy with criminals, and not one word of condemnation came from them of outrage and murder. Now, I myself sympathize with many of the objects of the hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway; but I do not sympathize with crime and outrage, and I do not believe that they sympathize with it either. But I must say that I regret they have not got up many times and declared their detestation of crime.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

We have done it many times.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

Some hon. Member below the Gangway says that they have done it many times. No doubt, some hon. Member may have done what he says; but I am bound to say that I have never heard any kind of denunciation of crime proceeding from any of them.

MR. O'BRIEN

I remember the right hon. Gentleman the late Home Secretary himself quoting from United Ireland the strongest denunciation and detestation of outrage and crime.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN

I do not myself remember it; but I am quite willing to accept the statement, and I rejoice to hear it. I am not accusing the hon. Member or his Colleagues—let him make no mistake about that—of sympathy with crime or disorder; but I do regret that they have not expressed their detestation of it more frequently and publicly. Many times have they got up and absolutely refused to do so, In a speech of the hon. and learned Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy) I remember that, on an appeal being made to him to repudiate crime and outrage, he positively refused, and he asked whether Englishmen thought they could walk over Irishmen and slap them in the face and not get a blow in return? When hon. Members are asked to condemn outrage, and in return they say—"No, we will not condemn it; but if you give us a slap in the face we will give you a blow in return," it seems difficult to believe that hon. Members seriously condemn outrage, for that is a justification of outrage. Either hon. Gentlemen condemn outrage, or they do not. If they do, I wish their condemnation of it were more public; and as long as they confine themselves to private and not public condemnation, I do not see how they can complain of the language of my right hon. Friend.

MR. SEXTON

One of the most irritating experiences which hon. Members in this part of the House have to endure is such speeches as that of the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken—speeches from Gentlemen who are dogmatic in theory, but who are not closely acquainted with the course of private or public life in Ireland. When the right hon. Gentleman accuses the Irish Members of not having denounced crime, I am entitled to say that he exhibits an ignorance which he would correct or remove if he would only study the official reports of the proceedings of the Land League agitation. Those reports show that time after time, year after year, in season and out of season, the leaders of the Land League and of the popular movement in Ireland occupied themselves with warnings against crime and with denunciations of crime. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to a speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monaghan (Mr. Healy). I can well understand the passage which he quoted, and I am prepared to justify it and adopt it: for there can be nothing more exasperating to men who have laboured to keep the people from acts of criminality than to find when they come to this House and ask for reforms, that not only are the reforms refused, but that the way of the criminal is made more easy. I am neither disappointed nor surprised by what has happened on this occasion. The language of defamation has been used outside this House against the National Party, and when complaint is made, language not distinguishable from that of insult towards them has been added in the House itself. We have been told that Irish Members have come whining to the House. Sir, so long as the cry of Ireland was a whine, it remained very little heeded here. The voice of Ireland is now uttered in a different key, and I can tell the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington) that neither in this House nor out of it, in the future, will the wrongs of Ireland be stated, nor the satisfaction of her claims be demanded, in whining tones. The noble Marquess, having sat by as chairman of the banquet, and listened to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) denouncing men who are engaged in a difficult struggle for their country, has come down here to-day and formally thrown the sanction and approval of the Liberal Party over the language of the right hon. Member. No doubt, the present Government exists by the tolerance of the Opposition. The noble Marquess is conscious that the Opposition have a majority in this House; but he certainly appears to have presumed too far on the power of the Liberal Party here when he asked the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) to repeat at the Table of the House an offence which had been committed outside—whon he asked the right hon. Gentleman to emphasize the shameful language which had been applied to the Irish Members, and to allow himself to be dragged behind a discredited Viceroy who had fallen in the cause of a fallen Party. Now, Sir, what are we to say of the speech of the noble Marquess? He declared that the charges of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham were true. He went a step further, and said we had been guilty of sympathy with criminals. But when his statement was challenged from these Benches, the noble Marquess proceeded to say that we may have believed the men to be innocent, but he believed them to be guilty. Now, what is the meaning of accusing men of sympathizing with people whom they know to be innocent? We feel sympathy, not with criminals, but with men whom we believe, and whom we know, to have been brought to the gallows when innocent, with men whom we believe and know to be suffering the horrors of penal servitude for crimes of which they were not guilty. What is to become of argument and common sense if men are to be charged with sympathizing with criminals, because they sympathize with men whom in their hearts and souls they believe to be innocent, and because in that sympathy and belief they are sustained by the prelates and clergymen of Ireland, and by the general body of public opinion in that country? Sympathy with criminals! We brought forward one case. Has the noble Marquess forgotten the case of Kilmartin? That was the only case in which an inquiry was ever granted. Kilmartin was proved to be innocent, and he walked out of prison a free man. What is the audacity of any person who rises in this House and charges us with having sympathy with criminals when, in the only case in which you acceded to our demand and granted us an inquiry, the person whom you called a criminal was proved to be innocent! The noble Marquess had the courage to say that, if an opportunity were given of disproving them, the charges against Lord Spencer would be proved to be false. Why has the opportunity not been given? What is the offence charged against us in regard to the proceedings of this House? Our offence is that we have repeatedly come forward with these charges against Lord Spencer and his Administration, and that we have asked that you should give us the opportunity of proving whether our charges were true. That opportunity has always been refused us. It was nothing less than audacious, and it must command the condemnation of every reasonable man and every lover of fair play, for the noble Marquess to say that if the opportunity were given these charges would be proved to be false, seeing that our complaint against his own Government is that they have for the last three years used their power in the House to refuse us the opportunity we asked of proving our charges. Now, I have seen a paragraph in an influential Liberal paper, in which it is said that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bright) has excited the most intense indignation amongst the Irish Members. Now, while I say that my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) was within his right in bringing forward this question to-day, I am bound to add that the Irish Party in this House have not made this question a Party one. It has not come before them for their consideration. Indeed, if it had, they would have come to the conclusion to treat the language of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham with the contempt that, in my opinion, it deserves. I am, for my own part, opposed in principle to any appeals from Irish Members to this House to protect them against language used against them. We are in a minority, we are fighting against odds, and from what I know of the history of England, and from what I have learnt by my experience here in the course of the last five years, I know that the Representatives of any people subject to you and fighting you against odds, if they do their duty honestly and with courage, will have to face every accusation that malignity can devise and language make. Personally, I am perfectly indifferent to any accusation any Englishman makes against me. I maintain that, as this question of Privilege has been brought forward, it will be no discredit if the hon. Member fails on this occasion, and neither will it be any triumph for him to succeed. The force before us is the force of the Irish people. The opinion to which we appeal is their opinion. We are perfectly certain that accusations of every kind will be made by Englishmen against us so long as we give them trouble and inconvenience; and, for my part, it is a matter of absolute and complete indifference to me what charge any Englishman brings against me in my public capacity, and what action the House of Commons may take, or refuse to take, in regard to me. But, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham is certainly one who ought to be slow to indulge in language of this kind. He has spent, if not the best, the most vigorous part of his life in the conduct of violent agitation, and agitation the course of which was not always unmarked by disorder and by crime. Licentiousness of language with regard to his opponents has been the main characteristic of his life, and his career and age, instead of bringing to him dignity or reserve, has only weakened his judgment. While he has been singularly reckless and unscrupulous in the language he has applied to others, he has always shown a childish sensitiveness with regard to the language applied to him. He says if he had made any other speech than the speech he did make, he might have been called a fool. I do not think that Parliamentary Forms would allow me to suggest to the House what I should like to suggest; but as a specimen of the powers of judgment of the right hon. Gentleman, I would say that his main charge against us—that we have been disloyal to the Crown—rests upon two arguments, one of which is inapplicable, and the other of which is absurd. How has he supported his argument with reference to the oath of Allegiance? He has suggested that men in this House who have taken the Oath of Allegiance are disloyal, because a gentleman outside of this House, whom he knows, refuses to come to the House on the ground that he would have to take the Oath of Allegiance. I will leave it to the House to say whether the conduct of an eminent Irishman outside the House can have the slightest possible bearing on the conduct and principles of those who have come into the House according to the prescribed code. What is the other argument? That we have been disloyal to Lord Spencer. Would it not be well of the right hon. Gentleman to learn the meaning of "disloyal" before he again speaks upon the subject? But I would pause for a moment, and say that Irishmen have always shown more respect for the Throne and its occupant, and more chivalry in their references to the Monarchy of this country, than have been shown by certain sections of politicians and certain organs of opinion in England. But are we obliged to be loyal to any Gentleman who is sent as Viceroy to Ireland, who is sent there as the agent of a political Party, who is sent there to carry out the policy of a Party, and who falls, as Lord Spencer fell, by a vote of this House? Our business hero is to criticize the public policy of the Government, and is it not manifestly absurd to suggest to us that we are not to criticize and even to denounce the policy of a Viceroy in Ireland, since the Viceroy in Ireland falls by a vote of this House? What is called disloyalty in regard to the Viceroy is one of the most manifest duties of Irish Members of Parliament when the Viceroy so conducts himself as, in their opinion, to outrage the public opinion of their country. It is said we have obstructed all legislation directed against crime. I remember one measure against crime which was passed by this House at a single Sitting, without a word of comment from one Irish Member. In that the late Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt) will bear me out. We have been charged with attacking indiscriminately every jury who found men guilty in Ireland. I do not remember that, during my experience in the House of Commons, a grave attack has been made upon any jury but one. We gravely attacked, and we seriously impugned, the jury who returned the verdict against Francis Hynes. We did so, because it was proved by an abundance of sworn evidence that some of the jury who sent Francis Hynes to the gallows passed the night preceding the verdict in riotous behaviour at the hotel, and were actually drunk when they gave their verdict. That fact was fully established, and no serious attempt was ever made to refute it. In regard to other juries, it is not the juries themselves whom we have attacked, but the process of packing them. If you pack a jury, it is not the jury so much we blame as the people who pack them. If you put into the box 12 men saturated with political passion they may honestly, by the force of their prejudice, find a man guilty against whom the evidence is insufficient, and in such a case the person whose conduct is contested is the official of the Crown, who boldly stands there and sets aside every man who would be likely to give an adverse opinion. Now, as to the charges against Lord Spencer. The main charges against Lord Spencer are two in number—namely, that he shielded officials accused of the most detestable crime; and that when the Prerogative of mercy might properly have been exercised, he refused to exercise it. Take the first charge. The prospects of my hon. Friend the Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien) were in danger, his liberty was in peril, his very life was in jeopardy, because he dared to declare that Castle officials had been guilty of an infamous and unspeakable crime. Month after month passed by; Question after Question was put unavailingly in the House of Commons; debate after debate was raised, yet the infamous French still continued to wield power in the Irish Constabulary Force. The detectives who should have been engaged in the vindication of justice were employed to dog and threaten my hon. Friend. Through danger and trouble, through unspeakable difficulty and peril, my hon. Friend succeeded in making good his accusation, and the man who held one of the chief positions in Dublin Castle is now atoning his infamy in penal servitude in the garb of the convict. Every obstacle that could be thrown in my hon. Friend's way—by the long delay in the Courts, by the obstinacy of the high officials in Dublin Castle—was thrown in his way. But the conviction now stands on the Records, and no dinners can revoke it, no lofty appeals to the chivalry of the Members of this House can alter it. Lord Spencer and his Administration did shield the unspeakable criminal French, so long as shielding him was possible. Not only did they do that, but they almost accomplished the ruin of the brave and courageous Irishman who set out on the tract of the man; and if that Irishman vindicated his action, if he justified his course, and if he secured the punishment of the criminal, it was the mercy of Providence and not the will or cooperation of Lord Spencer that was to be thanked for it. Our charge, therefore, that Lord Spencer shielded infamous criminals is proved beyond denial. The second charge is, that Lord Spencer refused to exercise the Prerogative of mercy. What did Lord Spencer say at the dinner at the Westminster Palace Hotel? He said that during his Viceroyalty 40 men had been condemned to death, and of them 21 had been executed. Now, in regard to how many of the 21 have we impeached the verdicts? Of the 21 cases in which Lord Spencer declared that the law should take its course, I do not know that we have ever questioned more than five. What is the meaning of saying we have questioned all the verdicts? Out of the 21 executions, there are 16 the justice of which has never been impeached by any Member of the House. Are we to attribute it to the rage of a defeated Administration that accusations, grossly and flagrantly inconsistent with the facts, are made against us by men occupying high positions in this House? What happened in the case of Myles Joyce? Three men were sentenced to death, and lodged in Galway Gaol. Two of those men, inspired by their spiritual guides, standing upon the verge of the scaffold, made declarations in which they asserted the innocence of Myles Joyce. The declarations were forwarded to Lord Spencer in ample time for him to have stopped the execution of the victim. The night before the execution of Myles Joyce, the telegraph office at Galway was kept open, such was the expectation that, upon examining the evidence Lord Spencer would order the execution to be stayed. What could have been more conclusive? Two of the three men declared the innocence of the third, and admitted their own guilt. To any man who reflects on the case, it will be apparent that if the proof of the innocence of Myles Joyce was not clear, there was established such presumption as should have compelled Lord Spencer, if he had been moved by any impulse other than a desire for vengeance and a disposition to strike terror into the people by the execution of the man, to, at least, have reprieved the prisoner and given time for a due investigation of the case. Well, Sir, I say that we have not generally and universally impeached Judges, juries, and Law Officers in Ireland. There are many Judges in Ireland whose conduct has never been seriously attacked; there are many officials against whom a word of attack has never been uttered in this House; there are many juries against whom there has not been a breath of imputation. The accusations we have made in certain cases we have supported by proofs; and if we wanted any justification of our conduct, it may be found in the fact that the one inquiry which we obtained resulted in the proof of the innocence of the man, that of the Crown officials whom we have impeached one, an uncertificated bankrupt, and another, a defrauder of his own wife, have been practically cast out of employment, and that the policy of coercion, the policy which we attacked and denounced in this House, is now declared by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham himself to have been a mistake, and is east aside as a discredited weapon by the Government who are now responsible for the administration of the affairs of the country. I consider that the right hon. Gentleman has aggravated his original offence by the speech he has delivered here to-day, for he has not only maintained the truth and accuracy of his utterances the other night, but he has referred individually to Members of this Party, who, I think, take his references more as a compliment than as anything else. He has, at the same time, pointed his innuendoes and calmunies by inference against Members he did not name. It is not by the good opinion of the right hon. Gentleman, or of any Member of this House, that we, the Irish Party, live and thrive. We have lived and thriven not by your favour, but in your despite. That we have the support of our own countrymen, and that the policy which we have pursued has improved the prospects of our own cause, is amply proved by our power in the House at the present moment, and the prospects which lie immediately before us. The Liberal organ I have already quoted says the real object of the banquet the other night was to bolster up and whitewash a discredited and disgraced politician; but it had another object—namely, to bring home the real character of the Irish Party. The language of the right hon. Gentleman, it was said, will ring through the country at the General Election. But there are other words besides those of the right hon. Gentleman which will ring through the country at the General Election. When that General Election comes round it will not be forgotten that, to the slanderous speech of the right hon. Member for Birmingham at the Spencer dinner, there was added the insulting speech of the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington) here today. By the proceedings of to-day the Liberal Party have been made responsible for the speech of the right hon. Member for Birmingham. Our countrymen in America were driven from their country by your laws; they were the friends of Ireland before the right hon. Member for Birmingham posed as its friend; they are the friends of Ireland now that he has become its enemy, and they will continue to be friends of Ireland when the right hon. Member for Birmingham is no more, and when English Parties have little to do with the government of Ireland. Sir, if the Irish Party had adjudged upon this question, they never would have appealed to you for justice. We have no confidence in the impartiality of this House as between Englishmen and Irishmen. We are indifferent to the proceedings of this day, to any accusations made here to-day, to any charges which may be brought against us hereafter. As to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, to whom age has not brought either scruple in attack, or dignity and frankness in self-defence, what has occurred to-day will be of some advantage to him, if it teaches him even at this eleventh hour of his life that he ought to govern his language by the principles of truth and have some regard for the demands of decency.

MR. O'BRIEN

I do not intend to prolong this discussion for more than a minute or two; but as I am one of those included in the compliment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright), I must join with my hon. Friend (Mr. Sexton) in regretting that the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) should have thought it worth while to make any appeal to the House in this matter. Speeches of the character of the right hon. Gentleman's speech at the banquet the other night, and of the character of the speech which we have listened to from him to-day, may possibly give pain to the very few friends of his who still cling to the memory of his former friendship for Ireland; but such speeches do not, in the slightest degree, distress those whom the right hon. Gentleman is pleased to honour by his enmity. The right hon. Gentleman accuses us of being disloyal, and of being rebels. If he means that we are disloyal to Earl Spencer and to English rule in Ireland, then all I can say is that there is not very much difference of opinion between us. I, for one, am rather disposed to accept it as a compliment. The right hon. Gentleman accuses us of boundless sympathy with criminals; but when such an accusation is made by an old and feeble and somewhat broken man, I doubt if it matters much. It is a very different thing, however, when the accusation is taken up and endorsed and justified by the responsible Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons. Sir, if the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington) who leads the Liberal Party in the House at the present time, thinks that it is well within the privilege of Members of this House to call certain hon. Members perjurers and sympathizers with murder, I regret that the Privileges of Parliament are not a little further extended, and that it is not possible for us to call men calumniators and liars. All the charges we ever made against Lord Spencer we made openly and in the light of day, and with the knowledge that in making them we carried our lives in our hands. We have not only made them, but we stick to them now. We have proved them up to the hilt in the estimation of nineteenth-twentieths of the Irish race throughout the world, and allow me to tell you that these are the persons whose verdict we think something of. I can only speak of the language of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham with the utmost levity and contempt. Considering the right hon. Gentleman's state of mind for the last couple of years with regard to Ireland, and with regard to Members from Ireland, I can only say that the only tiling that has alarmed me is that he has discovered anything in our conduct which has merited a testimonial from him. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) means to push this matter to a division; but if the Motion is negatived, it will, at all events, have just one useful result—it will show what a different measure of justice is meted out to English and Irish Members in this House, though, in my opinion, that does not need very much further illustration.

MR. JUSTIN HUNTLY M'CARTHY

Mr. Speaker, for my own part I do not care in the least what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) may say of any Member of the Irish Party. I feel convinced that there is no Irish Nationalist in the country who will regard otherwise than with supreme indifference any attack which an exploded politician like the right hon. Gentleman may make upon us. The right hon. Gentleman was our friend, he is now our enemy, and I personally much prefer him in the latter capacity, because he is less dangerous to the country and less able to delude the people. I will not comment upon the speech, of the junior Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain), except to say that there was something in that speech which suggested to me that the right hon. Gentleman was a little disappointed by the tone in which the Irish Press and the Irish people have responded to his promised crusade in Ireland. We were not enthusiastic at the generous offer which was made to us by the right hon. Gentleman, and hence, I think, his tone of bitterness and the unfair accusations which he made to-night against the Irish people and their Representatives. Now, the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington) who leads the Opposition, and who, I hope, will long continue to lead the Opposition, said that hideous charges had been made against Lord Spencer. We have a right to bring such charges against a man who, we think, has been the cause of great and lasting injury to our country, and whose name will be hated for generations to come, hated even more than the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. B. Forster). The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. John Bright) said that sympathy has been shown by Members of this House—and by that he meant Members on these Benches—with convicted criminals. Of course, we have sympathy with some convicted criminals. There never was a Party in this House who had not, at one time or other, had sympathy with them. When we look back, we find that the most exalted names in Irish history are to be found amongst those of convicted criminals. What were Robert Emmet, Smith O'Brien, and Meagher but convicted criminals; and what were the three men who were done to death at Manchester but convicted criminals? It is impossible for any Irish Nationalist not to have sympathy with such men as these. The result of the conviction of such criminals has been that the English Flag is as much hated in Ireland, as the Austrian Eagle was hated in Hungary, and the Russian Eagle in Poland. I hope that the time will never come when Irish Nationalist Members will not be proud and glad to be accused of sympathy with such convicted criminals as I have referred to.

MR. O'KELLY

Sir, I have listened to the debate with a certain amount of interest not unmingled with a little amusement. The debate has been exceedingly instructive as showing the dis- position of English Members towards our people and our cause, as well as the difficulty of getting anything like fair play in this House. But it certainly requires some coolness on the part of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) and his Friends to accuse us of unbounded sympathy with crime. I would recommend those Gentlemen who can to look into their own consciences, and to go back into the history of the past two years, and remember that they are steeped up to the ancles in human blood. The last thing we shall remember of the senior Member for Birmingham is that he will go down to history as one of the assassins of Alexandria. In this House, at any rate, those Gentlemen ought to be careful how they bandy words and make sweeping accusations against our men. In the case of Ireland, when we have challenged the course of justice, we have challenged each case upon its merits. We, acting upon our belief and upon the evidence before us, have challenged the action of Lord Spencer in certain cases, and we have also challenged the manner in which justice has been administered, and the manner in which juries have been packed; but we have never attacked every act of the Government. We have made a distinction always between those men who have been justly convicted of criminal acts, and those who, in our opinion, have not. No Member of this Party, so far as my memory loads me back, has ever said one word in defence of men who were fairly and honestly convicted, or men who deserved to be convicted. The men we have spoken in favour of are men whom you have brought into your net by an infamous system, men whom you have sacrificed even at the expense of innocent men's lives. I think that no man who looks back for the last year, and examines carefully the cases which have been brought before the House—no fair minded man can say that we have attacked Lord Spencer, or any of the judicial officers in Ireland, in any case where we have not had a fair case as against the administration of justice. I regret, however; that my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) has thought it well to bring this case before the House. I think it below the dignity of Irish Members to pay any attention to such attacks, coming from any quarter. We know very well that, in politics, the Party to which the senior Member for Birmingham belongs are very unscrupulous even among themselves, and that, when dealing with us, they have no sense of justice, honour, or duty.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

Sir, I wish to address myself to that passage of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the junior Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) in which he alleged that there had been no expression of disapproval of crime and outrage in Ireland from the lips of the Leaders of the Irish people. He said that he did not at all charge them with having any sympathy with those outrages; but he expressed regret that they did not declare their want of sympathy with them, and express their disapproval of the various crimes and outrages which had been committed. I think, Sir, before he stood up at the Table to make that statement, he ought to have made himself acquainted with the actual facts, because his statement shows either his ignorance of the subject, or his malice in making it. I utterly deny the truth of his allegation, and I assert emphatically that again and again, in the Press and on the platform, the Leaders of the Irish Party have denounced, condemned, and protested against the perpetration of crime and outrage. My allegations on this matter I could sustain by quotations; I could bring before this House plenty of proofs of my statement, but I will not do anything of the sort. Whenever we are met with these odious charges, we will not come down with bundles of papers and extracts from newspapers, and ask the House to listen to them in our behalf. We will go into no such defence; but, on the other hand, we will meet those who bring these charges with as blunt and strong a denial as would be permitted within the bounds of Parliamentary language. When I heard the right hon. Gentleman the junior Member for Birmingham taking that line tonight, it indicated one thing to my mind—namely, that his Irish tour is to be abandoned. I venture to say that after that statement of his, he would not dare to present himself before the people of Ireland, and ask their opinion of either his conduct or his policy. This debate has been more prolonged than I suppose any of us anticipated. It has been truly said that the subject has been brought forward without any general concert with the Irish Members: We, in reference to such allegations as have been made in this House, place our conduct and reputation before the Irish people for their judgment, and not before the House of Commons. It is perfectly manifest to us that if other Members of this House, of less distinction than the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member f or Birmingham (Mr. John Bright), had used such language as he used, and before such distinguished company—if Irish Members had used such language with respect to Members of the House, they would not have been treated with as much consideration as has been shown to him this evening. The right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Birmingham was at one time very friendly to Ireland—at least, he was supposed to be so, and in those days for his good words and good intentions we gave him credit; but because the Irish people have chosen to go a little further and faster than is pleasing to the right hon. Gentleman, he now turns round on us, and pours out all the bitterness that he has stored up in his old age. We shall leave this matter now, because we have more serious things before us, and we claim that we stand here with a reputation as high and solid as that of the right hon. Gentleman. We have stood by the Irish people in times of trial, suffering, and temptation, and our conduct has conduced much to lighten the oppression of which we disapproved, and break the chains of their bondage. I contend that the allegation that we have not expressed disapprobation of crime and outrage is a false allegation. I maintain that we have done our duty to our country, to justice and to religion; and being satisfied with our conduct in that respect, we can afford to treat as of very little importance such charges made in an after-dinner speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham.

MR. CALLAN

Sir, the object with which I brought forward this Resolution having been attained, I have to say that for the language itself, coming from the quarter it did, I entertained personally the most supreme contempt. I brought forward the Resolution in no sense as an appeal to the House of Commons, either for sympathy or jus- tice. I had no confidence whatever in either the sympathy or justice of this House, and I did not bring it forward for the purpose of narrowing liberty of speech outside or inside Parliament. I brought it forward, on the contrary, for the purpose of extending that liberty of speech, and I am glad that I have attained that object with reference to debate inside this House; for I knew, Sir, when I placed my Notice in your hands, that it would, on a division, meet with overwhelming defeat. But the House has so expressed itself that now it is on record that to charge a Member of this House with disloyalty to the Crown, with perjury, and with sympathy for crime and murder, is within Parliamentary bounds; and you, Sir, having permitted the noble Marquess the present Leader on the Front Opposition Bench to endorse the infamous charges made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright), and the noble Marquess having endorsed those charges without rebuke from you, we, of course, shall be at liberty, when occasion arises, to pay him back in his own coin. Now, as to the words "boundless sympathy with convicts and crime," I am glad to have that as a Parliamentary expression, because I will use that expression, during next week on the Appropriation Bill, with reference to Members on the Front Opposition Bench. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department was present when that language was used by the noble Marquess, and that you, Sir, by allowing it to pass without rebuke, have allowed it to become a Parliamentary expression. If any man not older than myself, were he a Member of this House or not, told me to my face——

MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Member is altogether deviating from the subject before the House.

MR. CALLAN

Then, Sir, I say that, so far from coming here in a whining spirit, I came here to get an endorsement of these words, not believing that they would be repudiated. If the language applied to me in the Westminster Hotel on Friday night, of having boundless sympathy with criminals and murderers, was applied to me under other circumstances, I would resort to the natural application of superior force. So much, Sir, for coming here in a whining spirit. I am also glad to bring forward this Resolution, because after the speech of the noble Marquess, and the speeches of the two right hon. Members for Birmingham, the Irish people in England, and wherever they have the power in their hands, will require no inducement from us not to further the political interests of the noble Marquess and the two right hon. Gentlemen. Having obtained what I desired—namely, an enlargement of the field of discussion, and the adoption of these terms as a Parliamentary expression—I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

MR. SPEAKER

Is it your pleasure that the Motion be withdrawn? [Cries of "No, no!"]

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 23; Noes 154: Majority 131.

AYES.
Barry, J.	Nolan, Colonel J. P.
Biggar, J. G.	O'Connor, A.
Dawson, C.	O'Connor, T. P.
Deasy, J.	O'Kelly, J.
Gray, E. D.	Power, P. J.
Kenny, M. J.	Power, R.
Leahy, J.	Sexton, T.
Leamy, E.	Sullivan, T. D.
Lynch, N,	Synan, E. J.
M'Carthy, J.
M'Carthy, J. H.	TELLERS.
M'Kenna, Sir J. N.	Callan, P.
Marum, E. M.	O'Brien, W.
Molloy, B. C.

NOES.
Acland, rt. hn. Sir T. D.	Bulwer, J. R.
Agnew, W.	Burt, T.
Ainsworth, D.	Buxton, S. C.
Armitstead, G.	Cartwright, W. C.
Asher, A.	Causton, R. K.
Ashley, hon. E. M.	Cavendish, Lord E.
Ashmead-Bartlett, E.	Chamberlain, rt. hn. J.
Atkinson, H. J.	Chaplin, rt. hon. H.
Balfour, rt. hon. A. J.	Cheetham, J. E.
Balfour, rt. hon. J. B.	Churchill, rt. hn. Lord R. H. S.
Balfour, Sir G.
Barran, J.	Clark, S.
Barttelot, Sir W. B.	Cohen, A.
Beach, right hon. Sir M. E. Hicks-	Colebrooke, Sir T. E.
	Corry, J. P.
Beaumont, W. B.	Craig, W. Y.
Beresford, G. De la P.	Cropper, J.
Bolton, J. C.	Cross, rt. hon. Sir R. A.
Borlase, W. C.	Dalrymple, C.
Bourke, right hon. R.	Davey, H
Brand, hon. H. R.	Dawnay, hon. G. C.
Bright, J.	De Worms, Baron H.
Brodrick, hon. W. St. J. F.	Dillwyn, L. L.
	Duff, R. W.
Brogden, A.	Dyke, rt. hn. Sir W. H.
Bryce, J.
Buchanan, T. R.	Errington, Sir G.

Ewart, W.	Morley, S.
Fairbairn, Sir A.	Mundeila, rt. hn. A. J.
Findlater, W.	O'Brien, Sir P.
Fletcher, Sir H.	Palmer, C. M.
Floyer, J.	Parker, C. S.
Foljambe, C. G. S.	Pease, A.
Folkestone, Viscount	Picton, J. A.
Forster, Sir C.	Playfair, rt. hn. Sir L.
Fowler, W.	Plunket, rt. hon. D. R.
Fremantle, hon. T. F.	Power, J. O'C.
Fry, L.	Pulley, J.
Gladstone, H. J.	Ralli, P.
Gladstone, W. H.	Ramsay, J
Goldney, Sir G.	Rathbone, W.
Gordon, Sir A.	Reid, R. T.
Gorst, J. E.	Repton, G. W.
Gower, hon. E. F. L.	Richard, H.
Gregory, G. B.	Ritchie, C. T.
Grey, A. H. G.	Robertson, H.
Grosvenor, right hon. Lord R.	Roe, T.
	Russell, G. W. E.
Hamilton, right hon. Lord G. F.	Russell, T.
	Rylands, P.
Harcourt, rt. hn. Sir W. G. V. V.	St. Aubyn, Sir J.
	Selwin-Ibbetson, rt. hon. Sir H. J.
Hartington, Marq. of
Hastings, G. W.	Severne, J. E.
Hayter, Sir A. D.	Shaw, T.
Henderson, F.	Shield, H.
Herbert, hon. S.	Simon, Serjeant J.
Herschell, Sir F.	Sinclair, W. P.
Hill, Lord A. W.	Smith, rt. hon. W. H.
Hill, T. R.	Smith, S.
Holland, Sir H. T.	Stanhope, rt. hon. E.
Hollond, J. R.	Stanley, rt. hon. Col. F.
Holmes, rt. hon. H.	Stanley, hon. E. L.
Hopwood, C. H.	Stuart, J.
Ince, H. B.	Summers, W.
Jenkins, Sir J. J.	Sutherland, T.
Jenkins, D. J.	Tavistock, Marquess of
Kensington, rt. hn. Lord	Tennant, Sir C.
	Tollemache, H. J.
Kinnear, J.	Trevelyan, rt. hn. G. O.
Labouchere, H.	Waddy, S. D.
Lawrence, Sir J. C.	Waugh, E.
Lawrence, W.	Webster, Sir R. E.
Lawson, Sir W.	Webster, J.
Lewisham, Viscount	West, H. W.
M'Arthur, A.	Whitbread, S.
M'Clure, Sir T.	Williamson, S.
M'Coan, J. C.	Wodehouse, E. R.
M'Lagan, P.	Woodall, W.
Manners, rt. hon. Lord J. J. R.	Wortley, C. B. Stuart-
Mappin, F. T.	TELLERS.
Marjoribanks, hon. E.	Akers-Douglas, A.
Morley, A.	Walrond, Col. W. H.

Bill read the third time, and passed.