HC Deb 22 April 1887 vol 313 cc1632-42
THE MARQUESS OF HAETTNGTON (Lancashire, Rossendale)

Sir, I wish, with the permission of the House, to make a very short personal statement with reference to one of a similar character made yesterday by the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) when I was unfortunately absent. The hon. Member is reported to have said that on Monday last I stated in this House— That two gentlemen, who were well known and who were acting for months under my (Mr. Dillon's) direction, wont about Ireland counselling assassination, and when I directed his attention to the fact that these gentlemen wore responsible to me and acted under my instructions he repeated the charge, emphasized it, and said that those charges were made in the period to which I refer. And the hon. Member further said— I think I am entitled to ask that he "—that is myself—"shall furnish mo with the particulars of dates, and extracts from speeches, and references to the circumstances to which he alluded, when I shall be able to show that his statement is entirely without foundation. Now, Sir, on Monday last I was referring to certain statements which had been made in The Times newspaper. The importance of those statements and the sufficiency of the evidence by which they are supported are matters of opinion, and, undoubtedly, may be questions of argument in this House; but I submit that I was perfectly entitled, as a point of Order, to make reference to the statements which have been published in The Times newspaper; and, further, that I was morally justified, under the circumstances, in making the reference to them that I did. Further, I submit to the House that, having stated what was the source of my information, and what was the authority on which those statements had been made, I was not bound, nor was it in any way necessary for me, to attempt to prove or substantiate the statements which had been made. Had I made the charge entirely upon my own responsibility, the case, it seems to me, would have been altogether different. But, having repeatedly pointed out that I was only referring to the statements which had been made in The Times, it appeared to me, and still appears to me, that there was no responsibility resting on me to prove or substantiate those statements. Now, Sir, the statements I must point out are not in any sense my statements, but statements made on the responsibility of The Times. Neither I nor, as far as I am aware, The Times have made any charge against the hon. Member for East Mayo. What I did was to call attention to certain allegations which have been made in that newspaper. I said— The assertion made in The Times was that of these men I have mentioned some have in speeches advocated assassination and that others have been implicated in conspiracies of murder as well. The hon. Member interrupted me and said— I was the chief organizer of the Land League, and these gentlemen acted under me during all the time they were agents of the Association, and I wish to ask the noble Marquess when they made such speeches. I did not, as the hon. Member yesterday stated, repeat or emphasize the charge; but what I proceeded to do was, on the spur of the moment, to give the hon. Member the references he desired. From what the hon. Member is reported to have said yesterday, I infer that he referred especially to the names of two gentlemen who had been acting under him when he was the chief organizer of the Land League. I believe, but am not sure, that he referred only to Boyton and Sheridan. If he refers to other persons, whose names I have mentioned, I shall be able also to give him the references on which I relied. These references are entirely contained in the articles in The Times newspaper. [Cries of "Oh!" and derisive cheers from the Irish Members.] I think I have already indicated that I shall confine myself entirely to the references which are contained in those articles, because it was entirely to those articles that I was referring; and if I were to attempt to substantiate those charges and allegations made in The Times by going outside the references they themselves have made I should be making myself responsible, which I have not done, for the charges themselves. I can give the hon. Member the references in The Times referring to Boyton, and the first of those references is a speech delivered by Boyton on March 5, 1881. The Times article—page 16 of the pamphlet—says— This paid officer of the Constitutional movement said—We have seen plenty of landlords and agents that deserve to be shot at any man's hands. I have always denounced the commission of outrages by night; but meet him in the broad daylight, and if you must blow out his brains blow them out in the daytime.' Mr. Parnell, it is true, repudiated this passage on behalf of his agent. But Mr. Forster utterly rejected Mr. Boyton's words even when endorsed by his principal, and we have already seen reason to doubt the perfect fidelity of Mr. Parnell's reminiscences.

ME. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

What is the date of that speech?

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

I have already said that it was delivered on the 5th of March, 1881. There is another reference to another speech, which appears to have been made earlier—namely, in May, 1880— 'There was a little story,' observes the same speaker at Dunmanway, County Cork, in May, 1880, 'told by Mr. Parnell, at a meeting in the Rotunda, at the conclusion of his address, to the effect that a certain American gentleman came upon the platform and said—''Parnell, there is 25 dollars, five for bread and 20 for lead." Now that simple little bit of humour has put your hereditary enemy in a great flutter.….I am authorized to tell you here.….that those 20 dollars are perfectly safe, and that.….we are not going to tell Mr. Forster what we are going to do with the 20 dollars that have since swelled into 20,000.' That is the reference made by The Times newspaper to Mr. Boyton. With regard to Sheridan, my reference was to the following extract from a speech of his on the 1st of August, I believe 1880; but I am not absolutely clear whether the date was 1880 or 1881. The passage will be found on page 17 of the pamphlet— On the 1st of August Mr. P. J. Sheridan, the 'chief organizer in Connaught,' urged the people to assert their rights, and if they did not got them through their Members of Parliament, he would ask them to ring out their voices from the muzzles of Minie rifles. The references to P. J. Sheridan are not references confined to his speeches. I find on page 26 of The Times pamphlet that an allusion is made to what passed between Captain O'Shea and Mr. Forster in relation to the release of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) from Kilmainham. The Times pamphlet says— Captain O'Shea told Mr. Forster how the 'Constitutional organization' would be adapted to prevent crime. 'The conspiracy (or organization), he said, which had been used to get up Boycotting and outrages will now be used to put them down.' He added that 'Parnell hoped to make use of a certain person and get him back from abroad, as he knew all the details (of conspiracy or agitation) in the West.' That person's name was P. J. Sheridan, Mr. Parnell's sometime colleague on the Central League. He was at this period in disguise, 'coming backwards and forwards from Egan to the outrage-mongers in the West.' The next reference is at page 28 of the same pamphlet, and is connected with the trials which took place. It has reference to the informer Carey, and says— A man named Farrell turned Queen's evidence. Criminals more guilty and deeper in the conspiracy grew uneasy for their necks. Among the prisoners was James Carey, who had been just elected a Town Councillor for Dublin on the recommendation of Mr. William O'Brien, as a candidate 'untrammelled with Castle influence.' This man was suddenly transferred from the dock to the witness table. He appalled the civilized world with the mysteries of iniquity he in part revealed. Carey swore that he had been a Fenian, and that Thomas Brennan, secretary to Mr. Parnell's 'Constitutional organization,' had previously filled that same office in the ranks of the Fenian Brotherhood. He swore that in November, 1881, a 'Mr. Walsh,' from the North of England, came over to establish 'a Society that would make history.' This Society was called 'The Irish Invincibles;' its object was 'to remove all tyrants from the country,' and the Park murders and the murderous attacks on Mr. Justice Lawson and Mr. Field were its work. Carey swore that Walsh introduced him to P. J. Sheridan, then disguised as 'the Rev. Father Murphy;' that Sheridan—the 'chief organizer' of the 'Constitutional agitation' in Connaught—stated he 'had been in the country to extend the branches of the Invincibles;' and that on another occasion this colleague and paid officer of Mr. Parnell undertook to see to the despatch of arms to the murderers from London. The only other remaining reference to P. J. Sheridan to which I shall call attention is on pages 29 and 30 of the same pamphlet. It is thus— In March a second gang of murderous conspirators, known as the 'Patriotic Brotherhood,' were tried at the Antrim Assizes. It was proved that P. J. Sheridan, 'our great organizer in Mayo,' as the chief local assassin styled him, had taken a principal part in forming this Association—' an Association,' said Mr. Justice Lawson, 'avowedly established for the purpose of committing murder.' Now, Sir, I believe I am correct in saying that it was in reference to Boyton and Sheridan that the hon. Member called on me to give references in support of the allegations to which I have referred. I have done so from the articles in The Times, to which I referred at the time; and I submit, Sir, I have given bvsatisfaction to the hon. Member, and in doing that I have done all that I am called upon to do in reply to the statement which the hon. Member made last night.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

I trust I may be permitted to give an answer to the remarks of the noble Marquess. I rise, under somewhat unusual circumstances, to say a few words of personal explanation after the remarks of the noble Marquess. Now, Sir, I do not complain of the conduct of the noble Marquess now. On the contrary, I thank him, because he has given me an opportunity of meeting these charges in a detailed fashion and replying to them; but I am bound to say I cannot understand on what principle he lays down this proposition—that a Gentleman, a Member of this House, and, above all, a Member of this House commanding such widespread attention in the country as the noble Marquess, is entitled to get up in this House and give currency by his speeches to the foulest and most criminal charges against other Members of the House, stating that he considers because he constantly referred to these charges not as made on his own responsibility, but as having appeared in The Times newspaper, that he, therefore, washes his hands of all responsibility for repeating them. I must, at the outset, express my entire dissent from any such proposition. The Times newspaper is one thing, the noble Marquess is another. I have been assailed in The Times newspaper by these articles; and The Times newspaper might have continued to reprint them to the Day of Judgment, and I never should have taken any notice of them. In this wretched publication, which I yesterday saw for the first time, having invested 1d. in it, I read an account of the quotations given by the noble Marquess, and this wretched publication would have gone unnoticed by me for ever unless the statements had been repeated by the noble Marquess as a Member of this House, and one whose character before the country requires that I should take notice of them. I must say that I do not consider it is fair for any Member of this House, and especially for a noble Lord in the position of the noble Marquess, to take that stand and say that he is entitled to repeat the charges, however unfounded and foul they may have been because his contention is that he never looked into the original evidence at all—and, in the course of debate in this House, to repeat those charges, no matter how unfounded, foul, and dishonouring they may be, and to give them the widespread publicity which attaches to every speech made by him. I gladly recognize in the opportunity offered to me by the statement he has made to-night, that the noble Marquess has done everything in his power to make amends. I am perfectly ready now, he having given me the references to the speeches, though I feel considerable difficulty in going into this matter in detail—and yet I do not see that I have a choice—but I am ready now to show that these charges are absolutely and utterly unfounded. The first charge, he stated—and in my own justification for intervening the other night I may point out that when he said that no attack has been made on the Member for East Mayo, but on these two gentlemen, it was well known that in attacking them he was making a personal attack on me, because they acted on my instructions as agents for the League—referred to a speech of Mr. Boyton on the 5th of March, 1881. Mr. Boyton was then acting as my agent. He delivered a speech in the County Kerry, for which he was arrested on the 9th of March and was committed to Kilmainham Gaol, From that hour to this I have not been responsible for anything he did. Therefore, if that was a true reference, no opportunity was ever given to him to account for that speech, for he was arrested a few days afterwards in consequence of having delivered it, and he never afterwards acted as agent for the Land League in Ireland. But I am bound to say, if that is the only reference to Mr. Boyton, that when I did get an opportunity—for I also was arrested and committed to prison at the time he was in Kilmainham—I had never heard of the cause of his arrest until the debate in this House, when Mr. Forster produced a police report of the speech, and read out these very words as a justification of Mr. Boyton's arrest—words which I never heard of until that day. I challenged Mr. Boyton afterwards, and he assured me that he never uttered such words; and the police reports, as the House will agree, have in many cases proved to be grossly and scandalously incorrect, as in the case of the Parnell trial. He told me that the report was grossly and scandalously incorrect. But even if he did use the words, the point I want to make is that I was not responsible for them. He was immediately arrested for making the speech, and was never afterwards an agent of the League, That is one instance of the fairness of these charges. That is the only charge made against Mr. Boyton, except a vague charge about his telling a story of the man in America who was reported to have sent 25 dollars, and to have said that five of them were for bread and 20 for lead. He made some joke about this. I was present, and we all knew what it was he meant. These men were men who belonged to the physical force party in America, as most of our people there did, and it meant that if Mr. Parnell stirred up a conspiracy in Ireland, there were five dollars to go for bread and 20 to supply for overthrowing the Government. The meaning of that was thoroughly well understood. The question of assassination never entered into the matter at all. That disposes of the second charge. I come now to the reference given to Mr. Sheridan. It is to the 1st of August, 1880. On that day Mr. Sheridan made a speech, I believe before he was appointed an agent of the League, advising the people to try to get their demands Constitutionally through Members of Parliament. He said that if they could do that he should be glad, and if they failed, then they should ring out their demands through Minié rifles. Well, under the influence of strong passion, I have said something of the same kind in this House myself. I do not say that it was a wise or a sensible thing; but to say that it is an incitement to assassination is the most base calumny that could be uttered. Mr. Sheridan was known to the people, and had long associated with the physical force party, and the meaning was this— I have now joined the Parliamentary Party, and I call upon you to act with them and try Parliamentary methods, and if you do not succeed I shall advise you to go back to the old physical force party. That was the distinct meaning of Mr. Sheridan, and the charge that that was an incitement to assassination is the basest attempt to twist the meaning of words which I have ever heard in my life. The meaning is manifest, and the people thoroughly understood the meaning of it. I am reluctantly obliged, as the noble Marquess went on and gave other references, to follow him. Now, first with regard to the references from this precious penny pamphlet. On page 26 there is reported a conversation with Mr. Forster, relating to what took place between himself and Captain O'Shea. That matter has been fully threshed out in this House half-a-dozen times already, and to bring it forward at this time of day as a fresh charge against the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) or myself is so absurd that I hardly think it worth while to enter into it.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

I wish to point out that I certainly made no charge against the hon. Member, or against the hon. Member for the City of Cork. The Times made these charges.

MR. DILLON

The Times concludes its articles by saying that, at the time we managed the Land. League, we associated with and used assassins. That is the winding up and conclusion of the whole matter. The statement is that all the executive of the League were in the habit of associating with and using assassins, and it is for that reason that these charges are made against well-known men. The whole basis and superstructure of The Times article rests upon that allegation—that these men acted as our agents. I admit that they did act as our agents. But I say that this is a matter which has been fully dealt with over and over again. Now I come to the reference on page 28, where the noble Marquess read a passage to the effect that— Carey swore that he had been a Fenian, and that Thomas Brennan, secretary to Mr. Parnell's 'Constitutional organization,' had previously filled that same office in the ranks of the Fenian Brotherhood. He swore that in November, 1881, a 'Mr. Walsh,' from the North of England, came over to establish a 'Society that would make history.' This Society was called 'The Irish Invincibles;' its object was to remove all tyrants from the country. Now, there are no dates given to this. That is an old trick of The Times. Mr. P. J. Sheridan ceased to have any connection with the Constitutional organization in the first week in April, 1881, when he was arrested and put in Kilmainham Gaol. From that day forward he had no connection with the Constitutional organization, nor with the hon. Member for the City of Cork, and the date to which reference is given—namely, the evidence of Carey—is the month of November, 1881, exactly six months after Mr. Sheridan had ceased to have any connection with the organization of the Land League, and one month after the Constitutional organization had been dissolved. This is the whole theory, and we are to be held responsible to all futurity for the acts of men who were our agents, and who may have adopted other courses after our organization broke up. The next reference is to page 29, and the extract is as follows:— In March a second gang of murderous conspirators, known as the 'Patriotic Brotherhood,' were tried at the Antrim Assizes. It was proved that P. J. Sheridan, 'our great orga- nizer in Mayo,' as the chief local assassin styled him, had taken a principal part in forming-this Association—'an Association,' said Mr. Justice Lawson, 'avowedly established for the purpose of committing murder.' Not only was this murder club organized by one of Mr. Parnell's official 'chief organizers,' but its victims were selected by Mr. Parnell's organization. The Brotherhood kept regular books. 'Under date May 24, 1882,' the Judge noted in his charge, 'there was the entry—"At the request of the Land League, conveyed through Thomas Murphy, men have been worn in specially to kill Mr. Brooke. Now, anybody reading that extract would suppose that "our great organizer in Mayo" was the organizer of the Constitutional Association. The organization is stated to have been re-founded in the spring of 1882, six months after Mr. Forster had suppressed the Land League, and after Mr. Sheridan had ceased to act as agent of the League. The Times goes on to say that we pointed out by this organization the persons who were to be assassinated, and that men had been sworn in specially to kill Mr. Brooke. That proves that the whole business was a bogus transaction, because on the 28th of May, 1882, the Land League had ceased to exist for more than six months. I regret that I should have been compelled to take up the time of the House with this statement, and I once more beg to protest against the practice which has arisen in this House of bringing forward charges of this nature, a practice which, if continued, must be destructive of all order and decency of debate.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL (Paddington, S.)

May I put a question to the Government? I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether it would be possible to make inquiry and see whether there exists among the records in Dublin Castle any copy of the Crown indictment and depositions of the Crown witnesses in the State trial which took place in Dublin in 1881, and also a copy of the evidence of the Crown witnesses in the trial of the Invincibles, which took place in 1883? I would further ask whether it is possible to produce a copy of the Crown indictment, and the depositions of the Crown witnesses with regard to the Assizes at Antrim, to which attention has been drawn; and whether it would be possible to summarize or produce in extenso these documents, and lay them on the table as a Parliamentary Paper?

THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)

In answer to the question of my noble Friend, I have to say that I will communicate at once with the Law Officers of the Crown in Ireland, and ascertain whether it is possible to comply with the suggestion he has made.

MR. JOHN MORLEY (Newcastle-on-Tyne)

Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that he thinks it is possible to lay the depositions before Parliament?

MR. W. H. SMITH

I do not say whether it is possible or right to do so; but I will communicate with the Law Officers of the Crown upon the subject.