PRIVILEGE—MR. HOLMES AND "THE TIMES" NEWSPAPER (Hansard, 2 May 1887)

§ MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

I rise, Sir, for the purpose of calling the attention of the House to a matter which I conceive to be a question of Privilege. I refer to certain statements which appeared in The Times newspaper on Saturday last reflecting on a right hon. and learned Member of this House in connection with the discharge of his functions in this House as a Member of the House. I will only read a small portion of the article. The words of which I complain are these— Common sense surely prescribed scrupulous adhesion to precedent in all non-essential matters; but common sense seems to be the very last quality that enters into the drafting of an Act of Parliament. After the sworn information wag settled Mr. Healy pounced upon the use of the word 'offence' in one line to indicate the thing called a crime in another. It is a small matter, perhaps; but anybody, except a draftsman of a Bill, would have taken one word or the other and stuck to it, were it only as a matter of symmetry. On this question of offence or crime an excited wrangle took place. It might very likely have taken place all the same had the Government held uniform language in the Bill; but they would, at all events, have occupied a more logical and consistent position. Then a little later the Attorney General for Ireland filled the Parnellites with exultation by blundering into something which looked very like an admission that the Bill creates new crimes. Every candid person, of course, knows what that maladroit official wanted to say, and ought to have said—namely, that the Procedure Clause of the Bill applies improved methods of detection to crimes committed before its passing; but does not punish as a crime any act that was not a crime when committed. But then they are not candid persoms with whom the Government have to deal; and one of the Irish Law Officers floundering helplessly among his own confused ideas and ill-chosen phrases was a spectacle which filled the Parnellites with the wildest delight. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that it might be a painful matter for the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Holmes) to have to draw attention himself to so gross an attack upon him.