SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.

HC Deb 02 September 1887 vol 320 cc922-1065

SUPPLY—considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

CLASS III.—LAW AND JUSTICE.

(1.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding' £38,508, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will coma in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1888, of Criminal Prosecutions and other Law Charges in Ireland, including certain Allowances under the Act 15 and 16 Vic. c. 83.

MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.)

There are several matters connected with this Vote which I wish to bring under the notice of the Committee. In the first place, I find that a recommendation from the Treasury has been entirely ignored both by the Irish Office and by the Treasury themselves. The recommendation to which I refer was made considerably over 12 months ago. It was made when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley) was Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, but it was followed up by another, while the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) was Chief Secretary. It certainly seems to be somewhat strange that although a year and a-half have elapsed since the recommendation was made, the same sum appears in the Estimates for the salary of the Attorney General for Ireland, as if the recommendation of the Treasury had never been made. It would not perhaps have been so strange if the recommendation had been, made by the Treasury, and the Irish Office had not acted upon it; but it was in the power of the Treasury itself to determine what sum should be paid. I think the Committee are entitled to look closely into the matter. So long as March, 1886, a correspondence passed between the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the right hon. Gentleman the then Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) in regard to the salary of the Attorney General for Ireland, and the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury was strongly of opinion that it ought to be reduced from £5,000 to £4,000 for non-contentious business, while for contentious business a liberal scale of fees should be allowed. Soon after this correspondence was entered into a change of Government took place. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne went out of Office, and he was succeeded as Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol, and I find that a correspondence passed 12 months ago—in August,1886—between the right hon. Gentleman and the Treasury upon this very question. The Treasury still adhered to their recommendation that the salary should be fixed at £4,000, and an understanding seems to have been arrived at, as a kind of compromise, that so long as the right hon. and learned Gentleman who is now Mr. Justice Holmes occupied the position, the salary should remain unaltered, and therefore it was allowed to stand at £5,000. But the Estimates we are now considering are for the financial year ending the 31st of March next, and a change in the Office of Attorney General has very recently taken place. For my own part, I think there ought to be a Select Committee appointed to examine these Estimates, especially in regard to Ireland. In this instance alone it is palpable that as flagrant a piece of jobbery has been perpetrated as it is possible to imagine. What are the facts of the case? Mr. Justice Holmes was made a Judge when three months of the financial year had elapsed, and the reduction recommended by the Treasury ought to have been made; but the Committee are now asked to vote a sum of £750 over and above what the present occupant of the Office is entitled to and above what the Secretary to the Treasury recommended a year and a-half ago. But the jobbery does not end here. I can understand the entente cordiale which now exists between the Office of the Attorney General and the Treasury and other Offices connected with the Irish Executive. Of course, all notions of cheese - paring-economy are carefully kept out of view, but I think the Committee are entitled to look at the matter in a very different light. They have a right to consider the recommendation which the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury made to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary as far back as a year and a-half ago, and which related to the very item which is here presented in this Estimate. I have here a copy of the correspondence between the Treasury and the Irish Office as to the remuneration of the Attorney and Solicitor General for Ireland, and I think the best course I can take is to read it to the Committed in order to explain the matter to which it refers. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, writing to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland on the 10th of April, 1886, says— Their Lordships have very carefully considered the facts and statistics on which the proposals of the Irish Government are founded, and they are prepared to assent to the following arrangements:—From the 1st instant, the salaries and allowances now paid to the Law Officers shall cease, and in their stead shall he paid the following salaries to he annually voted by Parliament. (1.) To the present Attorney General £5,000 a-year, to be reduced in the case of all future holders of the Office to £4,000 a-year. (2.) To the Solicitor General, £2,000 a-year. These salaries shall cover all business of whatever kind done for any Department of Government, except such business as is specially described below as contentious business. They cannot consent, however, to the present scale of salary being altered in the case of future holders of the Office, as they are decidedly of opinion that it is sufficient to command the services of an officer in all respects competent to discharge the duties of the Office. Appended to the letter is an ample list of the fees prescribed for any contentious business which may devolve upon the Attorney General; and the reason why the Treasury recommend the reduction of the salary is fully and clearly statod—namely, because— They are decidedly of opinion that it is sufficient to command the services of an officer in all respects competent to discharge the duties of the Office. The then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland— Lord Aberdeen—demurred to the recommendation of the Treasury, as will be seen from the letter of the Under Secretary for Ireland to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury dated— Dublin Castle, May 3, 1886. His Excellency directs me to state that there is one point only in their Lordships' letter of the 10th instant, which he finds himself unable to accept, and that is the proposed reduction of the salary of £5,000 a-year sanctioned for the present Attorney General to £4,000 in the case of all future appointments. But the Treasury adhered to their recommendation, and on the 12th of May, 1886, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury wrote the following letter to the Under Secretary for Ireland: — I am to request you to inform His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant that after carefully considering the argument put forward by the Irish Government, my Lords see no reason for departing from the view expressed in their letter of the 10th ultimo, that the salary of any future Attorney General should be £4,000 per annum, and they trust that His Excellency will be able to concur with them in this matter. In a subsequent letter they say— When to these considerations in added the right enjoyed by the Attorney General to promotion to the Judicial Bench if any vacancy should occur during his tenure of Office, my Lords feel very strongly that a salary of £ 1,000 a-year, with the other conditions of the appointment, is amply sufficient to command the services of the most eminent leaders of the Bar in Ireland. Nevertheless, there has been a change in the Office of Attorney General, and the main portion of the recommendation of the Treasury that the salary should be reduced from £5,000 to £4,000 has not been acted upon. As yet we have received no information as to the reason which has induced the Treasury to give way on so important a point, and why this recommendation, made a year and a half ago, has not been carried out. I should be the last person to underrate the eminent ability of the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson) who is the present holder of the Office. He is, no doubt, an eminent lawyer and a gentleman in the fullest degree competent to advise the Irish Executive, and to defend in this House the action of the Government. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the salary of £5,000 which is paid for the services of the right hon. and learned Gentleman is a very large one, and that it has been condemned by the Treasury as exorbitant. It must also be borne in mind that the right hon. and learned Attorney General has the advantage of receiving large and liberal fees for the contentious business he is called upon to conduct. No doubt, it is true that the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland has very little opportunity of carrying on a private practice seeing that it is essential for him to be absent from Ireland while he is discharging his Parliamentary duties. At the same time, I agree with the Treasury that a salary of £1,000 a-year together with the other sources of remuneration which are open to him, and the fees which he receives for conducting contentious business, are ample for any services he is called upon to perform. I confess that I have been surprised to find this item of £5,000 presented in the present Estimate in connection with the Office of Attorney General after the recommendation of the Treasury. Of course, we must not look too closely into the relations which exist between the Irish Officers and the present Treasury Bench; but I maintain that it is the business of this Committee when we find the Government napping to bring them to their senses. I believe that in the interests of economy what was wise a year and a-half ago is none the less wise now. It is to be regretted that the Estimates have been brought on for discussion at so late a period of the year, when a large number of Members are absent, and when it is impossible to give the matter that close attention which it would otherwise have received. Personally, I very much regret the circumstance, because I believe that if the Vote could have been brought under the notice of the Committee at an earlier period, they would have viewed with great jealousy the setting aside of a recommendation made by the Treasury themselves for the sole purpose of securing economy and efficiency in the administration of the country. I regret to find that the Government do not feel themselves in a position to carry out a recommendation to which they are themselves parties, and I am afraid that their reason for not doing so is obvious. I think I am fairly entitled to ask why the recommendation of the Treasury for the reduction of the salary has not been carried out, and why the Committee should now be asked to vote a sum of £5,000, when the Treasury has said that £4,000 a-year is adequate?

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)

The hon. Gentleman asks why the Government have not carried out the recommendation of the Treasury to reduce the salary of the Attorney General for Ireland from £5,000 to £4,000 whenever a vacancy arose. The reason why the Government have not carried out the recommendation is because they yielded to the very strong representations made on the subject by myself, as representing the Irish Government; and in giving that advice I was only following the precedent set by my Predecessors in Office, who, irrespective of Party, have always taken the view which I myself take very strongly. The hon. Gentleman has called the attention of the Committee to the recommendation of the Treasury; but I do not know whether he gave the Committee to understand—I rather gather that he did not—how great a reduction has taken place in the fees received by the Attorney General. Looking at a table of the emoluments of the Office which has been drawn up, I observe that from 1877 to 1885 in no case did the amount received by the Attorney General for Ireland sink below £6,000 a-year. There were two cases in which it was above £9,000, and two in which it was above £7,000, the average of the salary during those years being considerably above £7,000 per annum. In the future it may be taken that the salary— fees for contentious business included— will never reach, not £9,000 or £7,000, but not even £6,000. An enormous reduction, therefore, has already been made in the salaries of the Irish Law Officers of the Crown, and the question now before the Committee is whether that reduction should be carried further. In my opinion, it ought not to be carried further in view of the fact that an Irish Law Officer has to give up all his private practice when he accepts Office, and finds it altogether lost when he leaves Office. The Committee must remember that the work of the Irish Attorney General is one which is of so prodigious a character that it occupies his whole time: he has no time for private practice, but his entire time is taken up in the onerous duty of advising and supporting the Government. Compare the business of the Irish and English Law Officers. I have had some opportunity of making myself acquainted both with the duties of the Irish and of the Scotch Law Officers, and I would point out, in the case both of the Irish and the Scotch Law Officers of the Crown, that Dublin and Edinburgh are separated by long distances from London, where the greater part of the duties of the Office must necessarily be carried on. Therefore, when a gentleman accepts the position of Irish or Scotch Law Officer, he at once finds himself deprived of the greater part of his private practice, while an English Law Officer is left in the full enjoyment of his. I think the Committee will agree with me that this ought to be marked by a corresponding difference in the amount of salary, and I am quite satisfied that the amount of salary received by the Attorney General is not equal to the earnings of a successful lawyer from private practice. In addition to this, we must bear in mind the fact that he has to give up the whole of his private practice.

An hon. MEMBER

Not all.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Well, practically all. There may be cases in which a man who has been in command of a large private practice may be able to resume it when he goes back to Dublin; but such cases are, I believe, very rare. Those in which private practice is shut out beyond recovery, are, however, most frequent. Then, again, the work which the Attorney General for Ireland has to do is of the most arduous nature, and I think it would be contrary to our instincts of common justice to send him back, upon a change of Office, to his profession, with the hopeless prospect of attempting to regain his private practice. I believe I am accurately stating the view of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley), who was my Predecessor in the Office of Chief Secretary, when I say that he entirely shares my view that the salary should be maintained.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR (Kincardine)

I have no opinion to express in regard to the capacity either of the Attorney General for England, of the Lord Advocate, or of the Attorney General for Ireland; but I want to know why the order of the Treasury to reduce the salary of the Irish Attorney General to £4,000 on the next vacancy has not been carried out? Is the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) responsible for the non-observance of the recommendation made by his own Department? Did it rest with the Auditor General?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I think I can satisfy the hon. and gallant Gentleman upon that subject. It did not rest with the Auditor General. If he will read the last letter which appears in the Correspondence, he will find that it is as follows: — I have laid before the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury your letter of the 30th ultimo, referring to the correspondence which passed last year as to the future salary and emoluments of the Irish Law Officers, and conveying the recommendation of His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant that the salary of the Attorney General should now be fixed at £5,000 instead of £4,000, the rate then sanctioned by this Board. In reply, I am to state that Her Majesty's Advisers, in view of the very strong opinion again urged by His Excellency, assent to the appointment, in the room of Mr. Holmes, who has become a Judge of the High Court, being made at the salary of £5,000 a-year, together with fees on the usual professional scale for contentious business. Their Lordships of the Treasury will accordingly be prepared to give instructions for the payment of the salary at the above rate to the officer now to be appointed.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

I do not recollect the Correspondence now quoted having been laid before the House. In the letter just read by the right hon. Gentleman Mr. Holmes is mentioned as having vacated the Office, and I want to know whether the letter refers solely to the last holder?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

No; to the present holder.

MR. M. J. KENNY (Tyrone, Mid)

I should like to know what is meant by the term "the present Attorney General?" At the time the Estimates were presented "the present Attorney General" was Mr. Hugh Holmes, and not the right hon. and learned Gentleman who now holds the Office. When an Irish barrister is appointed Attorney General, he probably gives up a private practice worth, perhaps, £3,000 a-year for a position worth at least £0,000 or £8,000 a-year. That is the position of every Gentleman who has held the Office — namely, that he gives up his private practice, and takes a position which gives him two or three times what he was ever able to obtain as a private practitioner. The right hon. Gentleman says that a high salary is necessary to compensate the Attorney General when he finds it necessary to go back to the Bar and endeavour to piece up his broken private practice. But that is not really the case. The rule in nine cases out of 10 is that the Irish Attorney General does not go back to a broken-up private practice, but he jumps at once to the Bench. The only instance to the contrary which has occurred for some time is, I believe, that of Mr. Samuel Walker, who was Attorney General to the late Government. But whenever a Liberal Government returns to power Mr. Samuel Walker will be Attorney General again. I have read very carefully the Correspondence which has passed between the Treasury and the Irish Office on this question, and I find it expressly stipulated that although the salary of Mr. Holmes was not to be interfered with whenever a vacancy occurred the salary should be reduced from £5,000 to £4,000. Mr. Holmes became Solicitor General for Ireland in 1885, and by good fortune succeeded rapidly to the position of Attorney General, thereby becoming perfectly safe for a seat on the Irish Bench. He was, therefore, not in the position of having the contingency before him of having to go back to Ireland to restore a broken-up practice. The point in regard to salary appears to have been strained in regard to Mr. Holmes, who, having been Solicitor General, may appear to have had some claim to consideration.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The salary is not personal to the holder of the Office.

MR. M. J. KENNY

At any rate, according to the recommendation of the Treasury the higher salary was to cease with Mr. Holmes. I am afraid that all the good resolutions which have been made for the reduction of expenditure when Offices fall vacant have resulted in a very small amount of economy. There is a decrease in the present Vote of something like £530; but I wish to point out that the amount of the Vote does not appear to have been affected by the apparent reduction in the nominal salary of the Irish Attorney General, the amount of that reduction having possibly been made up under the head of Miscellaneous Charges, which appear to have increased during the year by a sum of £5,000. I notice also that during the present year certain fees under the head of Law Expenses, which were promised to be reduced, still remain at the same figure. The fact is that when once the expenditure for legal matters reaches a certain level it is extremely difficult to drag it below that level. I know how difficult it is to effect economy except by those who are responsible for the preparation of the Estimate; but I know also the great ease by which they can cut down these charges, and that was the reason which induced me to rise for the purpose of calling attention to the Estimate. Let me go a step further. The Irish Legal Advisers of the Government never represent the feeling of the Irish people. The right hon. and learned Gentleman who a few months ago was Solicitor General for Ireland, and who is now Attorney General, would not have been a Member of this House but for the fact that he was returned for the Walton Division of Liverpool. A gentleman occupying that distinguished position knows that he must gird himself up for a fight against the liberties of the Irish nation, and he knows also that no Irish popular constituency would return him as their Representative. He gives up no private practice except for his own advantage, and he would never leave Dublin except to come over here as one of the Law Advisers of the Crown. I believe that in the long run these gentlemen find that they are able to make a good deal more money by sacrificing their private practice.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

I think I never read a more charming Correspondence, and I only rise for the purpose of pointing out that while the Liberal Governments have invariably to put up with snubs from the Treasury, as soon as a Tory Government comes into Office they have no difficulty in extracting whatever money they desire. This charming incident is chiefly remarkable for its political significance. It is to this Correspondence that we owe the transportation of Sir Robert Hamilton to Van Diemen's Land. It is a popular error to suppose that Sir Robert Hamilton was banished because he was a Home Ruler.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. and learned Member knows that this has no relation to the Vote.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I will not refer to it further. I will only note the fact that the moment every Irish Secretary has come into the field he has had to give way. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley) succumbed early in the fight. Then a new Ruler came in— the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) — and, although months had elapsed, the very day following his arrival in Dublin Castle—on the 6th of August—he took up the Correspondence just as if nothing had happened. Nothing can be more instructive than the way in which the right hon. Member for West Bristol commenced this Correspondence. The right hon. Gentleman only reached the Castle on the night of the 5th of August, and on the 6th he got up at 6 in the morning to open this correspondence. He writes:— I have to inform the Secretary to Her Majesty's Treasury that I have had before me the question of the remuneration of the Irish Law Officers of the Crown. Although Belfast was in a state of riot and turmoil, the first thing the right hon. Gentleman had before him was the important question of the salary of the Attorney General. I must congratulate the Attorney Generals for Ireland on the admirable way in which they are looked after, and I trust it will continue. I hope the Government will devote similar attention to matters of equal importance, especially the serious inconvenience and loss involved in the present arrangements for the Winter Assizes, under which witnesses have in many cases to go great distances, and have no means of knowing when the cases in which they are required to give evidence are likely to come on. I have heard of cases where witnesses have had to go into the workhouse to eat their Christmas dinners while awaiting the trial of a prisoner. The present system may be convenient to the Court, and convenient to the Bar; but the first study should be the convenience of the poor. No doubt, it is convenient to group all Leinster cases and try them in Dublin; but it is not fair to the prisoners. There is one other matter to which I wish to invite the attention of the Government. I see in the Estimate an item of £300 for the expenses of juries at Assizes. I blame the Government for having allowed the Bill of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lockwood) to be thrown out in the House of Lords. It would have obviated the necessity for juries being locked up in cases of felony, and I would earnestly impress upon the Government the necessity of allowing some such measure as that to be passed, and of giving the Judge the right of allowing a jury to go home in the event of a trial not being concluded without locking them up. The Bill of my hon. and learned Friend passed this House unanimously, but it was thrown out in the House of Lords, because they would not entrust the Judge with a discretionary power to decide in what cases juries ought to be locked up. I maintain that in charges of felony of a trumpery character it would be right and proper to allow persons serving on a jury to return to their homes. The result of the rejection of the Bill of my hon. and learned Friend is that we are now called on to pay this sum of £300. I trust the Committee will take a financial and economical view of the matter, and will bring some pressure to bear upon the Government with the view of passing the Bill which the House of Lords have rejected. I should like to know whether any portion of this sum was spent in improperly supplying jurors with refreshments? I have heard of a case in the County Court in which, in the trial of prisoners under the Crimes Act, a good convicting jury were supplied with champagne; and I should therefore like to know whether this sum of £300 includes any sum for refreshments? If such a practice exists, I think it ought to be abandoned. I do not think it right that money should be spent by the Crown officials in this way. No doubt it is necessary that juries who are locked up should have refreshment; but I trust that the Treasury will very sharply scrutinize anything which touches the supply of drink to juries in Ireland. The practice of dosing Irish juries with champagne and strong drink is one which should altogether be avoided.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON) (Liverpool, Walton)

The Treasury have a scale of allowances, which is about 1s. 6d. or 2s. 6d., and would certainly not be sufficient to provide champagne. If a juror requires more than the ordinary allowance, he must pay for it out of his own pocket. All I can say is that the contribution of the Treasury is a very moderate one. With regard to what the hon. and learned Member has said as to the hon. and learned Member for York's Bill being a Private Bill, it was not a matter with which I could deal. I can assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that his suggestion concerning the Winter Assizes shall receive the careful consideration of the Government.

MR. BIGGAR (Cavan, W.)

There is one question I should like to put to the right hon. and learned Gentleman in reference to the discharge of prisoners from Armagh Gaol. I want to know whether the prisoners on their discharge receive any portion of their travelling expenses for their return home?

THE CHAIRMAN

There is nothing in this Vote in connection with the conveyance of prisoners. The question had better be reserved for the Prisons' Vote.

MR. DEASY (Mayo, W.)

I wish to draw the attention of the Committee to a matter of very considerable importance. More than once a question has been asked of the Irish Law Officers in reference to the failure to prosecute Sub-Inspector Sullivan and Head Constable Ward for a murder of which they were declared to be guilty by a Coroner's jury in the county of Cork in the early part of the year. The Coroner's inquiry lasted for several days, and in the end returned a verdict of wilful murder against the District Inspector and the head-constable. The Coroner made out an order for the arrest of these men and their committal for trial; but they were allowed to retire for a few weeks on leave without being arrested or tried, and ultimately they were reinstated in the positions they formerly occupied. I want to know why the farce of empannelling a Coroner's jury should be gone into, and considerable expense entailed, if no regard whatever is to be paid to the finding of the jury, and there is to be a refusal to execute the warrant made out by the Coroner? I am told that the Government are anxious to mete out equal justice to Her Majesty's subjects both in England and Ireland. Let me ask them, then, what would have been the course pursued if a Coroner's jury in England had found a verdict of wilful murder against particular individuals? The warrant of the Coroner would have been put in execution at once. A very different state of things seems to prevail in Ireland, and the Law Officers of the Crown seem to do anything they like. I have to complain, first of all, against the conduct of the police at Youghal; but a more serious charge rests against the Government in not having presented these men, upon the verdict of the Coroner's jury, for trial at the Cork Summer Assizes. A charge of wilful murder is a very serious charge; and it must be borne in mind that if there were any elements of doubt in the case the matter would have to be fully sifted by a Grand Jury before the prisoners were sent for trial. If there was any loophole for escape, it is quite certain that a Grand Jury of the County of Cork, or of any other county in Ireland, would refuse to find a true bill. But in this case, although there was the verdict of a Coroner's jury, and strong primâ facie evidence, the Government themselves refused to pond the accused for trial, or to present a bill. Surely, while these things are allowed to occur, the Government cannot expect the people of Ireland to have any respect for the administration of the law. It is impossible for me at this moment to enter into all the circumstances of the case; and therefore I will confine myself, first of all, to asking the right hon. and learned Gentleman why it is that Sub-Inspector Sullivan and Head Constable Ward were not sent for trial on the Coroner's inquisition, and if, in future, regard will be paid to the finding of a Coroner's jury, with the view of preventing a similar act of injustice from being done?

MR. GIBSON

I may explain that the reason why, in the case referred to by the hon. Member, the warrant was not executed, was that it was informal. I will ask the hon. Member to bear with me for a few moments while I explain the circumstances. In all my acquaintance with the administration of the Criminal Law, I cannot recall any instance in which a man has been put upon his trial for murder upon a mere Coroner's inquisition, when the matter has not gone in the ordinary course before the Justices, and, after the examination of witnesses in the presence of the accused, been sent by them for trial. In this case there was no inquiry before the Justices, and no opportunity was afforded to the accused for cross-examining the witnesses. No person ought to be tried for his life without these preliminary safeguards. In the course of the ordinary administration of the Criminal Law the person charged is brought before the committing magistrates, witnesses are examined and may be cross-examined, so that the prisoner may know the worst of the case that can be brought against him; the prisoner is not bound to make any statement, but if he does so he is warned that it may be used against him; and after he is committed for trial the case has to go before the Grand Jury, with whom it rests to say whether or not they find a true bill against the prisoner. I do not think a man ought to be put on his trial for his life without these preliminary safeguards and formalities. The action of the Crown in regard to the case of the man who was killed at Youghal during a time of commotion in not isolated, because in certain other cases the direction has been given that the prosecution should not proceed on the Coroner's inquisition, on the ground that the matter ought to be dealt with in the ordinary way, and that the prisoner ought to have an opportunity of fighting his case out properly, and ought not to be put in jeopardy of his life merely on the finding of a Coroner's jury.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON (Kerry, W.)

In what case was that laid down?

MR. GIBSON

A woman was killed and the Coroner's jury found a verdict of wilful murder, but the inquisition was proved to be wrong in point of form, and the accused could not be put on his trial. I only mention this matter as a small matter in connection with the present case, but as showing what has been the ruling in other instances. It has never been considered right to put a man on his trial for his life merely upon a Coroner's inquisition, where the accused has not had a full opportunity of sifting the evidence by cross-examination. At the time this man was killed the town of Youghal was in a state of great excitement owing to the arrest of Father Fahy; there were riots in the town; windows were broken, and it was known that the police had been sent for. They arrived on the following day. The shop windows were shut at an early hour in the morning; but the disturbance was great, and unfortunately this man was killed.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON

was proceeding to enter into the details of the case when—

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is out of Order.

MR. T. M. HEALY

The case at Youghal amounted, at least, to one of manslaughter, and it would have been only fair and right that an inquiry should have taken place into the conduct of the police. The finding of the Coroner's Court ought to have had some weight, at least, attached to it. In England the Crown does not persist in refusing to satisfy public feeling in regard to the conduct of the police, as the proceedings in the case of Miss Cass testify. The policeman may not have been at fault; but the charge is one of breach of duty, and the Crown are taking proceedings against the policeman. In the case of a lady who was alleged to have been poisoned at Cork, the Coroner's inquest established that a crime had been committed, and the Crown then proceeded to take steps to find out the guilty party; but in the Youghal case the Government did not, even take the trouble of having the inquisition quashed by the Court of Queen's Bench. In the case of Police Constable Endacott, if instead of assaulting Miss Cass and improperly arresting her the constable had murdered her, in the event of the Coroner's jury finding him guilty of murder, I should like to know what Home Secretary who allowed Endacott to remain on leave of absence for a fortnight and then restored him to his position, without giving Miss Cass's relatives the slightest redress, would have been allowed to remain in Office? When a respectable girl in England is arrested for half-an-hour the whole of the country is wrung with her wrongs; but in Ireland if a constable does not simply arrest you, but sends you to eternity, no notice is taken. That is the difference between the people and their relations with the Government in the two countries. I maintain that in the Youghal case justice ought to have been done, and the Government have set a very bad precedent for future Administrations by not satisfying popular feeling in directing an inquiry to be made. If upon a fair trial the Judge was satisfied that these men were not guilty, he would have directed an acquittal, and all the indignity the accused would have been subjected to would have been the indignity of standing in the dock to answer the charge made against him, which is not much of an indignity after all, and is only what I have been subjected to myself. I say that these men ought to have been tried. They killed a man; it may not have amounted to the crime of murder, but certainly they were guilty of manslaughter, and the course taken by the Irish Executive affords a most unfavourable contrast to the course taken in this country in the Regent Street case. It is a monstrous thing that policemen in Ireland should be allowed to kill people and run their bayonets through them without the smallest notice being taken by Her Majesty's Government.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON

I think it is a disgraceful blot in the system of the administration of justice in Ireland that policemen, no matter what they do, should be allowed to get off scot free. In this case a man's life was lost. It may not have amounted to murder; there may have been extenuating circumstances, owing to the excitement which prevailed; but it was the duty of the Government to make a full inquiry. I think there has been such a doubt that it would have been much better if the Crown had not shown its partizanship. What the Crown do in Ireland is that they pick the jurors in cases where they want a conviction. If anyone who is accused is suspected of Nationalist feeling, no matter what the class of offence charged against him, he is made to feel the full weight of the influence of the Crown in the prosecution. And if it be a political offence of which he is accused the Crown resort to every device in order to secure his conviction. They pack the jury and they exercise every right they have, both in regard to the selection of the place of trial and in regard to the selection of those who are to be on the jury. But if the person accused be on the other side in politics they take no pains to keep out of the jury those who are interested on his behalf in the trial. Take, for instance, the case of the Emergency man who killed a young farmer near Castleisland in the county of Kerry. I may say that in the opinion of those who could form an opinion on this matter—and my own opinion was the same—when this Emergency man saw a young man coming along by the fence with a pipe in his mouth he instantly—under the influence of a mere scare—fired at him and shot him. There can be no doubt from the character that the man who was shot bore in the district, testified to, as it was, by the district magistrate, the police magistrate, and the clergy of all denominations in the district, that he was not in the least likely to have come out to make an attack on the Emergency man in the middle of the day, on a public road and within 150 yards of a police barracks. But, be that as it may, the poor man lost his life. He was found dead on the road, and the people saw the Emergency man going towards the police barracks. The Coroner's jury brought in, in that casa, a verdict which, perhaps, I might think a strong one—one of "Wilful murder." But the jury did not wish to commit themselves to a verdict that the shooting of this man was wilful murder. The verdict they returned, in the first instance, was that the man came by his death by a gun-shot wound inflicted by the Emergency man. The Coroner, in the first instance, declined to receive this verdict. He wanted them either to bring in a verdict which did not attribute the infliction of the wound to anyone, or to bring in a verdict of wilful murder. The jury then again retired, and ultimately they brought in a verdict of wilful murder. Now, the Crown afterwards relied on this act of the Coroner; and it appeared to me that his action in this transaction was with a view to subsequent events. However, be that as it may, the Crown—as I have said—subsequently relied on the action of the Coroner, to show that it was impossible to get a fair trial in Ireland. In support of that contention they adduced this verdict of "wilful murder," arrived at in the way I have described. Well, when the Emergency man was tried the Crown took no pains with the case. If it had been the case of a Land Leaguer charged with causing the death of an Emergency man, every sympathizer with the Land League would have been excluded from the jury-box; but there was nothing of the kind done when this Emergency man was accused of killing an unoffending passer-by. The accused man was acquitted, and I do not say that the acquittal was wrong; but there were such strong elements of doubt in the case that had it happened in the ordinary way the result would have been a disagreement which might, no doubt, have resulted in an acquittal. But it is inevitable that great irritation should arise, when it is seen that this Emergency man, who shot an unarmed man on the high road, escaped so easily, while many men in that same district are suffering unjust imprisonment at the instigation of the Crown. Then there was the case of another Emergency man who caused the death of one of his assistants. This man also got off, because the Crown made no effort to exclude from the jury men belonging to the society whose employé this man was. I do not want to bring a charge against the magistrates, or the members of the association to which this man belonged, that they would violate their oaths in the jury-box. But I complain that the Crown did not take the same course against them that they would have taken against us. If I had presented myself as a juror in an ordinary assault case in Kerry, before I had got within 40 yards of the jury-box the representative of the Crown would have called on me to stand by. [An Irish MEMBER dissented.] My hon. Friend doubts it. But my hon. Friend knows that the same course would be practised towards him or anyone on this side of the House. We do not ask that the law should be administered in a spirit of recrimination; we do not ask that the course which we condemn, when it is pursued towards ourselves, should be pursued towards others; but we do ask that the Crown should try to teach the people some confidence in the administration of the law by an equal and just administration of the law. There is a great deal in the law that is bad; but there is a great deal that would be tolerable if it were fairly administered; but then it never is so administered in Ireland. The law, such as it is, is never administered fairly in any case in Ireland. As an instance, let me take the action of the Crown in another case in Kerry. A Captain Taylor popped out on the high road one day, when he and his sons were out shooting. The son fired a shot in another direction, but this man thought that someone had fired at him. There was never a shot fired in his neighbourhood but he thought he was in danger of his life; and accordingly he attacked and fired at a poor man on the road. After firing at him and missing him he beat him within an inch of his life. The man applied for a summons, but did not get it from the local magistrates, because Captain Taylor, the father, was in the habit of sitting on the Bench. Surely that was a monstrous piece of injustice. The Crown should have a system, and should pursue it evenly and justly. As it is, the Crown are ready to take up the cases of people who are able to pay their own expenses; and in cases of the kind I have described they should make inquiries through the Crown Solicitor and take up such cases, and prosecute them on behalf of men who, like this poor man, are unable to bear the expense of a prosecution themselves. That would do more for the quietness of the country, would do more to give people confidence in the administration of the law, and would do more to promote what is called law and order than any Proclamation of meetings. I would ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland how it can be expected that the people who saw this poor fisherman at Youghal stabbed by a police bayonet can have any confidence in the administration of the law? Will their respect for law and order be increased when they find that the Crown by a trick lets off these police constables who were found guilty by 23 of their fellow-countrymen? This is a base proceeding on the part of the Government, and it is a murderous proceeding too, because it is calculated to instil into the minds of these people a desire for revenge. Putting no confidence in the law or in the administration of the law they will, or at least they may, be led to take some dark way of revenging themselves, because they can get no satisfaction from proceedings under the law and in the light of day. There is not a district in Ireland which cannot produce a case parallel to the Youghal case—some, no doubt, less monstrous I admit. But it is substantially the same all over Ireland. At least, that is my experience since I have paid any attention to the politics of Ireland. This same question has cropped up in some shape or form at every Assizes. Constantly we have the functionaries of the Government committing every sort of crime, ranging from every degree of immorality up to murder, and then we have the efforts of the Crown and of the Castle—in pursuance of a policy that has to be defended by the right hon. Gentleman opposite and those who hold Office —to shield these murderers and criminals. It is a pleasant position for the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues to occupy. But what does it matter to them? We address a few words to them across the House. They listen to us silently, perhaps they pay a sort of deferential attention to the few remarks we make. But it is the same play over and over again. There is no result—there is nothing satisfactory done. Whatever we may say or whatever we may have said in this House, there has never been an instance of a policeman being prosecuted by the Crown in Ireland. In Ireland the maxim is that the servants of the Crown can do no wrong. Whatever wrong done by them we expose, such is the spirit of masonry which exists amongst them from the Lord Lieutenant to the latest recruit in the Constabulary, that they fly to the protection of each other when any one of them is charged with an offence or a crime. The Government is limitless in its resources. It has the law, which it can obtain at no cost, and then behind the law it is armed with force. Very often, as in the ease we have been discussing, it disregards all law and takes refuge in force. But the right hon. Gentleman may be assured that so long as we are kept here to discuss these Estimates and do this business —although we might as well be at home—we shall pursue the course of calling attention to these matters. I do not suppose that we should produce much effect, even in what we might describe as a normal Session, when the Estimates are reached earlier and there is a fuller House.Still less can we expect to produce any great effect in the present state of the House. Yet I cannot help thinking that when the points we have been calling attention to go before too people of this country, together with the very imperfect answers given to them from the Treasury, these discussions will prove to be a very useful process in educating the people of this country in a knowledge of the system of government we have in Ireland.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)

Force, corruption, and base juggling with the law and the Law Courts are the means by which government is carried on in Ireland. We have instances of each time-honoured method in these Estimates. I congratulate the Government on the Estimates coming on at this late period of the Session. Our discussion is now almost of an academical character. We address empty Benches. The House is tired of the protracted Session. The Members of the House are still more tired of it, and we are addressing deaf and unwilling ears. Nevertheless, we have our duty to perform, and we shall perform it. I remember the long and weary years during which the Irish Nationalists were endeavouring to awaken the English people to the right of the Irish people to self-government. I remember how our appeals used to fall on deaf and unwilling ears, and it was not until a great statesman took up the question that the people of England began to listen. It will be the same with these Estimates. I say that corruption and jugglery of the Law Courts are the methods of government in Ireland. I have sometimes a difficulty in understanding how honourable men can ally themselves with such a Government. I say that corruption is one of the methods of government in Ireland. Look at the salaries, bloated almost beyond the conception of corruption entertained in any country in the world, except in Ireland, and perhaps in New York. The right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland has a salary of £4,000 a-year. [An hon. MEMBER: £5,000.] I think it is £4,000. But, whether it is £4,000 or £5,000 a-year, I say it is a gross over- charge. I do not grudge the right hon. and learned Gentleman the money personally. I treat him not personally but officially, and I say that his salaries and those of his Colleagues in Office are gross specimens of corruption. In England, when a Law Officer of the Crown, or a leading member of the Bar, is elevated to the Bench, he sacrifices a considerable amount of income. In Ireland the case is reversed, and every man who leaves the Bar for the Bench does so with an increase instead of a decrease of income. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General tell me an instance to the contrary? I do not know what the income of the right hon. and learned Gentleman from private practice was before he came over here as Solicitor General; hut I know it was a large income which his great abilities entitled him to enjoy. Probably, however, it was not more than £2,500 or £3,000 a-year from the professional element, putting on one side his emoluments as a Law Officer of the Crown; but no man is raised to the Bench who does not get an increase to £4,000 or £5,000. Whenever you have to govern a country against the will of the people you always find this state of circumstances; you keep down popular will by the bayonet, and you give excessive salaries to the Judges, and to the Attorney General and his Colleagues, for the purpose of degrading and corrupting the able men you select for your Officers of the Law. Let me take the case of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General himself. The right hon. and learned Gentleman gets a salary of £5,000 a-year. Had he ever approached an income like that from private practice when at the Bar? I remember a time when Mr. Justice Lawson, during the Fenian trials, might have been seen going about the Four Courts in Dublin, and the jingle of the guineas in his pocket could actually be heard, because he was engaged as the leading counsel in prosecuting honest men who had the interests of Ireland at heart. Whenever you have a political struggle in Ireland —and it is often the child of want and distress—wherever you have misery, suffering, and wretchedness—then is the golden harvest of the creatures who do the bidding of the Government. Besides the salary of £5,000 paid to the Attor- ney General, the Solicitor General for Ireland receives a salary of £1,700, and the two divide between them a further sum of £2,000 for the trouble and laborious work of drawing up Crown prosecutions, and conducting other contentious business. And these sums do not include the fees paid for non-contentious business. I venture to say that there have been epochs in the history of Ireland during the last 20 years when the Irish Attorney General has pocketed at least £15,000 in the course of a year out of the blood and tears of the Irish nation. I know that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite do not sympathize with my political views; but I ask them to sympathize with my feeling for economy. Why should the taxpayers of this country pay to a Law Officer of the Crown four or five times as much as he would have earned from his private practice at the Bar, simply because he has given it up with the view of qualifying himself for something better? There is no use in talking about considerations of economy as long as you allow this orgie of corruption. The administration of the law in Ireland is a base jugglery. There is not a single man who is suspected of Nationalist principles who is not brought into the Law Courts as into a shamble; while there is not a single man who represents anti-National feeling who is ashamed to steal, waylay, and even kill. What we want to see in Ireland is an Administration in which the scales of justice shall be evenly held. Let me take the Youghal case, which has just been referred to. Does any hon. Member imagine that if in this country a policeman were found by a Coroner's jury guilty of wilful murder he would not be put on his trial? I accept at once the statement of the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland that there was an informality in the warrant; but I think it is a dangerous thing to allow a man accused of so serious a crime to escape all consequences on such a ground. I believe that accused persons in this country have repeatedly been put on their trial simply upon the finding of a Coroner's jury. The verdict of the Coroner's jury affords a primâ facie case which would be accepted in any other country in the world than Ireland. The duty of the Government was to have had the case tested by bunging it to the Assizes. But what did they do? They disregarded the verdict of the Coroner's jury, and by sneaking round a bye alloy of the Court of Queen's Bench got it quashed. Am I not justified in saying that the administration of the law in Ireland is a base jugglery? Lot me take another case. The Crown Prosecuter shows no favour to any Nationalist prisoner brought up for trial; but he takes care that when it is necessary to try an Emergency man he shall be tried by Emergency men only. Of course, the Emergency man goes scot free; in his case it is only a delusion to suppose that killing is murder. But what do the Government think will be the state of Ireland if these things are to go on? The officials of Ireland are poisoning the very source and origin of justice in Ireland. They are the enemies of justice in Ireland, and they are forcing the people of that country into hatred of the law and of its administration. When we see the law so basely and foully administered it is necessary that the Representatives of the Irish people should take every opportunity of bringing before this Committee—although, no doubt, they are not often listened to—and before the country these terrible stories, in order to show at what price and cost of misery and suffering to the people of Ireland justice is being administered.

MR. GIBSON

The hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool has made use of a number of highly-coloured adjectives in denouncing the administration of the law in Ireland. For my part, I do not propose to notice the charge of corruption brought against the Attorney General and the Law Officers of the Crown in Ireland. Speaking for my Predecessors and Colleagues, I may, however, be allowed to say that they are as fair and high-minded a body of men as can be found representing the Crown in this or any other country, and it is a matter of great pain to me to hear language such as has been used with regard to them employed by any Irish Member. Now, with regard to the case brought forward by the hon. Member, I am as good an authority on this subject as most hon. Gentlemen in this House. With regard to the cases brought forward by the hon. Member for West Kerry (Mr. Edward Harrington), I am not so familiar with them, and I do not know that the hon. Member referred to them in any way as constituting a charge against the Law Officers of the Crown.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON

The charge is that the Law Officers allowed the venue to be changed in the case of an Emergency man which would not have been allowed in the case of a Nationalist.

MR. GIBSON

The venue is changed because a man cannot get a fair trial in the place where the proceedings commenced. The responsibility for the change of venue rests entirely with the Court. I was surprised to hear the charge made against the Cork jury that it was a jury of Emergency men. I should have thought that a Cork jury might have been spared the charge brought against them by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool. [An hon. MEMBER: You pack the juries there.] Without going into the facts of the Youghal case, I can say that my attitude and that of my Predecessor has been one of strict impartiality, as between the Crown on one side and the prisoner on the other. I have no desire to screen the guilty, nor get a verdict against an innocent man, or against a man whom the evidence does not convict of the offence charged. The hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) said the action of the Crown in the Youghal case was different from that in the Belfast case. But the hon. and learned Gentleman forgets that the late Attorney General for Ireland, when he was satisfied that there was no evidence to sustain the case, directed a nolle prosequr to be entered, just as in the case of the Youghal policeman. The other case, however, referred to by the hon. and learned Member for North Longford is one which is now pending, and as I think it would not be proper to refer to that or any other case in that position I shall abstain from doing so, and I hope that other Members of the Committee will follow my example. It is, under the present circumstances, impossible to make reference to it, and I am surprised that the hon. and learned Member has not taken the same view. I do not know that I have anything more to say to the criticisms of hon. Gen- tlemen opposite on the action of the Officers of the Law in Ireland. In my opinion the administration of the law there is pure. Hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway I know, from the observations they have made, suspect that there is not perfect rectitude in regard to prosecutions in Ireland. All I can say is that it is a very lamentable thing that such a suspicion should exist, because it is a great misfortune to the interests of the people whose case is discussed in this House. But that suspicion is entirely unfounded. For my own part, I say that I have done my duty, and shall continue to do it. I will never have the charge justly made against me that in discharging my duty I have not been fair and independent.

MR. CLANCY (Dublin Co., N.)

There is one thing which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland has noticed, and in which entirely agree—that is, that there exists in the minds of the people of Ireland the suspicion that the administration of justice is not pure. There is no greater evil in existence than that such a suspicion should prevail. But I put it to the Committee whether such suspicion existing in the minds of a large body of Her Majesty's subjects, and the fact that it has continued to exist for 100 years is not enough to raise doubts as to whether there is not ground for the suspicion. When you find the mass of the people harbouring suspicions of this sort, you have hit upon a state of things which shows that there is something rotten in the system of administration. It was certainly refreshing to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman defending Irish juries, for we have been accustomed hitherto to hear them attacked; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman rather misconceived the purport of the remarks of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor). He referred to the packing of juries. It is a notorious fact that the juries in Ireland are packed; it is a fact that at the last Assize the juries were packed, and that is one of the very abuses that have served to bring your law into utter contempt in Ireland. But it is very curious that the action of the Executive in cases of this kind is just the same as the action always taken in Ireland in reference to the police. No matter whether you find them rightly accused of crime or not, no matter if the case contains elements of suspicion and doubt, no matter if it is clear or otherwise, you find the action of the Government in both cases exactly the same. The Government dare not prosecute the police; they dare not discredit their own agents in Ireland; and that is the reason why every policeman, no matter what his crime may be, is allowed to get off scot free, while every case against an ordinary Irishman is treated as primâ facie sufficient for sending him before a packed jury. I will now refer to another matter. It is well known that last winter the Government made the experiment of trying to govern the Irish people by what is called ordinary Law; and I am free to admit that if that experiment were honestly made—that is to say, if what is understood in this country as ordinary law had been tried in Ireland, the result might not have been at all unpleasant to the administrators of the law at Dublin Castle. Although we are very often accused in this House by Liberal Unionists and Tories of having no respect for law and justice, yet I believe it is true that the Irish people love equal and impartial justice, and I believe, also, that if you had endeavoured last winter to govern them by the ordinary law some little degree of respect for the law might have begun to grow up in the minds of the people. But the ordinary law of last winter was a most extraordinary and scandalous fiction of law, I venture to draw attention to it for a short time. I refer particularly to the prosecutions undertaken in the country districts; and these are more important, in my opinion, than prosecutions undertaken as State prosecutions, and conducted in Dublin and other large centres. In country districts you do not and cannot know all that goes on; cases are not reported in the Press, and are, consequently, not sufficiently brought under notice, and in such cases as these you have the Representatives of the Crown and their Colleagues sitting on the Bench "playing such pranks before high Heaven as would make the Angels weep." I would ask the attention of right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench, who are supposed to represent the interests of Ireland, to a case which occurred last September. At that time two men in the county of Limerick were ordered to give bail for good behaviour, or in default to go to gaol, because they had published a placard disrespectfully criticizing the conduct of a land agent. Now, if it had been alleged that this placard was a Boycotting notice, or one which conveyed any threat, some ground would have been made out for the prosecution; a primâ facie case would have been made out, and it would have seemed a fair case to be taken up by the Crown. But it was not even alleged that it was a Boycotting notice; it was not even alleged that there was any threat in the placard, which simply animadverted on the agent's conduct in obstructing a tenants' offer of settlement at a Sheriff's sale. If the case had occurred in this country and such a placard had been issued, a proper and Constitutional remedy would have been applied— that is to say, the party aggrieved would have brought his action for libel, which would have been tried in one of the Civil Courts, and if the case were proved damages would have been recovered. But in Ireland the land agent is a sacred person in the eyes of the Judges, and, instead of being left to his ordinary resources, a State prosecution was instituted to deal with the matter. I say that a more scandalous proceeding cannot be imagined. Again, in January this year, at a village in the county of Wicklow, the police actually charged four youths under 14 years of age under a Statute of Edward III. in order to get them sent to gaol. It was found that the prosecutors had not got a copy of the Act; a telegram was sent to Sir Redvers Buller, at Dublin Castle, to forward a copy of the Act, and the answer he sent in reply was that it was out of print, and it was only because a copy of the Statute could not be procured that these four youths who refused to give bail were saved from going to gaol. It seems to me that this is a monstrous case, and, moreover, a silly one, and deserving of reprobation if it cannot be satisfactorily explained. Then I would call the attention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to another case. In January last, in consequence of a Resolution said to be passed at County Limerick branch of the National League, three persons were prosecuted before the local magistrates for an alleged offence, the specific charge being one of conspiracy. No evidence was adduced in sustainment of this charge; but in order to procure evidence an order was made for the examination of nearly every member of the branch, the object being to show that Boycotting was the result of the action of the branch; and if satisfactory evidence could have been obtained of conspiracy, the other members of the branch who attended when the Resolution was said to have been passed would have been liable to be put into the dock. The consequence was that every man who was asked whether he was present at the meeting or not was practically asked to criminate himself, and was therefore justified in refusing to answer. I think it would hardly be believed by Englishmen or Scotchmen, and yet it is a fact, that not only were several persons asked by the Crown Solicitors to incriminate themselves, but actually one of them who stood on his legal rights and refused to answer was committed to gaol for eight days and had to spend a week in prison. Now, what answer has the right hon. and learned Gentleman to give to this gross misuse of power by the Grown Solicitor? There is no doubt about the facts, and I will read a few questions put by the Sessional Crown Solicitor who conducted the case. This is a specimen of the cross-examination— Question: Will you swear that there was no resolution proposed to that effect? Answer: I decline to answer, and I claim the; clemency of the Bench. Question: I ask you was there such a resolution proposed? Answer: I am not going to incriminate myself. Crown Solicitor: But I am not going to incriminate you. Witness: You are trying to do so. Such was the cross-examination, and again and again this man, after being warned that he was asking illegal questions, continued to ask them, in order to frighten this ignorant peasant to give an answer which would have the effect of placing him in the dock and convicting him of the crime of conspiracy. I ask the right hon. and learned Attorney General if he can give any answer to this indictment? Does he approve of the action of the Sessional Solicitor? Or does he approve of the action of the magistrates who sent a man to gaol for refusing to answer a question which he was entitled to refuse to answer, thereby usurping the power which it is supposed can only be exercised by Parliament—namely, the power of suspending the Habeas Corpus Act? These are some of the experiments which the Government have made of governing Ireland according to the ordinary law. Considering these practices, considering the virtual abolition of trial by jury, considering the virtual suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and considering the power taken by the Government to rob and steal during the winter; considering the power they exercise of assaulting innocent citizens and dispersing public meetings, my only wonder is that they should have introduced a Coercion Bill at all, and wasted the time of Parliament in passing it. Last winter they exhausted, under the ordinary process of law, every illegal practice which could possibly be brought into operation, and they exercised in advance all the powers of the Coercion Act, which has since been passed into law. [Laughter.] Some hon. Gentlemen opposite appear to think that this is a laughing matter; but I can tell them it is no laughing matter in Ireland, and I tell them, further, that the more the people of Ireland think over this the less of a laughing matter will it be for them also. I think, therefore, that hon. Gentlemen opposite might find some better means than laughter of expressing their opinions. These are specific cases—the names of the persons, their places of abode, and the dates are all given; and I invite the attention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland to the fact, so that he may be in a position to say whether he has any answer to give to my statement. I tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman that if he has no answer to give, it is no wonder that the word "law" in Ireland is only another name for injustice, and that your "order" is a perfect sham.

MR. NOLAN (Louth, N.)

The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland has accused Irish Representatives of having no confidence in the law as administered in Ireland. But I point out that the Irish Representatives are not responsible for this, nor do they force others into this belief. It has been forced upon them by what they have seen. It is the belief of everyone of the Irish race that the law in Ireland has not been fairly administered. What did General Buller say? General Buller, in his sworn testimony before the Royal Commission, said that the law of Ireland was on the side of the rich and against the poor, and General Buller remains in an office of trust under Her Majesty's Government in Ireland. I do not intend to say anything personally offensive against the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland. I believe that everyone who knows him in this House will give him credit for his courtesy and the pains which he takes to discharge his duties; and, moreover, I do not think that he was responsible for the action of the Crown Solicitors in the Youghal case. I do not intend to enter into that case at length; but I wish to avail myself of this opportunity for stating that the people of Ireland believe that the man who met his death was foully murdered, and that the Law Officers have allowed the man who was responsible for that murder to go scot free. Of course, we know how the police in Ireland are constituted, and we do not want to be too severe upon them; but this much I think—that if the offence had been committed in Edinburgh, the man who committed it would have been hanged by the neck before now, whether with or without the consent of the Law Officers. Now, with regard to the advice which the right hon. and learned Gentleman gives to the Executive in Ireland, I should just like to refer to what he said in the House last night, in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), as to the effect of the Proclamation of the Lord Lieutenant in connection with the meeting to which my ton. Friend referred. I want to understand unmistakably what the law is on that matter. If I am mistaken it is because I am not a lawyer; but I may say I could not understand the meaning of the right hon. and learned Gentleman at all. I have consulted several Members of this House, Irish, Scotch, and English, including some legal gentlemen, as to what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has stated, and I have not been able to learn from them what his real meaning was. In the first instance, he stated that the Proclamation of the Lord Lieutenant did not in itself make this meeting illegal; and, later on, he proceeded to say—

THE CHAIRMAN

I do not see how this question arises under the Vote before the Committee.

MR. NOLAN

The people of Clare were affected by this Proclamation, and to-day we are discussing the Vote under which the salary of the right hon. and learned Gentleman is included. I should like the right hon. and learned Gentleman to tell us now—in time to reach both the officials of the Government in Ireland and the people in the county of Clare—what will be the position of those persons who attend the meeting. If they go to the meeting in a quiet, orderly, and peaceable manner, will the armed forces of Her Majesty be let loose on them and drive them away by force? That, Mr. Courtney, is what I desire to know, and I think that considerations of humanity as well as duty might inspire the right hon. and learned Gentleman to tell us what the position of the people will be.

DR. TANNER (Cork Co., Mid)

This Vote, I maintain, is one of the most important which comes before the Committee for discussion on these Estimates; it is important in every conceivable way. In the first place, it is important, as re-presenting the actual method of procedure of the authorities in Ireland against the people, and also of the people against the authorities. You have heard this evening from several of my hon. Friends an account of the bloated salaries that are paid over to the Law Officers of the Crown; but upon that point I do not mean to touch. You have also heard about the Crown Solicitors and their salaries, as well as their method of doing the business of their office, and upon that point I should like to make a few remarks. Now, I do not know many Crown Solicitors; but in days gone by I was pretty well acquainted with the Crown Solicitors in Cork, and I wish to refer to the Cork Crown Solicitor's action in preparing jury lists, which has already been brought under the attention of this House. I know the exact way in which this thing is done; I have known it for years, and I knew it when I was more intimate with the politics of Gentlemen who sit on the opposite side of the House. I presume I am in Order in calling attention to this subject to-night, and I desire to do so, because these illegalities are committed by men who are receiving a certain amount of money from the State; and I think that, perhaps, if the Government were to take notice of these illegalities, of which there is evidence of an unquestionable character, it would have the effect of making the Crown Solicitors act better in the future. These jury lists are prepared sometime before the Assizes take place; and with regard to the Cork Assize, I find that the lists are not sent round in a fair way. Practically speaking, the preference is given to people who have landlord politics, and who call themselves supporters of law and order in the City and County of Cork. When these lists are prepared they are sent round, and every possible inquiry is made as to the private opinions and public opinions of those gentlemen who will serve on juries. This is really quite as bad as the intimidation carried on the other day in North Hunts. There are a number of tradesmen in the City of Cork who serve on juries. The list is sent round to such places as the Cork County Club; the Crown Solicitor supplies the list, and if the men who serve on the jury do not behave in the way in which the Crown Solicitor wants them to behave they are Boycotted. These lists ought not to be published beforehand, and if they are published I think that everyone will agree with me that they ought to be given to one side as well as the other. At any rate, I say they should not be produced before the day on which the Judge makes his charge, because otherwise you afford one section of the population a chance of Boycotting the other. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have no knowledge of the legal Boycotting carried on in towns in the South of Ireland, which I, for one, can bear witness to. But, passing from that subject, I merely wish to call attention to one or two facts which came under my own special not ice. The first prosecution to which I call attention occurred at Millstreet on the 8th February this year. In that case I was, to a certain degree, interested. I happened to be returning from a meeting held near the River Blackwater on the occasion when the people showed their enthusiasm by building a bridge of boats across the Blackwater; and when they refused to allow the police to make use of that bridge in crossing the river, as, of course, they had a right to do, what happened? "When we got within about 200 yards of the town of Millstreet two cars containing policemen drove up; we had formed a procession, and were just going into the town; when these men came up there was a little bit of chaff and a little badinage; a boy who was seated on one of the cars, having a key bugle, struck up "Harvey Duff," a tune which is not appreciated by the police in Ireland. The police drove into the car on which I sat, and because I did not want to have my leg broken I asked them to keep back, and they had to go back. The police did not go against me; but they summoned the unfortunate driver for obstruction, and the man was fined. I brought forward the ease in March last; I showed how the Crown Solicitor was sent down, and had to be paid.

THE CHAIRMAN

This has no connection with the present Vote. The hon. Gentleman is dealing with the action of the police.

DR. TANNER

I said, Mr. Courtney, that the Crown Solicitor was sent down, and had to be paid; and I submit that that fact brings it under the present Vote. The men were fined, but the fines were partially remitted subsequently. But I wish to show hon. Members the way in which these prosecutions are conducted, notably in country districts— a subject which has been alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dublin (Mr. Clancy). My hon. Friend referred to cases of commission, and I have now to call attention to a particular case of omission on the part of the Law Officers. I refer to the case of Inspector Milling, who was committed for trial by the magistrates of Cork. The case occupied two long days at the Cork Police Court, and it is to what happened subsequently that I particularly refer. The then Attorney General for Ireland— Mr. Hugh Holmes —quashed the verdict of the magistrates. I maintain that this was not dealing with the matter in a fair spirit. It amounted, in a case where a few Nationalist Members happened to be assaulted, to a verdict on the part of Her Majesty's Government of "Served them right." I know that to be the opinion of some hon. Gentlemen; but I do not think, if you take seriously into consideration the fact that Irish Representatives are returned by a section of the population, and a very large one, that the beating of those Irish Representatives will tend to the establishment of order, peace, and tranquillity in Ireland. What took place? I will just state a few points in connection with the case which might certainly have some weight with hon. Members opposite. I will put it in as short a way as I can. I came to the Court; a procession was formed; I went to a meeting opposite the Cork Court House; when I arrived my hon. Friend the Member for South Tipperary (Mr. John O'Connor) made a speech; shortly after he commenced speaking there was a little hustling in one corner; we found out that it was one of the Government note-takers who was being hustled; I went to him, and my hon. Friend and I got him up into the car, and would not allow anything to be said to him. Certainly, the people were rather angry, and said, "Let him get down; "when he got down he thought it better to get a little way off. Mr. Milling came up in plain clothes, notwithstanding which his characteristics were such that he could not be mistaken for anything but a Royal Irish Constabulary officer. Thereupon he told my hon. Friend to stop speaking. The policemen immediately drew their swords; the first thing I saw was a poor old woman struck by a sword; I saw the sword flash, and the poor old woman was knocked down. In reply to my remonstrance the policemen said, "You should speak to Mr. Milling." He spoke roughly, and I answered him not with the best temper in the world. What happened then? I was struck down, and Mr. Milling, on the evidence of some persons, had the brutality to kick me. I bore the marks of that some time subsequently. Hon. Gentlemen opposite may probably rejoice at that. The police are a fine body of men, and they are very good at getting up evidence; but in this case our evidence was preferred to theirs, and Mr. Milling was returned for trial. I have only told a few of the points, because were I to tell the story in detail, as it was stated by my counsel, it would take up an hour and a-half of the time of the Committee, which I wish to spare. I hope I shall receive in return some justice from the Government in the shape of a promise that they will inquire into the matter, in order to see who was right and who was wrong. Mr. Milling had solicitors and lawyers to appear for him. I do not know who paid for them, but I am given to understand that it was the Government. The case cost a deal of money, and stirred up a great deal of feeling. I am proud to say that the Mayor of Cork, who was in the chair, has been, and will continue to be in future, a strong Nationalist; but the point is that, the magistrates having given their verdict, the whole thing was afterwards quashed. That, I maintain, was not a wise or judicious proceeding. Of course, I know that in asking anything from Her Majesty's Government, at any time, on any point, we shall always be met with a blank denial, which, I suppose, is the commencement of that 20 years' government promised by the Prime Minister; but I think it is desirable, in behalf of law and order in Ireland, and in behalf of a large section of the population which may at any time be subject to the violence of the Constabulary, that attention should be paid to this matter. I am not going to call the Constabulary any names, or say anything against them, because there are many of them who are good men. I know the man who knocked me down. He was an Orangeman from the North of Ireland; and I know, also, that he got a right good handling from a Nationalist member of the Police Force within the last few months. I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General will give us no scholastic or pettifogging answer on this subject, but one calculated to satisfy the wants and feeling of the people to whom I belong.

MR. H. J. GILL (Limerick)

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman really think that his duties do not oblige him to take notice of these matters when they are brought forward? Here are several subordinates of the right hon. and learned Gentlemen who have been impugned by my hon. Friends for conduct which certainly would not have been permitted in the case of Solicitors of the Crown in England, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman before the discussion is ended leaves the Committee without anybody to answer for him in his absence—because no one here is entitled to speak for the Office of Attorney General for Ireland except him- self. These cases concern the Office of Attorney General for Ireland, and that to which my hon. Friend the Member for North Dublin (Mr. Clancy) referred, is most monstrous—the case in which the Crown Solicitor actually endeavoured in a public Court to compel a witness to incriminate himself, and in which one of the witnesses who did incriminate himself suffered eight days' imprisonment for the answer he gave to a question which he was compelled to answer, and which was put with the distinct object of incriminating the witness. Now, if the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland is not going to give us any answer or explanation of this sort of thing, and if he is not going to get up and express his disapproval and condemnation of this conduct, these gentlemen—the Crown Solicitors and jacks in office in Ireland— will continue to believe that they have the support of the House in acting as they do. Our object in bringing forward this and similar matters is to prevent men of this class acting in future as they have done in the past, and to prevent others straining the law at the command of the subordinates of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. Several of my hon. Friends have oases of the kind to bring forward, and I would urge upon the right hon. and learned Gentleman to make some adequate reply to the case put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dublin.

MR. W. ABRAHAM (Limerick, W.)

The case which has been stated by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dublin (Mr. Clancy), and in which it is evident that the Crown Solicitor who conducted the prosecution exceeded his duty, occurred in that portion of the county of Limerick which I have the honour to represent. We have proved the case up to the hilt, and have shown that the action of the Crown Solicitor was calculated to bring the whole law in Ireland into contempt; because not only had the Crown Solicitors no witnesses whatever, but actually they issued summonses to the members of the National League in the district; but they endeavoured by examination and cross-examination to get these men to incriminate themselves. And more than that; when they found that these men took shelter under the law as it exists in Ireland, one man was sent to prison for eight days, and when he was brought up before the Court the case was not proceeded with. We are entitled to receive from the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland some assurance as to his intention with regard to this subordinate officer, and therefore we feel obliged to press the matter on the attention of the Government. Surely, if this action was legal, it would be easy for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to defend it; but we are of opinion that the Crown Solicitor took powers which the ordinary law did not give him. We ask for some assurance that this particular Crown Solicitor shall be shown whether he has acted within his powers in questioning witnesses, and endeavouring to get a conviction for an alleged offence by the course he has pursued. I trust that my hon. Friends will continue to discuss this matter, and press it on the attention of the Government until the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland returns to his place, and gives us a decided answer as to whether he thinks the Crown Solicitor has acted legally.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I am sure that no one who has heard the two or three able speeches made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) in the course of this debate will accuse him of any disposition to act unfairly in the carrying out of the duties of his Office. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Limerick (Mr. H. J. Gill) said he did not bring forward this question with a view of obtaining redress, for it was too late to do that; but he did so with a view of pressing on the attention of the Government the fact that such things at he described are possible under the existing system, and the desirability of the Attorney General for Ireland exercising greater supervision over his subordinates. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General was not present when the hon. Gentleman made his observations; but I can say on his behalf that he will exercise the same vigilance in the future as he has done in the past in the performance of his duties. I earnestly press upon the Committee the extreme desirability of closing, if possible, this discussion. It must be manifest that if every case is to be discussed and rediscussed in the way this has been, not only will the course of justice in Ireland be very muck hindered, but it will be hardly within our power to get through the necessary Business of the Session.

MR. CLANCY

The answer to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland is that if he does not allow us to discuss these matters here we have no other place to discuss them in. Will he allow us to discuss them in Dublin? No, he will not. Of course he will not, and he has now made a speech and practically declined to answer the case I brought up. All he has told us is that his right hon. and learned Colleague the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) will in future bestow the same vigilant attention on these cases as he has always bestowed. That is no answer to the ease I brought forward. I did not merely ask for vigilant attention. I asked him to express an opinion upon the character of these prosecutions; and not only did the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland remain silent, but now his Colleague the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary tries to avoid the point. Instead of telling us that these prosecutions are illegal, unconstitutional, arbitrary and oppressive, or are not, instead of answering the allegations brought forward by Members on this side of the House, he merely tells us that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will bestow his vigilant attention on those cases, as he has always done. That is no answer at all; and I tell the right hon. Gentleman and the Commitee that this kind of answering will not expedite the Business of the Committee. There is in this Vote five or six items relating to Crown solicitors in Ireland, and I give the right hon. Gentleman warning that I will move a reduction severally, one after another, of these items, unless he now rises, or prevails upon the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland to rise, and express his disapproval of these proceedings which are indefensible, and the allegations in reference to which he cannot contradict. Here is my offer. If the right hon. Gentleman will get up in his place, or if the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland will get up and express his disapproval of the act of the County Limerick magistrates in anticipating the Secret Inquiry Clause of the Crimes Act by eight months, and sending a man to gaol for refusing to answer a question which he declared would criminate him if he will get up and say that is an act of which he disapproves, and which ought not to have been committed by any magistrate in Ireland, then this part of the discussion will close, and he will find that the transaction of Business which he desires will be hastened. But, on the other hand, if this assurance is not given, or if he cannot contradict any of the allegations that have been made, then I beg to give notice that I will move the rod notion, one after the other, of all the items relating to Crown solicitors in Ireland. I see that the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland has now returned to his place, and, perhaps, it is as well that I should repeat my statement. In County Limerick a man was brought up before the county magistrates, and he was asked a question the answering of which he declared would criminate him. If the present Coercion Act had been in force the magistrates would have been entitled by law to send the man to prison until he answered. There was no power in the Statute Law to do it then; but, nevertheless, the magistrates, without any power either of Statute Law or Common Law, sent this unfortunate person to prison for eight days. I maintain that a proceeding of this kind is not only unconstitutional, but illegal, oppressive, tyrannical, and insulting to the whole population of Ireland. I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland to say whether, in his opinion, that was a proper proceeding or not? Does he approve of putting a man in gaol for refusing to answer a question he was entitled to refuse to answer? Does he approve of the style of examination and cross-examination adopted in the case of this peasant, a style of examination which would be ridiculous and preposterous on the part of the most inexperienced legal official, which no rule of law can sanction, and which must be absurd and amusing in the highest degree to every one of the eminent Queen's Counsel sitting opposite. I ask the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland if he approves or disapproves of these proceedings? If he expresses his disapproval of them, we know what will be the re- sult. The Business of the Committee will be expedited, and the actions of the officials in Ireland will be restrained within the limits of the law. If he does not express disapproval of them, but, on the contrary, gives an equivocal answer, his agents and subordinates in Ireland will be more rampant that ever, and I promise him that the Business of the Committee will not be expedited.

MR. GIBSON

The hon. Gentleman the Member for North Dublin (Mr. Clancy) mentioned, I think, two cases in his original observations.

MR. CLANCY

I could mention half-a-dozen.

MR. GIBSON

I am not saying what he could mention, but that he did mention two cases. He said that two men were charged with the publication of some Boycotting notices.

MR. CLANCY

I said, and this is the material point, that the men were charged with having published the placard; but it was not alleged that the placard contained a threat, or amounted to a Boycotting notice.

MR. GIBSON

I am not at liberty to express an opinion without seeing the placard, and without knowing the exact facts upon which the prosecution was founded. The hon. Gentleman did not mention what happened.

MR. CLANCY

They were held to bail for good behaviour.

MR. GIBSON

Then it appears, as far as one can judge, that there was a case against these men for the publication of this placard.

MR. CLANCY

It does not follow.

MR. GIBSON

We are bound by the action of the Court, and I, as Attorney General, have got, as the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, no control over the action of the Court which acts upon its own discretion.

MR. CLANCY

I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but he completely misapprehends my point. I do not say he has any control over the magistrates. I did not dwell upon the conviction of these men; I did not even mention it. What I found fault with was the fact that the prosecution was undertaken by the Government and at their instance.

MR. GIBSON

I am wholly unable to say whether there was a case for a prosecution or not; but we can infer that from the magistrates' decision. I am not able to express an opinion from the evidence before me—as the hon. Gentleman can see. Even if I were so disposed, it would be irregular and improper in me as a Law Officer to express an opinion unless I had all the documents and matters before me. The hon. Gentleman must know I should be incurring an unprecedented responsibility as a Law Officer, if I expressed a categorical opinion upon statements made by hon. Gentlemen in any part of the House without having before me all the facts and documents upon which the decision of the Court was founded.

MR. CLANCY

I regret having again to interrupt the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but this case has been mentioned three or four times already in this House.

MR. GIBSON

It may have been mentioned, but my attention was not drawn to it. I am only trying to exculpate myself. I, myself, am not conversant with the facts of the case. As far as I can judge from the action of the Court, it was one in which the parties were in the wrong, and the point which the hon. Gentleman has raised is whether the Crown, through the police, ought to have prosecuted or not. Upon that I cannot express an opinion; the general rule in Ireland is that the police interfere in. all cases where public interests are involved, or where there is anything in the nature of a criminal offence. Now, the next case which the hon. Gentleman raised in his original observations was that of certain boys who were charged, under a Statute of Edward III., with blowing horns. I do not know the circumstances under which these young gentlemen blew horns; but I apprehend from the fact of their having been proceeded against under the Statute of Edward III., that there was a strong idea on the part of the police that these boys acted for some purpose in connection with intimidation, because the blowing of horns or bugles, or the playing of musical instruments generally, is not necessarily regarded by the police as a criminal offence.

MR. CLANCY

The boys were under 14 years of age.

MR. GIBSON

Yes; but very many Irish boys under 14 years of age possess a great deal of intelligence, and it is quite possible to conceive their being participators in intimidatory action. Then the hon. Gentleman referred to the action of the Crown Solicitor at Drumcollogher, County Limerick. The hon. Gentleman is perfectly well aware that questions are again and again asked as to which there is very considerable conflict of opinion between counsel and the Bench as to whether or not the questions are of an incriminatory character. From the action of the Bench in this instance, I understand that the question could not be deemed incriminatory. The hon. Gentleman said that if the Crimes Act had been already passed at that time the magistrates could have sent the witness to prison for refusing to answer.

MR. CLANCY

I said that they anticipated the Coercion Act by eight months.

MR. GIBSON

The hon. Gentleman has certainly adopted a strained interpretation of that Act. His statement completely misrepresents the object and effect of that Act of Parliament. In fact, it is just as incorrect as his reference to the possible effect of that Act of Parliament on the decision of the Court. There is no provision in the Act, as the hon. Gentleman must be aware, which alters the Law of Evidence. The hon. Gentleman contemplates a case of a question being asked in a Court of Justice the answer to which could be used criminally. Now, he will see on reflection that there is no provision in the Criminal Law Procedure Act, 1887, affecting this matter. I now come to deal with this question as it stands at Common Law. In this case the witness was asked a certain question which he declined to answer. I know nothing about the facts of the case; but it appears to me a very unfair thing that, when the Court have adopted a certain view of the evidence, and have acted in their discretion, he should ask me to express an opinion concerning the action of the Court, especially in face of the fact that the person aggrieved has a remedy against the Court. I do not say whether the decision of the Court was right or not; it would be impertinent on my part to express an opinion at present of the case; so much depends upon the facts of the case, and the view the Court took of the bonâ fide of the witness. It would be an intolerable thing to any advocate, if he got the decision of a Court in his favour, for the House of Commons to censure him and hold him up as culpable for getting the decision of the Court in his favour. I must object very strongly to the pressure which the hon. Gentleman has wished to apply to me this evening, in order to cause me to express an opinion on this matter. I ask him whether it would not be unjust on my part to do so? I can conceive a very obvious state of facts in which it would have been the duty of the Crown Solicitor to ask certain questions. Suppose Boycotting resolutions were published, and certain witnesses wore called to say whether they could explain who was the person really responsible for the publication of the resolutions. These witnesses may evade responsibility by saying that by answering they would incriminate themselves. I gather that the Crown Solicitor never suggested that there was any intention to prosecute any persons who were asked these questions. It would not be just or right for me to express an opinion, and I am convinced the hon. Gentlemen really does not expect me, as Attorney General, to give specific answers upon all the points he has raised.

MR. FLYNN

I do not think the answer of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland can be considered very satisfactory. My hon. Friend the Member for North Dublin (Mr. Clancy) has made a distinct and specific allegation against the Crown Solicitor. It is not a question of the action of the magistrates, because my hon. Friend could not bring a charge against the magistrates on this Vote. The magistrates, no doubt, acted in a very loose and extraordinary manner; but the specific charge made by my hon. Friend is against the Crown Solicitor. It amounts to this, that the Crown Solicitor sought to force this unfortunate man into answering a question, though he solemnly declared that the answering of the question would incriminate himself. Is that not a distinct breach of duty on the part of the Crown Solicitor, is that not a most culpable act on the part of the Crown Solicitor? Of course, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General made a rather clever and—if he will excuse me for saying so—a rather quibbly defence. So to my hon. Friend's allegation with regard to the Crown Solicitor and the magistrates anticipating the operation of the Crimes Act by eight months, what my hon. Friend meant to convey was that under the 1st section of the Crimes Act—that section which deals with preliminary inquiries—a man may be brought before a Resident Magistrate, and not even the fact that the answering of a question put to him may incriminate himself will prevent him being called upon to answer any question the Resident Magistrate sitting in private may put to him. That is the course which the Crown Solicitor seems to have adopted in this case. Over and over again the witness stated that the answering of the question would incriminate himself. It is all very well to say the witness had his rights at Common Law: he had his right at Common Law not to answer the question; but for all that we find that this Crown Solicitor made an elementary is take of this kind. This Crown Solicitor must have known his duty better than to do what he did. We are not here to inquire into the motives of the Crown Solicitor; we are seeking to take cognizance of the fact that the Crown Solicitor who is to be paid in this Vote acted most illegally, and that the result of his action was that this unfortunate man got eight days' imprisonment. It is well that the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland should remember that no depositions were taken—a very remarkable incident—in this entire case, a case of sheer tyranny and despotism. We are entitled to call upon the right hon. and learned Gentleman to give us such a pledge that these things shall not occur again in Ireland. He even knows that the Crimes Act just passed gives powers, ample, and wide, and large enough to destroy almost every vestige of liberty in Ireland. We ask the right hon. and learned Attorney General's protection; it is our most obvious duty as the Representatives of the people to call upon the Representative of law and order in Ireland, the Representative of the Government entrusted with the carrying out of law, to give us a pledge that in future his subordinate will not administer the law solely in the interest of any one class of the community. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cork (Dr. Tanner) referred a while ago—and, if I mistake not, the right hon. and learned Attorney Ge- neral for Ireland was not in his place at the time—to an even more flagrant case of misconduct on the part of the Crown Solicitor than that brought under the notice of the Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dublin (Mr. Clancy). It is a case which was brought before the attention of the House on a former occasion, and one which has not yet been thoroughly discussed. I should certainly have preferred that we should have had an opportunity of bringing this case on at a time when a more leisurely discussion of it might have taken place, because I am persuaded that we could have convinced hon. Members that in this case there was a serious failure of justice, and that this failure of justice was entirely and exclusively owing to the action of the Attorney General for Ireland. We have nothing to do with the fact that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the present Attorney General for Ireland was not the Attorney General at the time the case happened; but we have to do with the fact that the Irish Attorney General receives a large salary, and has within the past 12 months been guilty of several serious breaches of his duty by omission and commission. We have a serious bill of indictments to bring against the Irish Attorney General. The case to which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cork referred occurred in the City of Cork last December. I did not see the events which led to the assault, though I was on the spot immediately afterwards. I confess I should not be in Order in relating the details of the assault, and therefore I shall only give the Committee those details which bear out my contention—namely, that there was a serious and culpable neglect of duty on the part of the Attorney General in not carrying out the law. On the occasion in question there was a meeting of a more or less public character in Cork. An attack was made on that meeting by an officer of police in plain clothes, and a large body of men armed with batons and sword bayonets; the attack was made without warning, as was proved by the evidence of the policemen themselves. My hon. Friend the Member for South Tipperary (Mr. John O'Connor) was violently assaulted and thrown down, and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cork was also subjected to most brutal treatment. Both of my hon. Friends summoned the District Inspector in charge of the police before the magistrates within a few days of the time of the occurrence, and the District Inspector served summonses on my hon. Friends; therefore they all came before the Court on equal terms. After the closest investigation of the case, the Cork magistrates returned the District Inspector, Milling, to take his trial for the assault. What happened? the Attorney General for Ireland—who is now Mr. Justice Holmes—refused to go a step further in the case, and District Inspector Milling went scot-free. Does such action on the part of a responsible Officer of the Crown promote respect for law and order in Ireland? Does it not burn deep into the hearts of the people a belief that there is one law for one set of men and another law for another set of men? When a Bench of Magistrates have returned the man for trial, why should the Attorney General refuse to send him for trial? It cannot be alleged that a fair trial could not be had in Cork, because a special jury could have been empanulled and a going Judge of Assize could have been surely trusted by the Government to do what was right and proper. It is on account of actions such as this on the part of responsible Law Officers that the administration of justice in Ireland is looked upon with jealousy and suspicion by 19 out of every 20 of the population. I do not know that out of the many examples we have had of extraordinary action taken by the Attorney Generals for Ireland there has boon anything more serious and extraordinary than this case of the non-prosecution of District Inspector Milling last winter. What redress have we in such cases as this? We know what redress we should have if a case like this occurred in any city of England. The Press, for instance, would cry out for redress. The Irish Press cried out. The Freeman's Journal in Dublin, the Cork papers, and, indeed, all the popular Press cried out in indignation against the miscarriage of justice in this case. They said that the Attorney General had failed in the most obvious and ordinary duties of his Office. What attention did the right hon. and learned Gentleman pay to the Press of Ireland? Public opinion was against this monstrous miscarriage of justice, but the public opinion of Ireland has no effect upon Irish Law Officers. Is it conceivable that a case of this kind could occur in England? Let us take the case of the Salvation Army. Supposing two Radical or Tory Members went down to address a meeting of the Salvation Army and were assaulted by the police; supposing that the Inspector in charge of the police was brought up before the local magistrates, and that they returned him upon informations for trial; supposing that the Attorney General for England refused to send the Inspector of Police to trial, why you would have a howl of indignation all over England, you would have an outburst of public opinion that no Government could stand against. Allusion has been made more than once in the debates on the Irish Estimates to the case of Miss Cass, and how quickly Members of the Government found it necessary to take action in the Cass case, because they found that there was a strong opinion on all sides of the House, and on the part of the English public generally, as to the injustice that had been done. All that we want is investigation; but our desires are of no moment whatever to Irish Law Officers or to Members of Her Majesty's Government. Our contention is that the occurrences in Ireland to which we have called attention are scandalous, that they tend to discredit the administration of justice, and that they still further help to provoke all the elements of social disorder. This is only natural. It is only natural that it should be so, when the people see that the men who ought to be the very first to see that there is an impartial administration of justice, are the very first to take sides against them because they happen to belong to a political Party. We feel bound to make a stand, to tell the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland that every little bit of tyranny in Ireland is closely noted, and the people are watching anxiously for the golden moments that are fast approaching. Every possible persecution that legal tyranny can devise is heaped upon those who have been or are looked upon as popular leaders, as men who are engaged on the popular side in this great struggle. We ask that the men who administer the law shall be kept within the narrow limits of the law. A close eye will be kept on, every local tyrant, upon every Crown Solicitor, on District Inspector Milling, and on all other men who act unconstitutionally and illegally. Such of us who are in a position to do so will keep a close record of the doings of these men, and we shall not fail, when the Estimates are brought on for discussion, again to bring the conduct of these officials to the notice of the House much more persistently than we have done on the present occasion. We have made a distinct case out for the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland's attention this evening. Our points are whether Crown Solicitors are to go so obviously outside their duty, as Mr. Leahy did at Drumcollogher, and whether such men as District Inspector Milling should receive exceptional protection at the hands of the Attorney General for Ireland. We want distinct answers upon these questions, and upon the answers we receive will largely depend whether we consider it necessary or not to continue to discuss at greater length and with greater minuteness the details of this Vte.

MR. BLANE (Armagh, S.)

Mr. Courtney, it is not a very pleasant duty for Irish Representatives in this House to have from time to time to bring forward allegations against those who administer the law in Ireland. It is not a duty we at all care for. We would much prefer that there was no occasion to draw the attention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland to these matters. The Government, however, seem to be altogether in the hands of the Law Officers whose conduct we challenge. That is a very regrettable circumstance; but, fortunately, the complaints that are made against the Irish Law Officers of the Crown and their subordinates in reference to the administration of justice are not now confined to Irish Members, but many English Members who are well versed in law themselves join with us in complaining. This matter has actually become an International one, and it is a matter of humiliation for Englishmen, especially Englishmen connected with the administration of law, that it has become an International question. A short time ago a complaint was made upon representations of the Law Officers of the Crown in Ireland of certain action of Irishmen in the United States. The answer the President of the United States gave ought to make every Englishman blush. The President of the United States said in his answer that if the English Government would prevent the corruption of the Irish Judges, and the hiring of witnesses, and the corruption of other sources of justice in Ireland, there would be less to complain of in Ireland or in America. This, therefore, has become an International question. Our Law Officers have caused other countries to look with contempt upon our sense of justice and fair play: the President of the United States condemned the administration of justice in Ireland, and he did that in an International document. I maintain it is the Members who have been retuned to this House by Trinity College, Dublin, who are largely responsible for this condition of affairs. Year after year we are answered in the same platitudes hunted up from Hansard. We know when we raise discussions upon the Estimates what answers we shall receive; we can anticipate the answers, which is much to be regretted. Members of the Government accuse us of obstructing Business, whereas it is they themselves who do the very thing they complain of in us. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) says it is necessary for the Law Officers of the Crown to make good their case. I deny that if a Law Officer of the Crown believes a prisoner to be innocent he has any right to push the casa against the prisoner. I am firmly convined that this Vote provides for the hiring of witnesses in my own county. Hiring of witnesses or suborning of testimony is paid for in this Vote.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order! The hon. Gentleman has made a statement which is absolutely uncorroborated by the Vote or Estimate as put before the Committee, and he is not at all confining himself to the Question under debate. I must ask him not to wander, as he has been wandering, from the Question under discussion.

MR. BLANE

I understand that this is a Vote for Criminal Prosecutions in Ireland, and under the head of criminal prosecutions the hiring of witnesses is forced to come up.

THE CHAIRMAN

What does the hon. Gentleman mean by the hiring of witnesses?

MR. BLANE

I mean the payment of witnesses' expenses. There are other charges for witnesses which I believe may fairly be taken as charges for the luring of witnesses. The Law Officers of the Crown will not give us any answer in reference to the conduct of their subordinates: they allow their subordinates to challenge jurors in criminal trials without showing any cause, but manifestly for the purpose of obtaining a conviction. I gather from the words of the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland that it is the duty of the Law Officers of the Crown to press a prosecution as far as they can. That is not my opinion. I do not think the hon. and learned Attorney General for England (Sir Richard Webster) would prosecute or allow any of his subordinates to prosecute in a case in which he thought the accused party was innocent. I have seen cases in England in which the Attorney General has said it was no part of his duty to prosecute to a conviction if he thought himself that the evidence was not sufficient to convict upon. I think this should be so in Ireland. In Ireland the Law Officers seem to think it is their duty to obtain a conviction at any cost, and they invariably do this by exercising the right of challenge. I have been challenged myself on a jury; I have been told before 2,000 people to stand aside. The reason was that I had not the confidence of the Crown. I certainly had the confidence of the people to the extent that I was returned, by them to this House. Though I may be very ignorant of the law, I presume I am just as good a judge of facts as the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland himself; at least I claim to be so. Will the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland put a stop to the practice of which we complain? No, he will not do so, I do not think he dare do so; the right of challenge is part of the constitution in Ireland; it is the well worn way by which justice, in my opinion, is perverted. If we had a better administration of law in our country we should not be found, at any rate, complaining in this House. I have ventured to make these observations because I thought it was my duty to do so—I may add my painful duty. It is no pleasure to mo or to any of my Friends to stand up here and bring these painful affairs before the attention of the Committee; we would much rather the Estimates passed without any need of discussion. This Estimate would unquestionably be speedily passed if the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland would tell us that the law will be adminstered in such a way that the people may have confidence in its just administration.

MR. CLANCY

I admit that the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland was different in tone from that of his right hon. Colleague the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary seemed to make very light indeed of the cases I have brought forward. The imprisonment of a man in Ireland, especially if he is a peasant, seams to be a matter of no concern to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. I confess I was much disappointed at the general tone of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks. At the same time, I cannot admit for one moment the sufficiency of the explanation of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General, courteous though it was in the extreme. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General is distinguished by his courtesy in this House; but I cannot admit that what he has said upon this matter is at all satisfactory. On no single point can I pretend for one moment that the answer of the Government is a satisfactory one. I do not, however, intend to divide the Committee on this occasion; but if I find a suitable opportunity on Report I shall certainly draw the attention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman again to the three or four cases I have cited this evening. I shall do so for the reason that I regard this tyrannical exercise of power in the country districts as of far more importance than that which took place in Dublin in the full light of day, and in the face of the civilized world. The things which take place in the country districts of Ireland are hidden from sight; the Press is not represented, and the consequence is that the officers of the Crown, in league with the magistrates, do just as they please. They trample upon law with impunity, and we find that when we bring matters before the House of Commons we can get no redress. For this reason I shall feel it my duty to refer again to these matters on Report, and I hope that then the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland will be sufficiently grounded in the facts of these cases to be able to give an assurance that the tyrannical proceedings I have described to-night shall not; be perpetrated in the future.

MR. HARRIS (Galway, E.)

One of the things we have most reason to complain of is that, no matter what cases are brought against the Law Officers of the Crown, no satisfactory answer is given. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, or one or other of his Colleagues, rises in his place and makes a very reasonable and powerful speech; but nothing is done. In fact, the only way to promotion for an Irish Law Officer is to outrage the law, to proceed in the most extreme and most severe manner against the people he happens to have thought fit to proceed against. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has said in the course of his speeches that he would examine these cases carefully. I have the most profound mistrust of lawyers, especially of Crown lawyers. I have no doubt the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland desires to do that which is fair and just; but it is entirely out of his power; he is helpless in the Office he holds to do justice to the peasants in the West of Ireland. He is as helpless in the matter as he is to reverse the course of the seasons. Cases are got up by moa living in localities. A certain number of informers are engaged, and as there is great repugnance in Ireland on the part of the people to become informers, the authorities have to fall back on a class of most dissolute men. Together with this, political feeling is so high that in every case involving Party considerations the Crown resorts to the practice of packing a jury. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland may be opposed in principle to the packing of juries; but I venture to say that in a case which bears any Party aspect he willingly submits to the process of packing the jury. On the one hand you have a packed jury, and on the other you have the evidence of some vile wretches as to circumstances that may, or may not, have transpired. The evidence of these men is collected and collated, and put before the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General, in a scientific way, by men who are well up in their business. The right hon. and learned Attorney General has no personal knowledge of the facts; he has a multitude of duties to perform, and I ask him whether it is within his power to form a correct or just opinion as to the propriety or otherwise of the different prosecutions. The laws of Ireland are very frequently changed. We have Acts of Parliament passed Session after Session interfering with the rights of tenants, and that gives rise, of course, to a great amount of litigation. The landlords naturally are the first to have recourse to law, and they do avail themselves very largely of the process of litigation. The result is that throughout the country the services of counsel are largely in demand. These counsel desire to become Crown Prosecutors; they regard that position as the very first step in the ladder, and the desire for these appointments is remarkably strong. The salaries given by the Government are so large, and the patronage obtained from the landlord class so great, that nowadays counsel turn away from the people in such numbers that it is almost impossible for a poor man who espouses the popular side to get a solicitor in the country parts of Ireland. In former times in Ireland counsel, even those engaged by the Crown, were very popular. In former times Ireland produced great and distinguished counsel, counsel such as Curran, O'Connell, and Butt; but to-day the popularity of Irish counsel is fast dying out, and it will, in the end, come to this, that lawyers in Ireland will be just as much disrespected as common policemen. [Laughter.] The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland may laugh; but he knows that what I say is perfectly true. the Legal Profession is going down every day in Ireland, because members of it are becoming more and more unpopular with the people. I do not, however, wish to press the point further; perhaps I should incur your displeasure, Mr. Courtney, if I did so. It is obvious, however, that the present system of administering the law in Ireland is radically bad, and that the only way in which it can be altered is by the total abolition of Dublin Castle itself. I regret very much that the hon. Gentleman who moved this Amendment does not intend to divide the Committee, because I realty think this matter ought to be brought to a Division. There is no power entrusted to lawyers in Ireland that is not put to a bad purpose; but I have no desire to occupy the time of the Committee any further upon the point.

MR. TUITE (Westmeath, N.)

I hope the Government are now in a position to afford me some information on the subject I referred to a while ago.

MR. GIBSON (who was indistinctly heard)

was understood to say that he had received no information with regard to the case the hon. Member had referred to, and was not in a position to give a reply. Moreover, he understood that prosecutions were pending; and, if that were the case, even if he had information on the subject he would be unable to go into the question.

MR. TUITE

Did the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself direct the prosecutions?

MR. GIBSON

was understood to reply in the negative.

MR. TUITE

I have received sufficient information from Mullingar to enable me to discuss on this Vote the conduct of the Government in regard to this prosecution. I have learned that Mr. John P. Hayden is about to be prosecuted for attending an eviction at Tang, in County Westmeath, and that 27 others are also to be prosecuted. I have not received the details of the charges to be brought against these persons; but I understand that the summonses are so framed that cumulative sentences may be passed. I think it a mean and contemptible dodge to put one of my principal constituents into prison without a fair and legitimate trial. This is, I must say, a desperate act on the part of the Government. The County Westmeath is, at this period, in a state of absolute peace, and has been so for a considerable time. The landlords and tenants there, except in three or four instances, are living on the very best of terms with each other. The tenantry in some cases, no doubt, have borne hardships patiently. They have waited for legislation which, to a certain extent —a very inadequate extent—has now been provided. But the Government will not allow that legislation to take effect. They have started these prosecutions against men who have done nothing more than offer a passive resistance, and by no moans a violent resistance, to the evictions. So passive, indeed, has been the resistance, that the Sheriff of Westmeath has been able to travel 22 miles across the mountains to effect the evictions without the slightest escort. Surely that shows the passive condition of the district. It will be seen, under those circumstances, that anything in the form of a prosecution must be in the last degree irritating to these people, so peacefully disposed at this moment. I should like to know who directed these prosecutions? Are we in Ireland to have the administration of the Crimes Act loft in the hands of the magistrates? Are the magistrates to direct prosecutions in every case, or is the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland to be consulted before prosecutions take place. I say this is a monstrous thing, and unless some explanation is given by the right hon. and learned Gentleman I shall feel it my duty to move the reduction of the Vote by such a sum as will mark the sense of the Committee on the action of the Government.

MR. GIBSON

I would point out to the hon. Member the extreme inconvenience, if not danger, of discussing a matter which is the subject of a pending prosecution. I would ask the hon. Member not to enter into the case for the reason that I have received no information with regard to it, and am, therefore, unable to give a satisfactory answer. I have telegraphed to Dublin for particulars.

MR. TUITE

The Government, I suppose, have made up their minds as to the sentence they will pass on these gentlemen, and therefore this prosecution is a mockery and a sham altogether. I will read to the Committee what I suppose is the charge brought against Mr. Hayden. Mr. Hayden attended an eviction at Tang, and here is a report published in his own paper, The Westmeath Examiner, on the 20th of August, with reference to the eviction— The Head Constable, who previously sought to strike down the people, now sought to work up a little prosecution by calling the Resident Magistrate's attention to an observation of Mr. John P. Hayden, T.C., of The Westmeath Examiner. He told Mr. Beckett, E.M., that Mr. Hayden told the girl ' to got them to break the gate' Mr. Beckett inquired of Mr. Hayden if he had said so, and the latter replied—' No, Sir; I told the girl who owns this laud to close the gate on the trespassers.' Then the Head Constable made answer—' Aye; and he said break the gate.' 'Yes,' said Mr. Hayden; ' I told her let those who are trespassing break the gate if they dare.' Mr. Beckett did not think the matter worthy of the attention which the Head Constable gave it. It is on that occurrence, no doubt, that the prosecution of my hon. Friend is to be founded, and I want to know from the Government what instructions they have given to the Resident Magistrates of the district in this case? I believe, Sir, that the landlord in the district who evicted the tenants on that day has everything to do with these prosecutions, and that it is simply a dodge on the part of the landlords to strike terror into the hearts of an unfortunate people who are at present unable to pay their rack-rents. This is an attack made upon a people who are disposed to quiet and peace. The district is in perfect peace; and further than all this, I believe that Mr. Hayden is now attacked simply because he is a political opponent of the Government, and is a popular advocate of the cause of liberty. Mr. Hayden is the proprietor—

THE CHAIRMAN

I think I must appeal to the hon. Member not to put such a very dangerous strain on the practice of debate on the Estimates as he proposes to inflict upon it. This, I understand, is a case in which a prosecution has been commenced. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland says that he knows nothing about it, and is quite un-acquainted with the circumstances and the reason for why the prosecution was started, and the hon. Member (Mr. Tuite) has himself proceeded as he says on an hypothesis. It is a very great strain, if not an abuse of discussion on the Estimates, to raise such a question as this at such a stage. The hon. Member is, no doubt, moved by sympathy with his Friend, but I put it to him whether it would not be advisable to wait for further information so that the debate might proceed on surer grounds?

MR. TUITE

I bow to your ruling, Sir. I must say, however, that I feel very strongly on this matter, and that I feel it the right hon. and learned Gentleman's duty to understand this case, and to appreciate his duties with regard to this and similar prosecutions. What is he receiving his salary for? The right hon. and learned Gentleman no doubt has been very courteous — I appreciate all that—but at the same time he ought to have received some particulars about this case which concerns one of my constituents. If he has not been consulted in the matter, perhaps Mr. Jury-packer O'Brien the Solicitor General has been consulted, Perhaps it is between Mr. Jury-packer O'Brien and Dublin Castle that communications with regard to this case are going on. Is it Mr. O'Brien who would communicate to the Government the particulars of such a case? If it is, we shall receive whatever information we may get with the confidence which everything which comes from that person deserves. Now, Sir, I do not wish to intrude further on the Committee, and I will only say that I feel very strongly on this matter and will take the very earliest opportunity of bringing it up again, when, I trust, the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be able to give me some information with regard to it.

MR. D. SULLIVAN (Westmeath, S.)

I only wish to intervene for one moment, Sir, in order to ask how this prosecution of 16 of my constituents can have arisen out of evictions which occurred at Tang, and which, as the Government have previously admitted in answer to a previous question, had been carried out so peaceably that the parish priest congratulated the Constabulary on the peaceful attitude of the people If the people were so peaceful and orderly, I should like to know how this disturbance could have arisen? If the right hon. and learned Gentleman (the Irish Attorney General) would answer that question, I should be obliged to him.

MR. GIBSON

The question and answer the hon. Member has referred to as having taken place in this House were to this effect. I was asked whether the police had brutally batoned the people in carry out this eviction in Westmeath, and the answer was that on the contrary they had behaved with exemplary forbearance, the Catholic clergyman expressing his sense of their forbearance. That is in no way inconsistent, however, with there having been obstruction to the course of the law on the part of those persons who, it may be, are about to be prosecuted. I do not say that as wishing to imply that there has been obstruction, or that any persons who may be prosecuted are guilty of the charges which may be brought against them. I only say it in order to show how prosecutions may arise. Of the circumstances themselves, I know nothing.

MR. SEXTON (Belfast, W.)

I think the hon. Members for Westmeath have done no more than their duty in bringing this matter forward. I go further and say that I believe they would have failed in their duty if they had not brought this matter forward. I would submit to the Committee that the law in Ireland places the duty of initiating and proceeding with a prosecution of this kind upon the shoulders of the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite.

MR. GIBSON

No, no !

MR. SEXTON

Yes. The right hon. and learned Gentleman can either allow these prosecutions to proceed or can prevent them. If, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman says he is at the present moment unaware of the facts which for several days have been notorious in Ireland that would lead mo to the conclusion that this Vote should be postponed or that the right hon. and learned Gentleman should give an undertaking that he will be prepared to make a statement on Report. It is fitter that he should do this than that we should allow the state of his mind at this moment to be made the cause of our foregoing a discussion on a matter of urgent public importance. Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the Sheriff proceeded to this district of Tang to carry out these evictions with his escort of four bailiff's, but without any policemen or any armed attendants whatever? If that is so, and if the Sheriff of Westmeath was able to proceed in a matter, and on an occasion so likely to excite public passion as the eviction of a number of persons from their homes— if he was able to proceed without a guard of police or soldiers, that, it seems to me, is sufficient to show that the district was in a quiet state. Then another fact to which the Committee must have regard is that the Sheriff having gone through the Town of Mullingar with his four bailiffs, and without an escort was able on that day to vindicate the law, and to enforce the processes of the law placed in his hands by evicting all the people mentioned in the processes from their homes. I say that if the Sheriff went without escort, and was able to evict these people without resistance it would appear that primâ facie a case is established of the impolicy of these prosecutions, and I would say that looking at the state of County Westmeath, as established by police returns which show an absence of crime, that public policy dictates that the right hon. and learned Gentleman ought to accept my view of this matter—that view being that a number of highly respectable persons whose characters are unimpeachable should not be prosecuted under the powers the Government have lately acquired in the state in which we find this county. If these prosecutions take place what will be their result? Why the result will be to implant feelings of resentment, possibly of exasperation in the minds of the great body of the people of Westmeath, and to keep open a sore in the county by placing a number of men in prison for acts which though they may have exceeded the bounds of discretion were certainly conceived in the public interest. I notice also a very curious thing which is this, that those men are summoned on double sets of summonses. Surely when the law is vindicated, when the Sheriff has carried out his object, when the people have been driven from their homos, and the landlord has obtained the full effect of the letter of the law and the last atom of his rights, I may ask what more can be desired? Has not the landlord had his way, has not the Sheriff had his way, have not the Government had their way? Why should you pursue these people vindictively in this way, and issue double sets of summonses against them? Let the Government proceed fairly in this matter. Let them indict the defendants either for riot or for resistance whichever the evidence in their hands might seem more fully to support, but do not let them avail themselves of double sets of summonses, otherwise it will seem that they are actuated by a cowardly and vindictive policy, and that their object is to enable magistrates to inflict sentences apparently light — namely, three weeks for obstruction and three weeks for riot—to inflict sentences separately which if inflicted in one term would entitle the defendants to an appeal. Sentences of this kind if inflicted in instalments, neither of them exceeding a month, would deprive the defendants of the right of appeal, and would place them at the merey of two Resident Magistrates. That is not a true interpretation of the law, and I would ask the right ton. and learned Gentleman to require the Local Authorities to proceed either on one summons or on the other, but not on both. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has appealed to my hon. Friend (Mr. Tuite) to be silent on this question — silent where silence would mean approval of illegal doings on the part of those who put the Crimes Act into operation. If we were silent on these things every petty magistrate and every little pasha in Ireland will have his own way. My hon. Friends the Members for Westmeath are intelligent enough to know that whatever else may serve an Irishman in the House of Commons silence never does.

MR. HAYDEN (Leitrim, S.)

When the case comes on next Wednesday, I shall be able to bring before the right hon. and learned Gentleman sufficient evidence to show him that this prosecucution is undertaken altogether from vindictive motives. It is not undertaken in the public interest, but to punish men who have successfully carried out the Plan of Campaign in Westmeath, lean assure him that he is very much mistaken if he thinks that the men who have taken part in operations of that kind, which have had for their object the alleviation of the distress of the tenantry, are not prepared to accept the consequences their acts entail. Not even a few months' imprisonment under the Crimes Act will deter them from doing their duty.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON

I would draw the attention of the Committee to a statement which has fallen from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland. He has admitted that he knows nothing at all about this prosecution, and that he has wired to Dublin Castle, and that they know nothing about it. Evidently, then, he would imply that the Local Authorities, or local individuals, have initiated this prosecution on their own hook. Very well; but when once a case is brought into Court, and when once the authorities are moved, the Government are committed to the preceedings; and we know how, under such circumstances, they strain every point in order to insure success. This is a serious matter for all of us representing constituencies in Ireland. I speak as representing a constituency far more disturbed than any part of Westmeath. It is important that we should know from the Government who are responsible for the conduct of these prosecutions—we should know whether every local despot and petty magnate, who may be a landlord, and who may be hand-and-glove with the district Inspector, is to be allowed to organize a series of important prosecutions far-reaching in their effect upon public liberty? We have a right to ask the Government to tell us something on this point—we have a right to complain that their only answer should be—"We know nothing at all about it." I think that this is a very grave state of affairs. If we allow this sort of thing to pass, we shall really be losing our grip on Parliament. No matter how disagreeable it is for hon. Members on the other side of the House to have to listen to us night after night talking about subjects with regard to which they would rather have us silent, I would tell them that we have reason to stand up and speak in Parliament. If we did not trouble the House, as we are doing to-night, if we did not strain every nerve to bring light to bear upon transactions such as this that forms the subject of our complaint to-night, if we did not investigate these transactions, it would hardly be possible for any decent man to live in Ireland. I could myself bear strong and distinct testimony to the great value of putting questions in this House with regard to Irish grievances. I remember—I do not care to refer to these things, but it is necessary to do so now for the purposes of illustration—I remember when I was favoured at one time with some attention under a previous Grimes Act. I got six months' imprisonment under it. I remember when my case was brought before this House that every time a question was put in this House with regard to it, some concession or easement was granted to me, and no doubt at the time I appreciated it. I believe, if I had been kept in gaol up to this time, that, as the result of the interrogations of my hon. Friends, the Prison Authorities would now be supplying me with turtle soup and champagne. I did not seek these favours, and I only mention them as a clear and distinct proof of the value of calling attention to these subjects in this House. The Local Authorities in Ireland are afraid of these discussions. Well, inasmuch as we are approaching the dark night of the Parliamentary Recess in a short time, the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be freed from the importunities of the Irish Members. I want, therefore, while there is still time, to impress upon the right hon. and learned Gentleman the desirability of acquainting himself with the circumstances of these prosecutions before he allows them to take place—I do not say with the circumstances of every pettifogging case, but with the circumstances of every serious matter that arises— wherever there is a case involving the imprisonment of a number of respectable persons in a district, especially in a district where you have begun to use the Crimes Act for the first time that he should not allow proceedings to go on without knowing the nature of them, and without being able to accept full responsibility for what is done. Seeing that the Crimes Act was wrenched from our grasp by the closure, and taken from this House to be applied to Ireland, it is not too much for us to expect and to demand that the Government should make themselves aware of every step that is taken under it—certainly of every initial step taken under it—and that they should be ready at any moment to enter into a discussion of the cases. It would not be proper now, not having the summonses or the facts before us to go into the merits of the cases referred by my hon. Friend; but it is a very strong proceeding, when a case of this magnitude arises, if it is allowed to go on without the right hon. and learned Gentleman giving us an answer as to who directed this prosecution, what it is for, and what is the policy at the root of it? It is not enough to say people are prosecuted in Ireland because they broke the law. People sometimes break the law with impunity, and are sometimes prosecuted vindictively, without having broken the law; and I think that every Member representing an Irish constituency ought to do his Lost to extract from the right hon. and learned Gentleman a promise that he will apply his mind to these serious cases, and that when we come to the discussion of them, as I am sure we shall do in January or February next, when we meet again, he will be able to tell us on what grounds it was he advised these prosecutions, or allowed them to take place. He must accept the responsibility of the initial steps that are taken, as well as all further prosecutions. If he does not do that, but allows the local police and magisterial authorities to take the initiative, I say that the Government are committed to a policy of prosecutions which will shock the feelings of all other countries—which the better judgment of all but the Government and their supporters will condemn. The small Local Authorities cannot be condemned as it will he possible to condemn high officials. The Head Constable we know backs the Sergeant; the District Inspector backs the Head Constable; the County Inspector backs the District Inspector; the Crown Prosecutor backs the County Inspector, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman will back the Crown Prosecutor and all the rest of them; so that he it is who is and must be responsible. We want to know where the real initiative is in these grave cases, and we have a right to demand an answer.

MR. GIBSON

The hon. Member says that, because these prosecutions are several days old I ought to know something about them. I have already said, and I now repeat, that I have no knowledge of these prosecutions. For aught I know, they may be private prosecutions. If they are private prosecutions they cannot, as hon. Gentlemen opposite must know very well, in any way come under my observation.

MR. TUITE

These are not private prosecutions.

MR. GIBSON

The hon. Gentleman has not told us the names of the prosecutors.

MR. TUITE

Here is a telegram I have received to-day— Both summonses for Tang Evictions. See Examiner for Saturday week. One for riot; other, resistance and obstruction—

An hon. MEMBER

Name.

MR. TUITE

T. H. Davis is the name. One for riot; other, resistance and obstruction under Section 2, Sub-section 3 a. Will be heard at Glasson, Wednesday next. Two summonses framed to get accumulative sentence and thus prevent appeal. Have just heard 26 others summoned. Hayden. The telegram says the prosecution is under Section 2, Sub-section 3a, of the Crimes Act. Surely, then, that is a Government prosecution.

MR. GIBSON

I am quite right in my surmise. The name of the prosecutor is not mentioned in the telegram, and, for all the Committee knows, the prosecution may be private.

MR. SEXTON

Under the Crimes Act?

MR. GIBSON

It is perfectly possible, on the information the hon. Member has submitted to us, that these prosecutions may be private prosecutions, because I may tell the hon. Gentleman that if any person felt himself aggrieved by resistance offered to the action of the Sheriff, there is nothing to prevent him taking out the summonses. There is nothing to prevent a bailiff taking out a summons if he has been obstructed, and the point we have to deal with is whether these are private summonses or official summonses. But, whether they are or not, I have said I am not acquainted with the facts. I have informed hon. Members that I have wired for the facts, and notwithstanding that, they will persist in going on with the inquiry. With regard to what has fallen from them, I do not think it would be right for me to make any statement as to matters of which I know nothing—it would not be right for me to make any statement without knowing who the prosecutor is, and without knowing anything about the facts. With regard to the allegation that two summonses have been issued in each case, that allegation may or may not be well founded, but even if it is the two summonses may be requisite under the two heads to ensure that a sufficient amount of material is obtained to bring home the guilt of the parties. It might be that the facts in the one summons were not sufficient to support one charge, and that it would be necessary to proceed under the other; but, as I say, I am not able to discuss the matter without knowing what the facts are. I cannot go into the matter under existing circumstances at all. An hon. Member said, in the course of this discussion, that no prosecution should ever be initiated without some preliminary direction on the part of the Attorney General. Let me mention what has been often stated by my right hon. and learned Predecessor in this Office—namely, that if the Irish Attorney General is to direct every prosecution in the first instance—that is to say, in its initial stage, before the summons is taken out—he would require to have every day a day of 48 hours, and to work through every hour. He has, as things are at present, an enormous amount of work to do; but it would be impossible for him, even though he worked like a slave, to get through the business hon. Gentlemen wish him to attend to. The directing of prosecutions is not a thing which can be done by the finger; it is not a thing which can be done by turning over page after page. I have done a great deal of finger business, and everyone who has been at the Bar knows the immense amount of work which is done in that way; but in the matter of these prosecutions, it is necessary to proceed very carefully, to read a great deal of evidence, and a great many communications which may be brought before you. The method of proceeding is this. In the initial stages steps are taken by the parties on the spot, and when the cases nave proceeded some distance, they are brought before the attention of the Attorney General. If the cases are of an important character which should be proceeded with at once, they are placed in the hands of the Crown Solicitor, and are sent to the Attorney General; but as hon. Members opposite are aware, it is only in very few cases that that course is pursued. In the great majority of cases the police prosecute. It is only when cases have arrived at a certain period of development that they are submitted to the Attorney General. To say that no prosecutions should take place throughout the whole of Ireland until they received the sanction of the Attorney General would be to require an amount of work from that official which it would be physically impossible for him to undertake. I state that at once. I do not avoid the responsibility of all Crown prosecutions. I think the responsibility for all prosecutions initiated by officials representing the Government should be assumed by the Attorney General; and let not hon. Gentleman opposite think that because I have not personally directed a prosecution in the first instance that I wish to evade responsibility for that prosecution. I desire to do nothing of the kind. I am responsible for the action of every Sessional Crown Solicitor and every Crown Prosecutor; but I would repeat the appeal I addressed to hon. Gentlemen opposite at the beginning—I would ask them not to continue this discussion until we know what the nature of the prosecution is. I have done the utmost in my power to obtain information, and I do not think hon. Members can charge me with treating the case with indifference.

MR. DEASY

I would press the right hon. and learned Gentleman to give us some kind of assurance that on the Report stage of this Vote he will be able to give us a full explanation of the matter referred to by the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton.) That is a very fair proposition, particularly after the speech we have just heard from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He says he undertakes to be responsible for every prosecution under the Crimes Act. Well, Sir, if he is responsible for every prosecution under the Crimes Act, why not in a couple of days hence—say, on Monday, when the Report stage of the Vote will be taken—bo prepared to come down and, in a few sentences, give my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast the particulars he has demanded. Let me point out that the alleged offences in respect of which these prosecutions are about to take place occurred a fortnight ago, and that it is only reasonable to think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman should have been consulted in a matter of such grave importance as this is—particularly as the Government are at the initial stages of putting the Crimes Act into operation. This is one of the most important prosecutions which have yet been initiated. The prosecution of the hon. Member for North-East Cork (Mr. William O'Brien) is, perhaps, the most important; but the prosecution we are now discussing is only of secondary importance to that, on account of the importance of the gentleman who is mainly interested, and are we to believe that the Law Officers of the Crown in Dublin Castle have not been consulted in regard to this case? Why it is not one man, but 27 gentlemen, who are to be prosecuted, and the prosecution is to take place under the 2nd clause of the Crimes Act. I refuse to credit the statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I do not mean to say that I believe the right hon. and learned Gentleman has heard about the ease, but I think I know who has heard about it. I think Mr. Peter O'Brien, the Solicitor General for Ireland, whose name is so heartily detested by every right thinking man in that country, knows something about the matter. I believe that Mr. Peter O'Brien has refrained from giving the right hon. and learned Gentleman any information upon the subject, because he knew that the question would be raised in this House, and he desired the right hon. and learned Gentleman to be in a comfortable state of ignorance, and unable to answer Questions put to him in this House. So far as my limited knowledge of Criminal Law is concerned, especially of the working of the Crimes Acts, I believe that the information the right hon. and learned Gentleman has conveyed, whether unwillingly or not, is erroneous. He led the Committee to believe that there was a prosecution, or that there may be a prosecution instituted by private individuals under the Crimes Act uninstructed by the Government. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman be kind enough to inform me of any case of this kind where a private individual has initiated a prosecution without the aid of the Crown Lawyers? I believe the right hon. and learned Gentleman's statement is entirely at variance with the facts, and entirely at variance with the administration of the Criminal Law, so far as these exceptional measures are concerned. This prosecution must of necessity have been initiated by the police or by the Authorities at Dublin Castle; and that being so, it is impossible for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to get up in this House and persuade us that we are not entitled to discuss the question until we are in a position to name the prosecutors in the case. We all know who the prosecutor is, though we have not had his name mentioned to-night. The Sub-Inspector in charge of the police at Tang, no doubt, is prosecuting under the direction of the Solicitor General (Mr. Peter O'Brien).

MR. GIBSON

The hon. Member's statement is entirely incorrect. He owes the statement entirely to his own imagination.

MR. DEASY

Which statement?

MR. GIBSON

The statement that these prosecutions are being conducted with the knowledge of the Solicitor General for Ireland.

MR. T. M. HEALY

How do you know they are not?

MR. DEASY

Here, then, is a new light thrown on this subject. Until now we thought that Mr. Peter O'Brien was consulted in this case; but now we are asked to give credence to the extraordinary statement that the Solicitor General in Dublin Castle is doing nothing but receiving his large salary from this House, and is not consulted by Local Authorities with reference to important prosecutions under the Crimes Act. I leave that statement to the Committee—I leave the Committee to form its own opinion upon it. I ask them this one question—whether, if assertions of that kind had been made during the passage of the Crimes Act through this House, the House would have been so ready to place the administration of that drastic Act in the hands of local policemen; because that is what the statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman amounts to. It amounts to this—that the Executive Authority in Dublin is not consulted by the Local Authorities as to the prosecutions entered upon under the Crimes Act. We Irish Members were all tinder the impression, and I believe English Members were under the impression as well, that nothing of consequence would be done under that Act without consultation with the highest Legal Authorities in Ireland. We were under the impression that the Government would control all these matters; and I do not think it possible that the number of Gentlemen who voted for the passing of this Act, having regard to the character of the police and the magistrates of Ireland, would have sanctioned the principle of allowing these people to initiate prosecutions without consulting the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, or the Solicitor General, who acts under him. I do not believe it possible. I believe this House acted under a misapprehension in passing the Crimes Act, and I was never more convinced of it than at this moment. I do not think anyone would have dared to make the statement which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has made to-night when the Crimes Act was under discussion in this House — I mean the statement that District Inspector Davis could initiate a prosecution under this Act without the knowledge of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. It seems to me that the deliberate policy of the Police Authorities under the control of the Irish Executive who are responsible to the right hon. and learned Gentleman is to bring about disturbance. Their action, I believe, has been dictated by a desire and a wish to stir up ill-feeling in County Westmeath, and to turn that county from a peaceable and orderly condition into such a condition as it was in 15 or 16 years ago, when it was found necessary to pass several Coercion Acts for it in order to keep the people within the law. Never has the county been in a more orderly, quiet, and peaceable state than it is at this moment. No crimes have occurred there; nothing in the nature of intimidation or Boycotting worth mentioning has occurred there; evictions have been carried out without disturbance, and everything has gone on smoothly and peaceably. But now we have a District Inspector, or one of his constables, initiating a prosecution against a body of respectable men with the deliberate object of driving the county into a state of disorder. I shall have a word or two to say directly in regard to another matter; but, before I sit down, I would demand, on the part of my hon. Friends, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be prepared to make a statement on this question on Report of the Vote, when it comes to be taken on Monday night. He has given as an excuse for not doing anything of the sort now, that it may, perhaps, militate against the prisoners or the accused. We have had a declaration on behalf of those gentlemen that they are not afraid of anything that may take place on Wednesday next. They are ready to take the risk of any announcement that the right hon. and learned Gentleman may make in this House. The excuse of the right hon. and learned Gentleman makes is one that we are thoroughly sick of. I have heard excuses of this kind put forward time after time during the last three or four years. Their object is to shield the officials in Ireland. They are put forward in order to save members of the Executive from the inconvenience of making statements that would reflect upon the conduct of the Government with, which they are connected. So far as I am concerned, I do not attach the slightest importance to the scruples of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I think they are scruples which are entirely baseless, for surely when hon. Members connected with the county, and when one hon. Gentleman who is a brother of one of the persons prosecuted has consented to come forward and to say that they are willing, on the part of those accused, to take any responsibility which might attach to a declaration of the policy of the Government in this matter on Monday next, I cannot see that the Government have the slightest excuse for not giving us that explanation, and all the information we require. If we do not get some reply on this point from the right hon. and learned Gentleman, I think it will be necessary for us to move the postponement of the Vote, or to move that Progress be reported. I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman if he will give us some assurance on the points which have been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast?

COLONEL NOLAN (Galway, N.)

We are always ready to believe the statements of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, and when he told us that he could read very quickly with his fingers we accepted that statement very readily. I think on the present occasion, however, that he has been very badly served by the telegraph clerks. I see that he has something that appears very much like a telegram in his hand at this moment— probably it is a telegram bearing upon this matter.

MR. GIBSON

It is. It was put into my hands while the hon. Member for West Mayo (Mr. Deasy) was speaking. It states that the summonses have been served for riot and obstructing the police. The cases will be heard at the Glasson Petty Sessions on the 17th instant, and the proceedings have been initiated with the concurrence of the Divisional Magistrates.

MR. SEXTON

The interruption of the right hon. and learned Gentleman leaves this case in a very singular position. He stated that he was ignorant of the circumstances of the cases. We can excuse him for that. He is removed from Dublin Castle, and has been for some time. We all admit that his attention has been largely taken up by affairs of great importance in this House, so that we can quite understand his ignorance. But he told us that the Solicitor General was also ignorant of what was going on in connection with these prosecutions. He knows nothing about the matter himself, and the Solicitor General for Ireland knows nothing about it. Surely this is very extraordinary. The telegram he has just read shows that the matters out of which this prosecution arises occurred on the 17th ultimo—that is 16 days ago— at Mullingar, only a short distance from the seat of government in Ireland. A new Coercion Act has been passed; a Sheriff proceeds to evict a number of persons 50 miles from Dublin; a disturbance arises, and prosecutions are initiated; and actually 16 days afterwards we are told that the Law Officers of the Crown, whose enormous salaries were discussed here in the earlier part of the evening, are ignorant of the circumstances under which the prosecutions arise, and have not made up their minds whether the policy of the prosecutions is such as they can approve of. That, Sir, seems to me an exhibition of administrative incapacity, or negligence, which would disgrace the Government of China. If I knew any other phrase more wedded to the situation than administrative incapacity I would substitute that phrase. The right hon. and learned Gentleman endeavoured to induce the Committee to abandon the discussion on this question, on the plea that this might not be a prosecution, but that some private person might have been so anxious to vindicate the law as to proceed against these 27 persons on his own responsibility.

MR. GIBSON

I said nothing of the sort. What I said was that I knew nothing of the facts; but that, for all we knew, the prosecutions might have been initiated by private persons.

MR. SEXTON

The right hon. and learned Gentleman might just as well suggest that the prosecutions were initiated by an Archangel as, in a case of this kind, that they might have been initiated by a private individual. Who ever heard of the like? There was a Crimes Act in force between the 12th of June, 1882, and the 14th of August, 1885. A great many men were prose- cuted during that time—a great many went to gaol, and some to the gallows. But does the right hon. and learned Gentleman know any persons being prosecuted by private individuals under that Act?

MR. GIBSON

No.

MR. SEXTON

Then, let him hold his peace.

MR. GIBSON

The hon. Member must permit me to claim to know something about these matters. "Without referring to the Act of 1882, I would remind the hon. Member that Sub-Inspector Milling was prosecuted privately by the hon. Member for Mid Cork (Dr. Tanner). Then, again, Lord Milltown's prosecution was a private affair. The hon. Member must know perfectly well that prosecutions can be initiated by private individuals.

MR. SEXTON

The right hon. and learned Gentleman's argument would lose nothing if the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself endeavoured to be a little more calm. I was making no reflection upon the fullness of his knowledge. I am perfectly sensible of the amount of his information on these subjects. All I would ask is that he should share that knowledge with us. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is asked to cite a case where a prosecution occurred, under the Crimes Act, initiated by a private person, and he has not done so yet. He mentions Sub-Inspector Milling's case; but I would remind him that the prosecution, in that instance, was under the ordinary law. I understand also that Lord Milltown's case was under the ordinary law?

MR. GIBSON

No; it was under the Crimes Act.

MR. SEXTON

Then, it was a solitary case; and the other case referred to by the right hon. and learned Gentleman was under the ordinary law. Our contention is that private prosecutions are not initiated under Coercion Law in Ireland. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman expected any of us to believe that in a case where a landlord has got possession of his land, where the Sheriff has executed his functions, where the bailiffs have got their fees, and where the process of the law has been fully and completely effected, that it is necessary to institute a prosecution against 27 persons for the mere purpose of vindicating the law in Ireland, he asks us to accept a thing which common sense at once rejects. The suggestion he made a little time ago, that this prosecution might have been a private one, was a suggestion which was not worthy of his ingenuity. I would ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether, on this occasion, he, in conjunction with the Solicitor General for Ireland, will examine into the details of this case, and elect to proceed upon one or other of the summonses issued against these defendants?

MR. GIBSON

I would point out that these are alternative summonses, enabling the proceedings to be taken under one charge should the evidence in the other one prove insufficient.

MR. SEXTON

I ask that the right hon. and learned Gentleman or the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland will be good enough to look over the evidence, and to make up their minds upon which summons they should proceed. Surely that is not too great an exaction to place on the intelligence and patience of the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his Colleague. The magistrates may be found perfectly willing to find these defendants guilty twice over for the same proceeding. We wish to avoid the possibility of any such occurrence. We ask that the charge shall only be one, and that if these gentlemen are punished it shall only he for one offence. We ask, therefore, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will decide which of the summonses shall form the subject of the prosecution, because if the Divisional Magistrates at the head of the local hierarchy are called upon to try these persons under the two summonses they may find them guilty under each, and sentence them to imprisonment for two offences, and send them to gaol for two short periods which, if put together, would exceed the period of imprisonment that, if given in one sentence, would entitle the accused to an appeal. The cases are down to be heard on Wednesday next. Well, Sir, we will raise this matter on the Report of the present Vote; and I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to make the most of the interval between now and the Report stage, and to obtain information on this subject. I ask him to give some consideration to the point I have just raised.

MR. TUITE

I must press, on behalf of my constituents and of the electors in my Colleague's Division, for an answer to the statement of the hon. Member for West Belfast. It is now evident that the apprehensions that the Irish Party expressed in this House during the discussions on the Crimes Bill were amply justified. I submit that the course which is about to be taken of proceeding against persons on two separate charges in order to obtain two separate sentences for what is practically one offence is a proceeding in the last degree contemptible. It is a mean and contemptible dodge, and unless I get a satisfactory reply from the right hon. and learned Gentleman I shall be constrained to move the reduction of this Vote by the sum of £1,000.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item E—£2,000, Fees to Law Officers—bo reduced by the sum of £1,000."—(Mr. Tuite.)

MR. DEASY

Before this is put, Sir, I would make one observation. Surely the speeches which have come from these Benches deserve some sort of reply from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland. We do not wish to press this matter unduly; but it is of importance that we should have some expression of opinion by the right hon. and learned Gentleman as to his intentions on the Report stage of this Vote. At any rate, it will be our duty to see that the matter is further discussed. The two points upon which we are most anxious to have information are these—whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman will, if he is unable to thoroughly investigate the matter before next Wednesday, postpone the prosecutions until some later date; and, secondly, we desire to know whether he will be able to say that the authorities who have charge of the prosecutions will proceed on one summons only or on two? These double summonses are evidently a dodge on the part of the police to get the men they are proceeding against committed to prison for a term of six or seven weeks without the chance of an appeal. Now, Sir, if we have an undertaking from the Government that they will proceed upon one charge only instead of two, my hon. Friend will withdraw his opposition to the Vote. All we want is fair play. We feel that it is not the intention of the Resident Magistrates, who- ever they maybe, who will have to hear these cases to grant fair play to these accused persons; and we submit that it is essential, particularly at the commencement of the application of such an Act as the Crimes Act, for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to see that everything is done legally, and that nothing is done which will militate against the liberties of the country. There appears to me to be a conspiracy between the Resident Magistrates and the Police Authorities to drive the people of Westmeath from peaceful agitation to a course of action which can only culminate in bloodshed and disorder. It is all very well to disregard the advice of the Irish Members; but surely it is to our interest, as well as it is to the interest of everyone living in Ireland, that peace should be maintained in the country. We have no desire to bring the people into collision with the powers that be. We know very well that if a collision should unfortunately take place, owing to that difference in the conditions of the contending parties, the people would come off second best. We do not want to see that. We wish to have the country in as peaceable and quiet a state as possible. We ask the Government for their motive in bringing forward this prosecution, and we also ask them on what the prosecution is based. The difference between this prosecution and that of the hon. Member for North-East Cork (Mr. William O'Brien) is well known. We have heard the grounds upon which proceedings are to be taken against him stated repeatedly here and in the newspapers; but we are not told the facts in the present case. Parliament, in a few days, will cease to exist till next year, and we shall have no further control over the action of the Executive. I say this case is an important one, on account of the number of men who are to be prosecuted, and for the reason that Mr. Hayden, one of the defendants, is a prominent Nationalist in Westmeath, and the proprietor of a newspaper, against which I believe the prosecution is levelled far more than against the other 26 men.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

With regard to the first point of the hon. Member, it is perfectly true that the present arrangement with regard to the salaries of the Resident Magistrates is not wholly satis- factory. Having regard to the duties they perform in controlling the police in certain districts, it would, in the opinion of the Government, be more convenient and proper that the salaries of the Resident Magistrates should appear in the Police Vote rather than this Vote. The Treasury have brought in a Bill for the purpose; but an opportunity has not yet been afforded to the Government or the House for carrying though that legislation. With regard to the second question of the hon. Gentleman, I am entirely in accordance with the view that when anyone is brought up under the Crimes Act it is highly inconvenient and improper that there should not be two Resident Magistrates present, and I will do all I can to carry out that view.

MR. DEASY

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland inquire into the case which has just now been stated? We do not want any unreasonable statement. We are perfectly willing to await the result of further inquiries; but we shall feel it our duty to press for an answer as far as we reasonably can.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER) (Isle of Wight)

I am bound to say very respectfully that the demand made from the Benches opposite cannot be regarded as reasonable. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland is asked to say that only one charge shall be proceeded with. Any tyro must know that two, three, or more offences might have been committed, and it is only possible to know the charges that will be proceeded with after the evidence is given. I do not think hon. Members opposite can for one moment be serious in the request they have made in this respect. Then the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland is asked to undertake that some steps shall be taken in order to see that not more than one sentence is given; but it is impossible that that pledge can be given, because it might be proved that some of the persons charged have been guilty of two separate and distinct offences under the Act. There is no ground whatever for saying that the charge has been made from any improper motive, and I trust the hon. Gentleman will see that the demands made are unreasonable.

COLONEL NOLAN

I think it is rather a mistake to move the reduction of this Vote for the Attorney General for Ireland. I do not see how the right hon. and learned Gentleman is responsible, and I am sorry that he has been brought into the discussion. Although the hon. and learned Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) is one of the strongest lawyers at the English Bar, I do not think he is quite right in saying that two or three charges should be preferred, and that the punishment should be awarded so as to entitle the accused to appeal. In the first place, that would not be fair; and, in the second place, I want to put it to the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) to consider how unreasonable and how cruel this would be. This is, practically, the first case brought under the new Coercion Act. I believe there is no one who alleges violence in this case, and I think the persons brought up should only get a nominal penalty, and be allowed out on their own recognizances. If the Government are pressing for a conviction I think they ought to be satisfied with simply giving a warning, and not pressing for further punishment; but instead of that the authorities in Westmeath seem to have a mind to endeavour to pile up punishments without appeal to the Superior Court. It may be the policy of Her Majesty's Government to intend to strike terror into the people of Ireland; but I do not think that policy will succeed. I point out that it would be a very invidious task to try to pile up the punishments without appeal in a case which is practically a test case. I think the Government ought to proceed in the first case in a most gentle manner, so as to show the people what their powers are. I repeat my regret that this Motion has been made for the reduction of the salary of the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland, because it his duty to proceed in this matter; at the same time, I think we ought to get an assurance from the Leader of the House that there is no wish to pile up two or three sentences of a month each, so as to protect themselves from the power of appeal which they specially pointed to during the passing of the Act as a very great security.

MR. P. J. POWER (Waterford, E.)

When the Act was passing through the Committee we were told that no such abuses as we are now contending against could take place. The Act has not been long in existence, and I think we have now before us an instance of the many abuses that will take place under it. We find a most important prosecution instituted without even the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland or his Colleague, the famous Mr. Peter O'Brien, knowing anything about it. That, we know, confirms the opinion that the magistrates in Ireland are our political opponents, and more anxious to punish us than anything else. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has confessed to us that he knows nothing of this case, and the Solicitor General for Ireland has confessed the same. We ask him to postpone the trial to a certain date, in order that he may make himself conversant with the facts. If you want to make law and order respected in Ireland, the first thing you have to do is to make it worthy of respect. The Stipendiary Magistrate, if he is to have before him two or three charges connected with the same transaction, will, in all probability, inflict three punishments, one for each charge, and thereby deprive the accused of the right of appeal. Let the Government recollect that this is one of the first proceedings they are taking under the Act, which is a repulsive one in itself, even if administered in a fair spirit; but if they wish to drive the people of Ireland, as I believe they do, into a desperate spirit, they will pursue their present course.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member must withdraw that expression.

MR. P. J. POWER

I withdraw the words "I believe they do."

MR. FLYNN

It will be in the recollection of the Committee that my hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) pleaded for this right of appeal, and that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) deliberately evaded the pledge given on that subject. Now, the question which my hon. Friend raised is the very one which will come on before the Resident Magistrates. But the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland ays it is easy to imagine a case in which there will be three or four different sorts of summonses arising out of acts done. That is so; but they will not be brought for the purpose of hav- ing different punishments awarded for what arises out of the same circumstances. Take the case of a trivial assault. Would it not be most unjust and unreasonable that, arising out of that one assault, there should be accumulative sentences passed, amounting to, say, nine weeks' hard labour for one offence? The effect of this would be that there would be no right of appeal. That point was pressed with very great force in this House, and also in correspondence in the public Press, in which, undoubtedly, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland came off second best. That right of appeal was contended for here, and the question was fought over with great pertinacity; and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, as I have said, gave a distinct pledge that in these cases the right of appeal would lie. We now test the Government on the point. We showed clearly at the time that the ingenuity of Crown lawyers or District Inspectors would be exercised in such a manner that out of one circumstance three or four charges might be made, and a different sentence passed in connection with each charge, and that thus, if there were no right of appeal, a man would practically get nine or 10 weeks, or even more, without any appeal whatever. Under the Act, as it stands at present, any sentence for a month can be appealed against; but there is no appeal where the sentence is under a month. The great ability of the right hon. and learned Attorney General is recognized; but it is also well known that in powers of assertion there is no man in this Committee who can equal him.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member must withdraw that expression.

MR. FLYNN

I only meant that in respect of assertion the hon. Gentleman was an adept of the highest order.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member must withdraw the expression.

MR. FLYNN

I withdraw it, Sir. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) has stated to-night that several summonses may be brought against the same defendants arising out of the same set of circumstances. But does the hon. and learned Gentleman not see that this is the case for which we are contending? We say that this danger exists at the present moment, and that these men will be punished with a long and severe sentence simply because the right of appeal is evaded. Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman see the point? Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland see it? We must press this point upon the Committee; it is a most important one. We are now under the operation of the most drastic Crimes Act that ever stained the Statute Book of this country. The Session is now drawing to a close, and if these things are done before Parliament is prorogued, who can tell to what extent injustice and tyranny may go on in Ireland during the Recess? We press for an answer on this point, and we shall certainly press the Committee to consider the reduction of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's salary, unless we receive a satisfactory assurance that accumulated sentences will not be passed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman must well recollect the circumstance to which I refer—namely, when my hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork pleaded in this House for hours for the right of appeal under this Coercion Act. My hon. Friend the Member for Cork, I can say with all justice, is inferior to no lawyer in this House in reading the Statutes, and in the power of expressing the meaning of any Statute which comes before him. He pointed out the effect of the Bill as it then stood, and a most explicit pledge was given that there would be the right of appeal given to all men coming before the Resident Magistrates. It was acknowledged by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and, if I mistake not, it was acknowledged by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, that the right of appeal should be given; and I say that if the Government maintain their present attitude, and we cannot obtain any redress, a distinct breach of faith has been committed.

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

I wish to make an appeal to you, Sir, and to the Committee. We have been discussing for some hours pending proceedings in a Court of Justice; and I venture to say that it has always been held in this House that it is not fitting, and that it is not decent— [Cries of "Hear, hear ! "]—for Parliament to discuss proceedings which are pending, and the discussion of which must influence the decision of the Court one way or the other. I do not know whether there remains in the Chair any authority, any power, or any discretion which can limit discussion in this House when the credit of this House as a Parliamentary institution is at stake. When that which constitutes one of the great powers of the State is at stake, and when, Sir, interests of the greatest moment and concern to the population of the United Kingdom are imperilled by the course which hon. Gentlemen think it their duty to take, I appeal to you, Sir, to say whether the time has not come when a discussion of this character should end, and whether we should not proceed to the decision of a question which has been more than adequately debated?

THE CHAIRMAN

I regret very much the position in which the Committee finds itself. I made an appeal to the hon. Member for North Westmeath (Mr. Tuite) almost as soon as the first proceedings began. I said it would be extremely inconvenient to strain the powers of the Committee to such a perilous extent that they might almost be taken away. The hon. Member did not comply with that appeal, and I have now no power to stop the proceedings of the Committee.

MR. TUITE

I am not at all surprised at the right hon. Gentleman saying that we have been for hours debating this question, because he has not been in the House, and therefore does not know how long we have been discussing it. I have no doubt that if the right hon. Gentleman had had 200 of his followers present he would have applied the closure. We commenced the discussion at half-past 9 o'clock. The question is one which concerns my constituents, and I intend to press the Amendment to a Division, and, if necessary, to move to report Progress. This question concerns the liberty of the subject in Ireland. I say you are outraging the powers given to you by Parliament; you are abusing those powers by placing them in the hands of irresponsible individuals in Ireland; and you have not heard the last of this question to-night, or the last of it this Session, which, when the Report comes up, you will understand, for you will have to get your 200 back to London.

MR. CONYBEARE (Cornwall, Camborne)

The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury has treated us to one of those sermons which have earned for him a soubriquet. [Cries of"Order!"] It is all very well for a Government which is shocking public feeling in Ireland to appeal to Members on this side of the House; but their appeals will fall on our heads as dead as our appeals have fallen upon them. We have a duty to perform; we have to rouse the attention of the country to the atrocious tyranny which is now being inflicted on the people of Ireland; and no appeal from the right hon. Gentleman will influence us one jot in the course which we feel it our duty to pursue. It is unfortunate for the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues that they have begun the application of this most drastic measure so early. If they had postponed their operations a little I longer the House might have risen, and the Government might have had full swing, and been free from that control which, fortunately, we are able to put upon them. We know now what is the value of the pledges given, because we on these Benches have had full experience of them. Their contemptible conduct in repressing public meeting —

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order ! The hon. Member must withdraw the expression "contemptible conduct."

MR. CONYBEARE

I withdraw the word "contemptible," and say that their conduct shows how far we may rely on the pledges of the Ministers of the Crown. I rejoice to think that the opportunity has arisen this evening of discussing the position of affairs in Ireland at the present moment. It is all very well to talk to us about the discussions in this House affecting the proceedings of the Court. It is an idle technicality, if you will, by which we shall not be deterred for one moment. It is all very well to talk about our discussions affecting those who have these matters in hand, who are mere myrmidons of illegality—

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN) (St. George's, Hanover Square)

I rise to Order, Sir. Is it in Order to call the magistrates in Ireland the "myrmidons of illegality?"

THE CHAIRMAN

The language of the hon. Member is most incorrect in fact, and incorrect in terms, as applied to those who have the administration of the law in Ireland, and those who have the conduct of affairs in this House.

MR. CONYBEARE

I shall be most happy to withdraw the word "myrmidon; "and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer that there was not the slightest desire on my part to wound his sensibility. But in whatever light we may regard the Officers of the Law in Ireland, we do not feel in them that confidence which we all happily possess in the case of the Judges of this country. The argument I was using, and what I wanted to express, was that, not having that confidence, we feel it our duty to impress on the nation the necessity of keeping a close watch on the action of the Government with reference to legal proceedings in Ireland which have already commenced. The proceedings of the Government at the present time are precisely the same as the actions of those who ruled—or, rather, misruled— Ireland in the early part of the century. I am not going to refer to what happened in those dark days; but I say it is absolutely necessary for every man in this country to wake up to the fearful results which may spring from the action of Her Majesty's Government in Ireland at the present moment. They are suppressing the right of public meetings and free speech, and there is practically no liberty left in Ireland. I only hope we shall be able to impress on the people of the country what it is the Government are doing in Ireland; and as we can only express our views and feelings on the floor of this House we shall use every moment for the purpose, unless the Government give us satisfaction on the matter which has been brought forward. This is the Supreme Court of Appeal in this country. Although there may be a packed jury empannelled at the present time, still we are able to raise our voices here, and are able to make our voices heard throughout the country.

MR. SEXTON

I must earnestly protest against the speech which has been delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House. He cannot evade the responsibility which lies upon him, and that responsibility is to ac- quaint himself with the facts of the case before he presumes to address the Committee in the tone he has just adopted. Sir, before he appealed for the application of the power of the Chair to the suppression of the liberties of Members, the right hon. Gentleman has, in a great measure, misrepresented the time that we have been employed upon this Vote, and he has misrepresented our motives and our purposes. He said we had been engaged for hours in the discussion of the question before the Committee. Now, as a matter of fact, we have only been discussing this question for an hour and a-quarter; and considering that the liberties of 86 Irishmen about to be impeached before an irresponsible Court of Summary Jurisdiction are at stake, I think it will be admitted by everyone of impartial mind that the time occupied in discussing this question has not been excessive. The right hon. Gentleman's second allegation was that we have endeavoured to push this question on the Committee with the view of affecting the decision of a Court of Justice. I give that allegation the strongest contradiction. We have no such object, and no such purpose appears from the debate. We do not desire, or hope, or intend to affect the decision of the Court upon this question. What we desire is, that the responsibility of the Government should be exercised. Does the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury know anything about the case; does he know that in regard to the policy of a prosecution arising out of an occurrence which happened 16 days ago the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) has confessed his entire ignorance? Does he know that the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland has said the Solicitor General for Ireland is also ignorant of the matter? Does he know that the Sheriff of the county, having driven across the county without escort, accomplished the evictions easily, and yet that out of that occurrence so peaceably ended the police authorities have got up two charges? Anyone found guilty before a Court of Summary Jurisdiction under the 2nd section of the Crimes Act maybe sent to prison for six months with hard labour. Did the House intend when it passed the Crimes Act that if a person was convicted of obstructing the officers of the law in the course of evictions he should also be proceeded against on a charge of riot? That is what has been done in Westmeath and in Mullingar. The gravity of the case is that this is a test case. Under the new Crimes Act men are to be proceeded against for obstruction and then for riot. If the magistrates inflict the maximum penalty they may send the prisoners to gaol for 12 months, six months upon each charge. This is an affair of the utmost gravity. Are you going to allow the police acting under the new Coercion Act to fabulate accumulative charges arising out of the same transaction, and to pile up sentences against men? We are bound to face this at the outset; and none of the threats which are so familiar in the mouth of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury will prevent us when this House assembles again saying all we can in resistance to a policy which destroys public liberty, and is so provocative of those passions which lead to opposition and crime. Now, let us suppose that the Court sentences these men to 27 days' imprisonment each upon each charge; that will be 54 days' imprisonment with hard labour; and by that simple process the prisoner will be robbed of the right of appeal. Now, Sir, does the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury mean to contend that this is a case not worthy of attention; does he say that we are not justified in bringing it forward; does he say that the Members for Westmeath would deserve to be re-elected for that county if they had been silent on this occasion; does he think that the Members for Westmeath would not have had fair ground of complaint against us if we, the general body of Irish Members, had been silent on this occasion? Am I going beyond my right in complaining that the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland has allowed 16 days to elapse without making himself acquainted with the facts of this case? I appeal to the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether it is desirable to manufacture two charges out of one transaction? He has the power of option if he has the will; let it be obstruction or rioting, let it be rioting or obstruction, let us have one charge or the other. At any rate, let us have some assurance, on the one hand, that the magistrates cannot inflict 12 months' imprisonment, and, on the other hand, that they cannot, by inflicting a low sentence in each case, evade the ordinary right of appeal. We have an undoubted right to press this matter, and certainly we shall not be deterred by anything we have heard from the First Lord of the Treasury, whose speech I cannot for a moment consider at all likely to facilitate the transaction of Business.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 49; Noes 116: Majority 67.—(Div. List, No. 441.) [11.5 P.M.]

Original Question again proposed.

MR. TUITE

I wish to give timely notice to the Government that when the Report upon this Vote is brought on I shall expect to receive definite information from the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson), as to whether the Government will proceed on the double charge against Mr. Hayden and his friends. If I do not receive such information I shall certainly protract the discussion upon the Report stage as much as I possibly can.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON

I should like to ask the right hon. and learned Attorney General fur Ireland whether he will take steps to prevent many Crimes Act oases being sent to the Assizes? I know there have been cases which in the judgment of many ought never to have been brought before Assizes. There is a common practice in the county of Kerry to send cases to the Assizes, and the accused experience a great deal of difficulty in bringing up their witnesses. That is a matter which the right hon. and learned Gentleman would do well to pay some attention to. There are many cases which could be very well disposed of at Quarter Sessions. There are too many prosecutions which may be dealt with under the ordinary law instead of under the Crimes Act. I do not wish to cause any irritation; but I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, in the first place, that he will personally assume official responsibility whenever questions involving prosecutions arise; and, secondly, that as far as possible he will, through those connected with the administration of the law, discourage the practice of bringing too many of these Crimes Act cases. Let me mention a case which occurred under the last Crimes Act. An old man, 75 years of age, went to a land agent and paid his rent, and then returned to his house. The police had not received notice of what he had done, but brought him up and charged him with taking forcible possession. I saw that old man, who had never been accused of crime, suffering a month's imprisonment under the Crimes Act. I also saw children of between nine and 12 years of age sent into prison because they had used what were considered insulting names to the children of land-grabbers and other persons in their locality. It is a shame, and a disgrace, that these things should be. I know they occurred under a former Administration; but it must be remembered that the officials in Ireland never change with the Administration. The officials carry out the policy of Dublin Castle. I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) if the Administration may not be improved by his giving such directions as I suggest? I have also seen young girls, daughters of farmers, cast into prison under the Crimes Act, because theyrescuedcattle—[Cries of "Name!"] —I certainly could give the names; but I do not know what good purpose would be served by doing so. The people are acquaintances of mine; they are people whose troubles I have had personal knowledge of; and they are people whose interests I delight to protect as much as I can. I do not say that these things are specially connected with the present Administration; but I think that we may fairly make an appeal in advance to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland that he will give directions to the police officers in Ireland that they are not to use the Crimes Act in a needless and useless way, and simply for the purpose of irritation. Of course, if it is so used, it will be our duty to bring these matters before the House. It is quite possible that many Irish Members will have personal grievances of their own; but there is every probability that some of us at least will be left at liberty to tell the story of how we fought and how we fell, If the right hon. and learned Attorney General will avail himself of the advice I tender him he will do much to allay irritation, and in this way lighten the labours of the House of Commons in the coming Session.

MR. J. O'CONNOR (Tipperary, S.)

I am constrained, very much against my will, to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland has not taken any notice whatever of a matter which was brought to the notice of the Committee a short time ago by my hon. Friend the Member for North Cork (Mr. Flynn). We have had many interesting speeches from the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland to-night. They were plausible speeches indeed. He endeavoured to meet the arguments and cases brought to his notice in a fair and reasonable fashion. In one of his speeches he said he would take good care to preserve his character. He has done his best in that direction to-night; but I wish he had given us some satisfaction regarding the proceedings of Inspector Milling, of Cork. Inspector Milling and those under his charge committed a gross outrage on the people of the City of Cork. The right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland of that day is now Mr. Justice Holmes, and he advised the Government to enter a nolle prosequi in the matter. Inspector Milling was returned for trial by the Bench of Magistrates of Cork. We want to know, very reasonably as I think, why Inspector Milling was not prosecuted. I was not present when my hon. Friend (Mr. Flynn) spoke; but perhaps he did not explain sufficiently why the meeting at Cork was held, and the circumstances under which it was broken up. I trust I shall be in Order if I endeavour to enlighten the Committee as to the circumstances under which the meeting was dispersed. Now, trial by jury is a precious gem of the British Constitution. The citizens of Cork met last December for the purpose of asking that trial by jury should get fair play in Ireland. Trial by jury had not received fair play in that country. Juries were packed in Ireland—

THE CHAIRMAN

The subject with which the hon. Gentleman is dealing was raised on the items which included the salary of the Attorney General for Ireland and the Crown Solicitors. Both those items have now been passed by, therefore the hon. Gentleman cannot recur to them. I see no other item in connection with which the matter can be again raised.

MR. J. O'CONNOR

I thought we wore on the original Vote. Inspector Milling committed a gross outrage on the liberties of the people, and we desire to know why he was not prosecuted.

THE CHAIRMAN

We are on the Main Question; but an Amendment has bean moved to Item E and voted upon. It is, therefore, no longer competent to discuss anything connected with the previous items. The Attorney General's salary is provided for under Item A, and the salaries of the Crown Solicitors are provided for under Items B and C.

MR. J. O'CONNOR

Under Subhead H provision is made for the expenses incurred by Resident Magistrates and Constabulary in the execution of their duty; and under this Sub-head I respectfully submit it is competent for me to call attention to the conduct of Inspector Milling at Cork, and of all those who acted under his orders when, armed with bâtons and sword bayonets, they scattered a meeting of citizens.

THE CHAIRMAN

No; it is not competent to question the conduct of the police under this Vote at all. The question that was raised was the question of prosecutions.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

I beg to remind my hon. Friend the Member for South Tipperary (Mr. J. O'Connor) that upon the Report stage he will have an opportunity of recurring to this question. Such being the case, and that he may obey your ruling, Sir, I advise my hon. Friend not to press the subject at the present moment.

MR. J. O'CONNOR

In accordance with your ruling, Sir, I shall forego my intention of raising the question now; but unless the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland does, in the meantime, give us some satisfaction in this matter, I shall bring the question forward on Report.

Original Question put, and agreed to.

(2.) £47,387, to complete the sum for the Supreme Court of Judicature in Ireland.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)

Even the most cursory glance at this Vote will show that the same vice runs through all Irish administration. Here are the same bloated sums. I know that the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) regards this as a very good joke; but it is a better joke for the official than for the unhappy taxpayer. I maintain that if you compare this Vote with the corresponding Vote for England, you will find a vast disproportion between this amount and the duties involved under it, and the amount of the English Vote and the duties involved under that. Now, Sir, just let me point out to the Committee the number of persons under the Vote who have salaries of £1,000 a-year. In the first place, the Chief Clerk in the Lord Chancellor's Office has £1,000, the Chief Clerk in the Office of the Master of the Rolls has £1,000 a-year, the Chief Clerk in the Vice Chancellor's Office has £1,000; then there is the First Assistant Registrar in the Registrar's Office of the Vice Chancellor's Department, who has £1,000 a-year; then the Registrar of the Land Division Court has the same salary. The Master of the Queen's Bench has £1,200, and so on. I could enumerate many more such instances. Now, the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland found fault with me sometime ago when I said that the highest income obtained at the Irish Bar was £1,500 a-year. He found fault with mo, and said that there were many instances to the contrary. He found fault with me on account of another statement I made —namely, that every barrister who got a seat on the Bench in Ireland improved his income by so doing. Well, I listened very attentively to the right hon. and learned Gentleman when he came to reply to me; but I found that he was discreetly silent on the matter, and did not cite cases to disprove my allegation. He satisfied himself with vague generalities which learned lawyers like himself always seek refuge in when they have no facts to back up their position. There is not a single one of these persons whose names I have mentioned as receiving £1,000 who would not originally have been delighted to accept his office at £500 a-year. The whole system of these payments in Ireland is out of proportion to the resources of the country. What are these offices in the Courts of Law in Dublin? Why, they are merely opportunities of finding places and comfortable incomes for the relatives and dependents of high legal and political functionaries in Ireland. The late Sir Edward Sullivan, who was Lord Chancellor when he died, was Master of the Rolls in Ireland for many years, and there was a common saying about the Courts—I do not know whether I correctly quote it or not—but it was said that the Office of the Master of the Rolls ought to be known as the Mallow Division of the High Court of Judicature. The origin of that was that Sir Edward Sullivan came from Mallow, and as a result almost every man—and I am not sure, if female suffrage had been in existence at that time, that I might not have been able to say every woman in Mallow as well—got something out of the Department of the Master of the Rolls. There was hardly anyone who had to do with Mallow who did not find a snug place under Sir Edward Sullivan in secretary ships, clerkships, and in the offices of train-bearer, crier, and so on. I venture to say that all the business in the Offices of the Master of the Rolls in Ireland could be done by at most a quarter of the number of officials at present employed there. If the staff were reduced to one-fourth, even then it would be able to do its work efficiently if the salaries received by the employés were reduced by one half. The Judges in Ireland are idle during half the year, and during that half of the year that they are at work are only engaged in their professional duties half the time. If you go into a Court of Justice in England you find that the Judge sitting upon the Bench is one of the most hard-worked officials in the country. He has cases of enormous importance to decide almost every day of his life, and when he is relieved from his duties in the Courts in London he has to undertake very arduous duties at Assizes. It is an extraordinary fact that in England the Judges are so few in number for the work that has to be done that they are greatly over-worked, whilst in Ireland the Judges have scarcely anything to do. That is an extraordinary contradiction which no one but an official of the Government can explain. The fact of the matter is that the Judges in Ireland are the most idle and over-paid men in the whole world, and as it is at the top of the tree, so it descends through all the branches of the legal department. Look at this Vote for a poor country like Ireland—£87,387 ! Why, £20,000 would be amply sufficient for all that is done in Ireland—

Several hon. MEMBERS: Too much, too much !

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

£20,000 would be quite sufficient, looking at all the corruption that runs through every vein and artery of the system under the present practice. I know very well that my protest against this sort of thing will be all in vain. Every protest that we Irish Members utter in this House against extravagance is in vain. I conceive it, however, to be my duty, in season and out of season, to call attention to the extraordinary and shameless extravagance of the Irish Administration. I shall lose no opportunity of calling the attention of the taxpayers of this country to the extraordinary amount which it costs them to govern Ireland.

MR. M. J. KENNY (Tyrone, Mid)

My hon. Friend, in speaking of the gross extravagance which characterizes the judicial system in Ireland, has forgotten to mention the fact that this Vote by no means covers all the money expended upon that system. It does not correspond with the English Vote for this purpose, because the English Vote covers not only the ground covered by this Vote, but the ground which is covered by the two Irish Votes which follow, because the Court of Bankruptcy is included in the English Estimates and the Land Commission also—there is no parallel in England for the Irish Land Commission, which is an extra as compared with the English Vote. The Irish Land Commission costs as much as the whole of this Vote, so that if we included the whole cost of the judicial system in Ireland, we are face to face with the fact that that judicial system under which there is not one 25th, or one 30th, or perhaps even one 50th the amount of work done under the English system costs nearly £200,000 a-year, whilst the English system costs only some£400,000 a-year. That shows in the plainest manner the difference in the course of the administration of justice in these two countries — that shows in the plainest way the extravagance of the system as it exists in Ireland. And this is not the only comparison unfavourable to Ireland which may be made in this matter, because persons who practise at the Bar in Ireland in all cases where they stepped from the Bar to the Bench it was to their great financial profit; whereas in England, as a general rule, it is a great financial loss to a leading barrister to take a place upon the Bench, and the only inducement for such men. to accept the position is the financial benefit they derive in their declining years. I must point out also, as a protest against the existing system in Ireland, the enormous personal salaries paid to almost all the clerks in the Four Courts. There is a foot note appended here to this effect—" This salary is personal to the present holder." Well, it appears to me that these salaries, personal to the present holder, are so general that there is no salary which does not appear to be personal to the present holder; and as personality is made a reason for granting an additional sum over and above that which ought to be allowed by the law to persons holding these offices the spirit of the Civil Service system is altogether evaded by the practice which prevails in Ireland. I think if I were to go through the whole figures composing the list of salaries personal to the present holders, I could show that this Vote is immoderately swollen, and swollen beyond the proper limits of the Civil Service requirements. I see in the three pages of particulars that we have here that there are a series of foot notes coming down as far as the letter H explaining the excesses on these salaries. Now, Sir, I know it is absolutely useless for us to apply to the Irish Attorney General or to the Irish Solicitor General or to the Irish lawyers in matters of this kind. I do not, therefore, appeal to those whose manifest interest it is to preserve the status quo. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, no doubt, being mixed up with the practice of the Four Courts, is anxious to maintain the flow of money which at the present time proceeds from the Exchequer of the United Kingdom into the Four Courts at its present somewhat excessive level. But I would appeal to the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Jackson), who is practically the guardian of the Public Purse when we are in Committee of Supply. He is the person who speaks for the Public Purse, and it is to him, and not to any Irish Law Officer, that I must address an appeal in order to in- duce him to set his Department at work for the purpose of cutting down this extravagant expenditure. It is not at all necessary to sacrifice the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury on the altar of economy, in order to secure a material reduction in this Vote. There is no suggestion that he ought to follow the course adopted by the late illustrious Chancellor of the Exchequer, the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill), and sacrifice himself on the altar of economy. If he sets himself vigorously to work and overhauls all these excessive salaries and inquires into the excessive number of clerkships in the Four Courts he would see that there is an immense field open to him for economy. The amount that is expended—something like £87,000 a-year—in maintaining these clerks is simply an imposture on the taxpayers of this country; and if they could only understand this abuse, they would certainly pull down this expenditure to something like one-quarter of what it is. It is absolutely melancholy in one sense to go into the Four Courts in Dublin, because you go from Court to Court, and what do you see? Why, you see a lot of clerks there twiddling their thumbs and having nothing to do, and you look at the Judges and you find that they also have nothing to do. The fact is, there are Courts in Dublin which have something like three working days in the whole year. I think I am not far wrong when I say the amount of business to be done in the Four Courts in Ireland at the present time is almost nil. The only Department in which there seems to be any work going on at the present moment is the Land Court, where the eternal Land Question is being fought out. In almost all the other Courts there seems to be nothing whatever to do. I think it is high time that we should inquire into the extravagance of this amount. I believe that all the barristers in Ireland put together do not earn so much as is paid to these clerks. The fact that £87,000 is paid to the clerks in the Four Courts in Dublin really amounts to a financial scandal, and it seems to me to be certainly a thing which should be put an end to. I appeal to the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, who has the cause of economy at heart, to consider whether something cannot be done with the object of breaking down this extravagant expenditure.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON) (Leeds, N.)

I have no hesitation in replying to the appeal of the hon. Gentleman opposite, and I can assure him that I have economy at heart just as much as he has, and that I shall be very glad if I can see any plan by which economy can be effected. He has referred to what certainly seems a very extraordinary condition of things on the face of the Estimates as to a very large number of offices in connection with these items of personal salaries. I believe the explanation of these items is that when an alteration in the organization took place a few years ago, the officers who were then in office, with the salaries which they then held, had certain rights of promotion, and, losing these advantages, personal salaries were given to them. These personal salaries will not be renewed as vacancies arise and other officers take the places of those employed. I am obliged to the hon. Member opposite for having called my attention to this matter in the way in which he has done, because before the Estimates come on again I can assure him I will look into the matter, and endeavour to effect something in the nature of economy.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

After the very satisfactory answer of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, I do not think it is necessary to address any further observations to the Committee on this matter.

Vote agreed to.

(3.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £6,140, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1888, for the Salaries and Incidental Expenses of the Court of Bankruptcy in Ireland.

MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.)

I do not wish to detain the Committee by any lengthened remarks on this Vote. The whole Vote is a very large one, seeing that the Court does not do a very large amount of business. £10,140 is the whole sum, and, knowing the total amount of bankruptcy business done in Ireland, I certainly think the sum is a large one. As the hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Jackson) has promised to give his attention during the Recess to the Vote for judicial expenditure, I trust he will also give his attention to this very expensive Court of Bankruptcy. There is another reason for calling attention to the Vote, and it is one which, though I did not mention it at first, is, perhaps, the more Important of the two. When the Court of Bankruptcy was originally instituted I presume it was instituted for the same reason that you have a Court of Bankruptcy in England, and everywhere else where there is fair dealing with cases of insolvency and commercial bankruptcy. It was never understood, I believe—it was never dreamt when the Court of Bankruptcy was originally established in Ireland—that it would be diverted into an institution for political persecution. I do not believe that Parliament would have sanctioned anything of that kind. Under Sub-head "C," for incidental expenditure, we have a sum of £94, being the item for the expenses of messengers in the Bankruptcy Office. What does this arise from? It arises in this way. Judge Monroe, who is one of the Judges mentioned here, is responsible for it. He has taken a fanatical view of his position. He thinks that because the large powers of the Court of Bankruptcy are vested in him, he has a perfect right, notwithstanding that his salary comes under the Vote of this Committee, to serve his political friends and partizans in the exercise of the powers of the Court. Well, now, Sir, in connection with the action of the Court of Bankruptcy in the case at Youghal, and in some other cases, the Court has gone to enormous expense, not in vindication of the commercial status of the country, not for the purpose of realizing the assets of an estate which comes before the Court, but has gone to expense entirely disproportionate to the gravity of the cause that came before it, in order that a certain line of political action which seemed right and proper to the Judge of the Court of Bankruptcy might be followed out. I am drawing attention to the large expense incurred by the action of Judge Boyd in connection with the famous Youghal case. The amount of the debt was inconsiderable, but the expense gone to under the direction of the Judge in bringing up an unfortunate man who was in defiance to Dublin, and for the sending of messengers around, and the obtaining of witnesses, including, amongst other things, the arrest of a priest at Youghal, amounted to a large sum. The action of this Judge had the effect of throwing the town of Youghal into disorder, in which, through the brutality of a policeman, an unfortunate young man met his death. The whole of this disorder was owing to the action of Judge Boyd, which action I am persuaded was never contemplated when these powers were vested in the County Court Judges. As I understand it, the Court of Bankruptcy was established for the purpose of dealing with insolvency, and for the purpose of dealing with fraudulent bankrupts when desirable in the interests of the commercial community, and in the interests of commercial morality and honesty, that an example should be made. There was no such object in the case I refer to. The Judge was perfectly well aware—as well aware as it could be possible for him to be—on the affidavits before him that the course he followed would cost an enormous amount of money. He was well aware of the death of the young man I have referred to, and from a very mistaken view, not of his powers, but as to the action he ought to take, and as to the way in which he should administer the Bankruptcy Law, put the taxpayers of the country to enormous expense, threw the country into turmoil and disorder, and all for what? That a parish priest who, no matter what the other circumstances involved are, was always looked up to as the very model of all that a Christian pastor ought to be, should be arrested. This reverend gentleman was arrested in his own house and taken to Kilmainham Prison, and there he lay in durance vile for several months. Was it ever contemplated by those who established the Court of Bankruptcy in Ireland that its power should be used for this purpose? Of course, it is too late in the Session for hon. Members on these Benches to bring for ward a measure dealing with the Court of Bankruptcy, and declaring that action of this kind shall not be taken under the direction of the Judges—declaring that only a legitimate use shall be made of the powers vested in the County Court Judges. The Judges ought not to have the authority of using those extraordinary powers for avowedly political objects. Of course, it is not competent for us, on these Estimates, to attack the conduct of a Judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature, or any Judges of the Supreme Court in Ireland. But, as I see an item here of £2,000 in respect of the salary of one of these Judges, I presume it is competent for me to impugn their conduct. Judge Boyd had brought before him cases of bankruptcy in connection with the Ponson by estate, at Youghal, and he has shown in connection with these cases an animus which is unjudicial.

THE CHAIRMAN

The Question the hon. Gentleman is now dealing with has been considered more than once in this House, and more than once decided. It is not legitimate for criticism to take this form.

MR. FLYNN

I bow to your decision, Sir. I would merely call the attention of the Committee to the large amount of expense incurred under the item to which I have referred. I wish to bring before the notice of hon. Members the large amount expended in a manner never contemplated when the Bankruptcy Court was established.

MR. SEXTON (Belfast, W.)

I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour), in regard to this Vote, whether it is intended to proceed with the Bankruptcy Bill they brought in at an earlier period of the Session? Under the present system, bankruptcy in Ireland, no matter how limited, is adjudicated upon by one or other of two Judges in Dublin, which is injurious to the public interest. Bankruptcies in Ireland are usually of small amount, and the bulk of the assets are swallowed up by this costly adjudication in Dublin. The right hon. Gentleman some time ago said the Government would be glad to facilitate the introduction of a Bill by any private Member; but my experience has been very sad in that respect. I myself have given a great deal of time and attention to the subject—I have been before the Examiner and a Select Committee. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Serjeant Madden) was present upon the Select Committee, and moved several Amendments on behalf of the Treasury, which were unanimously accepted by the Committee, and the Bill has been unanimously reported with the Amendments inserted in it. The Bill is non-conten- tious, except so far that it has been blocked, and it is a Bill that is desired by all parties, and was approved by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary in the early period of the Session. The Bill would establish local Courts in Belfast, and as it is particularly desired by the commercial classes, I would take this opportunity of making a strong appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary on behalf of this Bill, which really is a non-contentious one.

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)

The hon. Gentleman asks me a question as to the views of the Government regarding the Bill he brought in at an earlier period of the Session. So far as I am personally concerned, I think that this, or some Bill on the same lines, ought certainly to be passed by this House; but, the Bill being blocked, it may not be possible to pass it. If it is not passed this Session, I hope early next year this, or a similar Bill, will be adopted by the House.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)

I think as the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary agrees with the principle of the Bill he has the power to pass it. It is true the Bill is blocked, but only by the hon. Baronet opposite the Member for Mid Armagh (Sir James Corry). I feel bound to call attention to this fact that another hon. Gentleman—the Member for North Belfast (Mr. Ewart)— was on the Committee which reported this Bill, and I believe the hon. Gentleman is quite in favour of the principle of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton) is making himself the mouthpiece of almost the unanimous demand of the commercial class of Belfast; and I therefore would appeal to the hon. Baronet to yield his opinion to that of the people of Belfast, the more especially as I understand the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary is in favour of the principle of the Bill. Under these circumstances, I would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to use his influence with his followers, and I would appeal to them to relax their opposition. I understand it is also blocked by an English Conservative Member, the hon. Member for the Torquay Division of Devon (Mr. Mallock), and I think it is rather hard that a Gentleman representing Torquay should place himself in opposition to a Bill that relates to Belfast, and which is what all Belfast desires.

MR. SEXTON

I see opposite the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Serjeant Madden), and I would appeal to him, as he was a Member of the Select Committee, to corroborate my statement that the Amendments moved by him on behalf of the Treasury were unanimously adopted. The hon. Member for North Belfast (Mr. Ewart) sat upon the Committee, and he was satisfied generally with the Bill; and I would invite the hon. Baronet the Member for Mid Armagh (Sir James Corry), who blocked the Bill, to rise and give any reason for it, and to say whether there is any one commercial person, of any politics whatever, in Belfast, who would not wish the Bill to pass. The citizens of Belfast expect from him something in their interests, and therefore I ask why he has blocked the Bill, which would be a boon to the people of Belfast, and give them at their own door, and in their own city, a cheap administration of the Bankruptcy Law, which they have not now? That being the case, I think I have a right to appeal to the Government—and I think the hon. Gentleman should join with me so far as to remove his block— for facilities to proceed with the Bill, which is in the interests of the commercial community of Belfast.

MR. SERJEANT MADDEN (Dublin University)

I was a Member of the Select Committee, and I must say that the Amendments I moved were adopted. I also think there is a general opinion in favour of the Bill.

MR. EWART (Belfast, N.)

The Local Bankruptcy Bill is, undoubtedly, viewed with much favour in the North, and in some other parts of Ireland. I took part in the Committee upon the Bill; but I have since been informed that it is the opinion of the people of Belfast that the Bill would not be satisfactory in its operation.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order ! It is quite irregular to discuss this Bill on this Vote—reference may be made to it, but it cannot be discussed.

MR. EWART

I only rose at the request of the hon. Member opposite to express my views.

MR. SEXTON

All objections were disposed of by the acceptance of Amendments in Committee, and I would appeal to the Government to apply to the hon. Baronet the Member for Mid Armagh to remove his block.

MR. M. J. KENNY (Tyrone, Mid)

In the event of this Bill—which can be easily passed—not passing, I trust the people of Belfast will understand its defeat is entirely owing to the action of the hon. Baronet who represents Mid Armagh.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON (Kerry, W.)

I would wish to make an appeal to the Government with regard to the Return of people held in confinement by order of the Bankruptcy Court. I would appeal to them to continue that Return at such periods as would appear to them to be convenient for the information of the House. There are instances of persons kept in gaol for 18 and 20 months, and I have seen people committed for contempt of Court of whose case I am sure the Judge became utterly oblivious in the end. That could not happen if a, Return were presented to the House, so that the Representatives for Ireland could have an opportunity of criticizing these cases. I appeal to the Government to continue this Return without any formal Motion, or to say whether they would be willing to grant it if moved for.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

If any hon. Gentleman asks for the Return I have no doubt that it will be granted.

DR. TANNER (Cork Co., Mid)

I wish to call attention to a particular case that occurred in connection with these bankruptcy proceedings, and which happened on the estate of Mr. Herbert O'Sullivan. A number of cases were taken into the Bankruptcy Court by the Secretary to the National League, and in accordance with common justice, owing to the very bad state of affairs in the country, Judge Boyd made reductions over the entire estate; he gave the tenants a reduction of 30 per cent, with the single exception of a Mr. Timothy Lucy. It was a very hard case, and remonstrance was made again and again; but, unfortunately, in vain.

THE CHAIRMAN

I understand the hon. Gentleman is calling attention to an order made by the Judge, and that would be quite irregular.

DR. TANNER

It is an order of the Court.

THE CHAIRMAN

It would be quite irregular.

DR. TANNER

It is because it was so irregular that I wished to call attention to it.

MR. M. J. KENNY

Is it not competent to call attention to the action of the Judge by moving the reduction of his salary?

THE CHAIRMAN

No; that cannot be done.

MR. M. J. KENNY

The Court of Appeal has decided this is not part of the Superior Court, and therefore these Judges would not come within the rule that has proceeded from the Chair.

THE CHAIRMAN

I am not aware of that.

DR. TANNER

I would not do anything in the world you could find exception to; but I thought that, being the Court of Bankruptcy, the position of the Judge was not the same as that of the other Judges.

MR. SEXTON

I shall move a reduction of the Vote on the ground that I cannot agree to the continuance of this system of bankruptcy. I therefore move to reduce the sum by £2,000, and I make complaint that six months after the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary adopted the principle of my Bill the Government declined to give me any facilities to pass it. Even at the present date, if the Government would use their influence, the Bill might be passed into law, and I make this Motion for the purpose of making it clear the failure is no fault of mine, but due to one or two Committee Members, whose motives, if not personal, I find it impossible to analyze. I make this Motion also for the purpose of giving the Government an opportunity of saying whether they will give me any facilities or not.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £4,140, be granted for the said Services."—(Mr. Sexton.)

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The hon. Gentleman has moved the reduction of this Vote in order, as he contends, to put his own position beyond question. I do not doubt that the hon. Gentleman is seriously desirous of passing the Bill, and I can assure him, on behalf of my- self and the Government, we also approve generally of the Bill brought forward by the hon. Gentleman. When he says he moves this reduction in order to draw the attention of the Committee to the neglect of the Government to give facilities, I must ask him to remember that not only Bills which the Government approve, but the Bill on this subject, which they themselves brought forward, they have been obliged to abandon owing to the exigencies of the Session.

MR. SEXTON

Your Bill was not at the same stage.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The hon. Gentleman asks us to use our influence to get the block removed; but he must be aware that all the Government can do is to express their own opinion, and leave it to hon. Members to take what independent action they choose. I have never concealed, either from the hon. Gentleman or my hon. Friends behind me, that we believe, in the main, the Bill is a good one; and whilst the Government adhere to that view, it is not possible—and, if possible, would not be desirable—to exercise pressure upon them to pursue a course they consider inconsistent with their public duty. I do not think the hon. Gentleman can reasonably ask us for more facilities than he has, considering that we ourselves have taken steps in regard to Bills we have introduced and could not pass.

DR. TANNER

The right hon. Gentleman has said that the Government were not antagonistic to the Bill; he took up exactly the same position with regard to it as his Predecessors; and I would like to call, not his attention, but the attention of one of the Junior Lords of the Treasury, the Committee Whip, and also the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith), to last Wednesday week, when we had Business before a quarter to 6. On that occasion we entered into a sort of compact to try and get this Bill through; but notwithstanding the fact that we had the sanction and approval of the right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secretary, notwithstanding the right hon. Gentleman the present Chief Secretary was also in favour of it; still, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury wanted to get four Bills through for this one, and it was merely a differ- ence in the bargain that prevented it being brought forward.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 47; Noes 112: Majority 65.—(Div. List, No. 442.)

[12.30 A.M.]

Original Question put, and agreed to.

(4.) £9,266, to complete the sum for Registry of Deeds, Ireland.

(5.) £73,028 (including a Supplementary sum of £37,575), to complete the sum for the Irish Land Commission.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

I know that it is difficult to criticize a Vote of this important character at this time, especially when a new Land Act has just come before the country. I do not see the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland here; but before I touch on the technical part of the Vote, I will express my deep regret that the Land Commission should have issued the notification to the Government that they did with regard to a Bill passing through this House. I think their conduct in this respect is absolutely without parallel in the history of Government Departments in Ireland, especially where, as is the case in the present instance, the Department taking such a course had judicial, and, I might almost say, Executive functions committed to it. And I must say that I think it is a matter calling for strong observation that the Land Commission should have addressed a joint note signed by the three Commissioners to Her Majesty's Government requiring or suggesting that a particular Bill passing through the House of Commons should be shaped in a particular manner. I think no worse instance of the decomposition of public life in Ireland could he instanced than that a Judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature, accompanied by two gentlemen who have occupied seats on the Judicial Bench for seven years, should have put their names to this unfortunate document. I deplore it as an instance of the complete wreck and chaos to which we are reduced in Ireland, that these gentlemen who occupy a judicial position in Ireland, are, at the same time, part of the working executive in Ireland, should take it upon themselves to declare that the House of Commons was not sufficiently explicit in its statements. I say that this statement is not only an insult to the House of Commons, and an insult to the House of Lords, to which the Bill had then passed, but that the action of the Commissioners is absolutely foreign to every idea of what ought to he the action of men possessing and exercising judicial functions. Let us take it in this way. Suppose that the Cass case in England were to result in the introduction of some new law relating to the action of magistrates in such cases; and suppose that in connection with that Bill Mr. Stead's Act dealing with solicitation came under consideration, and that some two penny-halfpenny dog-breaker in the country who was not satisfied with the Bill said—" I think the House of Commons is making a great mistake. I am one of the Great Unpaid, and I desire to place my opinions on record—which I put in the shape of a letter to the Home Secretary—that the House of Commons' manner of dealing with an important Act is not satisfactory"—the only result would be this gentleman would be laughed at. Why should it be different when we are dealing with Ireland, and with a question of rent and cash? I wonder who it was that gave these gentlemen the idea of writing this unfortunate document on the 9th of the last month. They begin their letter as if it were a State document, and I have no doubt that the penny stamp which carried their letter was paid for by the Imperial Exchequer. They had no idea, I am sure, of charging themselves with even a penny stamp in connection with the writing of this monstrous and indecent letter. Here is the letter in regard to a Bill passing through the House of Commons—a House elected as the Representatives of the people. It is said that we do not know what we are doing; that even the great Primrose League Party in this and the other House do not know what they are doing; that we are mere scum on the waves of legislation in regard to Irish land; and that, therefore, the Irish Land Court is going to ask the House of Commons and the House of Lords what they shall do. Here is what they have the audacity to say—" Considering the enormous responsibility thrown on the Court "— as if they were not well paid for bearing this responsibility; as if they would not willingly take that responsibility for £5,000 a-year paid quarterly. Then they go on to talk of "the responsibility in regard to the temporary reduction of judicial rents," as if they had not already dealt with a quarter of a million of judicial rents. Then they say, as to the Bill before Parliament—and I consider this almost amounts to a Breach of Privilege—"that more precise guidance should be given in the Act of Parliament"—it was not then an Act of Parliament, but only a Bill; fancy members of the judicature speaking of a Bill as if it were an Act of Parliament—a Bill that might have been rejected at any part of its course. But let that pass. They say that they "are of opinion that more precise guidance should be given in the Act of Parliament as to the nature of the provisions to be applied to the reduction of judicial rents." A more incongruous document was surely never addressed to the House of Commons; but bad as was the act of the Commissioners in penning this mean and miserable letter, I think it was even worse for the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to produce it. These men might have been misled; they might have written this letter in a moment of passion. [Cries of "Oh, oh ! "] Well, I will withdraw the word "passion," as unfit for the cerulean atmosphere of the Land Commission. But then comes the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland and produces their letter. They did not put private on the letter, I imagine, and that I suppose was their error; but both Mr. Justice O'Hagan and Mr. Litton, on reading their letter next morning in the newspapers, must, I should think, have been surprised that it should be made public. They meant, no doubt, to have kept it between themselves. They only wanted to do a little of that nudging which goes on between the Irish judicature and the Irish Executive; but the Government went and published their letter, and under what circumstances? The Bill had been sent down from the House of Lords, where grave changes had been made in it. The House of Lords have had the Bill before them from Thursday to Saturday, and the complaint was—

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)

I rise to a point of Order. I wish to ask whether in connection with this Vote the hon. and learned Gentleman is justified in criticizing the action of the Government in producing this letter?

MR. T. M. HEALY

The right hon. Gentleman has no right to assume to know what I am going to say. I am going to deal with this point, that the Government produced this letter in the House of Commons on a given date, and stated in the House of Commons that their reason for making certain alterations in the Bill was this letter, whereas they did not produce it in the House of Lords, but allowed the House of Lords to remain suspended in judgment from Thursday to Saturday, and this, too, although the Amendments Submitted to the Lords had only been printed half-an-hour before they were submitted to them. What is the excuse of the Goverement for at last producing this letter? It was that pressure was brought to bear upon them by the Land Commission. But I think that all ends would have been attained if the Government would have stood up at that Table and justified the Amendments they were proposing. But the letter, whether written for production or not, was a most deplorable letter. It shows that in dealing with the Land Commission we are not dealing with a firm and stable body, but with men who are blown aside by every wind of doctrine. This letter was addressed to the Government by two gentlemen who are to go out of office next year, and whose appointments are in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. Now, one of them—Mr. Wrench—has only been lately appointed in the place of the late Mr. Vernon. I will therefore say nothing of Mr. Wrench. My experience of him extends only to two or three cases, and therefore I will suspend my judgment until I have had more experience of him. Mr. Litton has had more experience. He sat in this House all the time that the Land Act was passing through it, and has since had six years' experience on the Bench. Mr. Justice O'Hagan is the best poet and the worst Judge that ever sat on the Irish Bench. His poetry is admirable. You could sit all day and read, and then spend all the night thinking of it.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Is it in Order that on this Vote Members should attack both the motives and the actions of the Land Commissioners?

THE CHAIRMAN

The action of the Land Commission as a body is subject to criticism on this Vote. The personal action of the head of a Judicial Commission who is also a member of the High Court of Judicature is not a fitting subject of criticism.

MR. T. M. HEALY

But Mr. Justice O'Hagan signs this letter, and it is impossible therefore to separate him from his colleagues. If I were to criticize or to blame Mr. Litton and Mr. Wrench and were not to criticize or to apportion any blame to the third gentleman it might be considered that I was unjust to Mr. Litton and Mr. Wrench. However, I am glad to have twice had these interruptions from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. It shows that the Government are aware of and appreciate the fact that these gentlemen have acted in an improper manner; and that this action of a Judicial Commission in regard to judicial rents is a matter in regard to which the Government do not feel on safe ground. I now come to the question of the manner in which the Land Commission propose to administer the new Act. We have passed an Act dealing with leaseholders; and I would first call attention to the fact that under this Statute there has necessarily been an appointment of a number of Sub-Commissioners, with regard to whom grave doubt must be felt. It is understood that these Sub-Commissioners have been appointed for one year—if I am wrong as to the length of the term I shall be glad to be correoted— but I condemn altogether the appointment of men for only one year certain as most unfortunate. For the men thus appointed go about the country believing that their appointment will be exhausted in a year's time; and they, therefore, naturally want during that time to make friends with the mammon of iniquity. Being only appointed for a year they believe that their only hope of re-appointment lies in pleasing the Government. We found that the judgments of the men appointed for one year in 1881–2–3 were wanting in stability. It would be far better that these men should be appointed in fewer numbers than that they should only be appointed for one year; for these men hardly get accustomed to their office or able to discharge its duties satisfactorily in less than a year's time, and yet it must be remembered that every decision they give is subject to criticism. A number of these gentlemen indeed are reappointed, nor do I blame the Government for having gone back to some of the old Commissioners. On the contrary, I think they are well-advised in taking that course, but then I cannot help remarking that the gentlemen whom they have selected very much belong to one class. I do not want to bring in the names of particular gentlemen, but I must say that the fact is very curious that the majority in all Government appointments in Ireland should always belong to one class. When you dismiss Resident Magistrates it is remarkable that they should be Catholics, and that, on the other hand, those who are re-appointed to office should be Protestants. That offers a very serious subject for consideration, but I will not dwell on it now in the hope that the Government will abstain from bringing pressure to bear on these Commissioners, and, at the same time, bearing in mind the fact that they are now only on the threshold of their career. Considering what mistakes were made by their Predecessors whereby Parliament was compelled to revise the rents fixed in 1881–2–3 I would hope that this fact may have some effect on these gentlemen, and may induce them to fix rents without regard to class or influence. Professor Baldwin, I am sorry to say, is now no more. I greatly deplore his loss. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Ireland (Colonel King-Harman) will, I am sure, bear me out when I say that he certainly did endeavour to do justice between landlord and tenant. But there was a remark made by Professor Baldwin, and I thought it showed the prescience of the man. He had been a party to fixing some very high rents, and so long back as 1882 or 1883 he wrote to the papers to say that those rents would not be fair if prices fell to their present level. This gentleman is dead, but his words remain, and I trust that his words will fix themselves in the minds and in the memory of the remaining members of the Sub-Commission so that whether their term of office extends for two, three or six months, they will endeavour to do justice in regard to the rents they fix altogether indifferent to the losses that may accrue to the landlords in consequence of their making reductions, or to the tenants by their failing to make reductions. I hope they will decide the questions submitted to them solely by reference to the character of the improvements on the farms, the state of the seasons and prices and so on, without regard to politics. If anyone will look back to Hansard for the last five years, they will see that so long back I have lifted up my voice against the action of the Land Commission. The Government did not then take our advice, and consequently you are now in your present positions. Now that you have appointed a fresh Commission I ask them to remember that they are sworn to administer the law without regard to politics, and that they will not in that respect follow the example of Mr. Cecil Rhodes. I now pass to the question of the appeals made from the Sub- Commissioners to the Land Commission. On a matter of this kind no one will speak with more deference than I shall do to the opinion of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson). I think that we have been fortunate in his presence during these debates, and that we have had opposed to us a Gentleman of his experience and of his type of character. I am sorry that he is going to be made a Judge, and that he will perhaps be spoiled. I fear he may then become possessed of those objectionable qualities which belong to so many of our Judges. But although his views as to the rules drafted by the Commissioners are entitled to great respect, it must not be forgotten that it is easy to make statements which will not always bear the light of experience. I quite agree that future experience may prove my observations to be incorrect, but I do not think that the two meagre rules issued by the Land Commission with regard to leaseholders entirely meet the case. I do not care now to go further than this; but finding myself on that broad statement I will reserve my judgment on other points. I am merely a critic, and I admit a very imperfect critic, but still while admitting my own imperfection, I must say that I do not think that the two rules of the Land Commission will entirely meet the case. I think cases will arise that will break down the rules. It is a delicate matter, and I will not go further now than to say that the leaseholders of Ireland are entitled to great consideration. The Government refused to accept our Amendments dealing with leaseholders. They met our views no doubt to a certain extent, but without meeting the bottom point we had in our minds as to the non-recognition of the status of these men. I have asked a question that would go to the bottom of the landlords' action in regard to leaseholders by requesting that when an originating notice is served by anyone from this time forward that that notice should simply be dealt with as a question of fair rent and nothing else, unless the landlord lodges an action. I am told that this is merely a matter of pleading; but that I deny, and moreover I say that in this matter the Land Commission have been ruled to too great an extent by the Resolutions of the House of Lords passed in 1882–3. I now ask the Government and the Land Commission to consider whether, on serving an originating notice by the tenant on the landlord, the law should not require the landlord to lodge an action within a certain time if he desires to raise any other than a question of fair rent. I think that would not be unreasonable. I think that the present system does not work satisfactorily, and no one knows it better than the right hon. Gentleman opposite. And even if he does not know it himself, he has Mr. Carson as his assistant, and a more competent man he cannot have. Mr. Carson is one of the most adroit practitioners in the Land Court, and he knows as well as I do that when the tenant has got a fair rent in the Sub-Commission Court, and the landlord appeals on the question of rent and value, it is monstrous that the landlord should then be allowed to commence a cross-examination as to subletting or status. I think the tenant should be forewarned and advised on points of this kind. I think as the Irish Land Commission have given in to the opinion of the House of Lords on the question of Procedure, every opinion in favour of the tenants is of some value on the other side. We only want the rights of the tenants protected as those of the landlords are, and I think we may fairly ask the Government to consider this point. The Land Commission have decided that an appeal is a rehearing. I say that it is most unjust. I say that the tenant should know the horse that the landlord is going to win upon. There are other questions regarding the whole rental of Ireland, and I think the Land Commission and the Government would be well advised, and their action would inspire public confidence in regard to appointments and re-appointments, if they considered that subject. Any appointments which remain, whether of the Land Commissioners or Sub-Commissioners, are a matter of some importance, and we shall know from their action and acts, whether their appointments are executive acts or judicial acts. We ask that the Land Commission should have some little say in the matter of reappointment. The matter is one of considerable urgency as well as of some considerable delicacy—I believe even Land Commissioners can learn wisdom from what has taken place—therefore, in the present circumstances, I guard myself from making what might be unfairly critical observations on these appointments.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The speech which the hon. and learned Gentleman has just delivered, I am glad to recognize as being, on the whole, a moderate speech, though I am sorry to say, he did not refrain altogether from casting imputations on the Court whose usefulness he recognized. Two of the Land Commissioners, not being permanent appointments, are not free as other Judges are from Parliamentary criticism of the kind which the hon. and learned Gentleman has made.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Might I, Mr. Courtney, with great respect point out that the ruling of Mr. Speaker Brand, and of the present Speaker following him, was that as the salaries of these Judges fell on the Consolidated Fund, a distinct Motion to impeach them would require to be made. I think that is a matter of the utmost importance. I would not be even in Order in criticizing the salary of Judge O'Hagan.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The hon. and learned Gentleman mistook the point of my remarks. I did not suggest he was out of Order, because I conceive if he had been out of Order, you, Mr. Courtney, would have called him to Order. What I say caused the regret I expressed was that a technical difference in the mode in which these Judges and other Judges are paid, should render it possible for the hon. and learned Gentleman to make imputations on their conduct which he would have been prevented by the Rules of the House from doing in the case of the other Judges. I will deal with the points which the hon. and learned Gentleman has raised, in the reverse order of that in which he has raised them. The last question he put was whether we were to regard the appointment of the Sub-Commissioners as purely coming from the Executive or whether the Land Commissioners were consulted. The Executive is purely responsible for these appointments, though any representation made by the Land Commission would receive consideration from those who are responsible for these appointments. Then the next point he proceeded to deal with was, I think, the question of the Rules of Court. Upon that subject I confess I do not feel competent to give any opinion. It is not a matter which comes within my cognizance. The Land Commissioners are solely responsible, and even if I were competent to criticize them, I should not feel inclined to do so. Then the next point which the hon. and learned Gentleman touched upon was the permanent nature of the sub-Commissioners' appointments.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Non-permanent.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Exactly so— the non-permanent nature of the appointments of the Sub-Commissioners. The hon. and learned Gentleman pointed out that they were appointed for one year. With the general spirit of his observations I am disposed to concur. I thing that on the whole, speaking broadly, the longer the tenure of office of a Judge is, the more his usefulness will be. But the hon. and learned Gentleman must be aware that by the recent Bill, we have brought in a flood of business that requires temporarily dealing with. If, therefore, we only appointed a few Sub-Commissioners and gave them a permanent tenure of office, we should have a great mass of arrears; and if we appointed a large number permanently, we should have to saddle the country with the payment of officials who might find themselves with nothing to do. Then the hon. and learned Gentleman said that the Sub-Commis- sionors who had been appointed had been selected on Party grounds, or, at all events, on religious grounds.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I did not say that.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

the hon. and learned Gentleman hinted at that.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I said that it was a curious fact that of the appointments the majority were Protestants, and of omissions made the majority were Catholics.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I think, Sir, I was justified in saying that the hon. and learned Gentleman had hinted that we were influenced by political considerations—at all events religious considerations. He will not deny that. I can only say on behalf of the Irish Government that no such motives have influenced us at all. I believe in the gentlemen we have appointed all the leading—if I may use such an expression—all the leading creeds in Ireland are represented. There are Roman Catholics, there are Presbyterians, and there are members of the Irish Episcopal Church; and I do not think there is any ground for the suggestions or the hints of the hon. and learned Gentleman that we have been influenced by any other motive than that of competence in the persons to be appointed. Then I pass to the first part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's speech— that part, namely, in which he impugns the personal action of the Government, and more especially the action of the Land Court in writing to the Government that letter the terms of which he has so severely criticized. Sir, in my opinion, the Land Court, holding the opinions they did upon the subject, were well advised, and did no more than their simple duty, in calling the attention of the Government to the difficulties of the Act which they have to carry out. I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman may find some cases—the codification of the Criminal Law, for instance—in which the opinions of the Judges have been taken. But I do not wish to dwell upon that—I do not admit that that case is absolutely on all fours with the present case. And why are they not on all fours? Because the action of the Land Commission under this new Bill, is not a judicial action in the sense in which an ordinary Court performs a judicial action when it interprets an Act of Parliament.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Why did you rise to Order? You rose to Order, and said I was raising a question with regard to these gentlemen performing judicial actions. Now you make a contrary assertion.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

What I objected to, and what I still object to, is that the hon. and learned Gentleman made a most offensive suggestion with reference to the Land Commission— namely, that two of their members were actually influenced, or might be influenced in the course they pursued, by the fact that the tenure of their office was temporary. If anything I could have done could have prevented the hon. and learned Gentleman making that observation, I would have been glad to do it. I come back to the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman on the question. What is the character of the duties which the Land Commission has to perform under the Act? In fact—the hon. and learned Gentleman will not deny— the duties they have to perform are really the duties of arbitration. We are casting- upon these three gentlemen the unexampled duty—the hon. and learned Gentleman asked for a precedent—is there any precedent for such a duty?—of the arbitration of an enormous number of agricultural disputes, affecting a large proportion of the agricultural population over the whole of Ireland. I venture to say, never was an attempt made by the Legislature of any country, to throw on any body of men, the powers of dealing with the interests of a large class, such as we have thrown upon the Land Commission, in my opinion, they would have been guilty of a grave dereliction of duty, if, knowing that this power was to be cast upon them without their consent, they had not asked the House, to, at all events, lay down rules of such precision, such clearness, and of such unquestionable a character, that they should have no doubt as to how they should exercise the unexampled powers entrusted to them. I apprehend that that consideration, and that consideration alone, meets the two points of the hon. and learned Gentleman. It meets the point that there was no precedent for such action, the point that there was no such appeal from the judicial body to this House, and it meets the point that there was no precedent for this House giving them advice on the subject, I certainly think when they asked for instruction as to how they should act in the exercise of the enormous duties that were cast upon them in every direction, that this House was bound to give them all the assistance in that respect which it had in its power to give.

MR. BLANE (Armagh, S.)

I wish to call the attention of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Ireland (Colonel King-Harman), or the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary (Mr. A. J. Balfour) to the fact that there are a great many people who are put to expense by reason of the negligence of the officials who serve under the Commissioners. I could instance one case where the solicitor of a tenant wrote to the Commission asking if they have power to stay proceedings on a notice to quit by reason of sub-letting, and the Commissioners wrote back to say they had. When the case came on for trial the Commissioners declared they had no jurisdiction, and the man had to bear the cost of witnesses, solicitor, and other law costs, he had involved himself in. Even if he had got a reduction, these costs would cover for a great many years the benefit he would have got from the reduction. At any rate, the small reductions which the Sub-Commissioners did give were utterly useless to the people, and unless in the administration of this Act reductions are given so as to enable people to live and thrive, the Act will be a nullity. Therefore we press on the Government the necessity, in any appointments to the Land Commission, of appointing men who will really take the circumstances of the tenants into consideration. If proper reductions had been given under the Act of 1881 and until now, you would not have had cause for recent legislation. It was because the Commissioners did not give adequate reductions that the Government were compelled to bring in a Bill to deal with the subject. I merely mention this in order that the Government may use such pressure upon the Sub-Commissioners as will enable the tenants to get some relief.

MR. NOLAN (Louth, N.)

Before the Vote is taken I want to direct the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to a matter of common complaint. In the Estimate, under the head of the Irish Land Commission, there appear the items, Judicial Commissioner and Assistant Commissioners, first, second, and third class, and lower division clerks. And yet, when the very simplest Question is addressed to the Department by people who are interested in obtaining a straightforward answer, they are put off with the vaguest possible kind of an answer. As a case in point, I asked a Question today of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary about some constituents of mine. They applied in last May to have a fair rent fixed for their farms— not a matter of very great importance to the right hon. Gentleman, perhaps, but still a matter of very great importance to these poor people—and they wanted to know whether the fair rent will be fixed, or their cases will be heard before the 1st of November or not. Well, one would think that even one of the third class clerks that are spoken of here, who takes in the names of the applicants and enters the applications up, would, after this Department has been in work for six years, be able to calculate the rate of progress, and give the tenants some idea when their cases would be heard. Well, I am told to-day, and it is all the answer I have to give to these people, that their cases will be heard some time—whether before Christmas or after Christmas, we have no idea. What I want to know now, Sir, is whether the cases of these tenants will be heard before November or not? It will surely be a very easy thing to answer that simple question—not narrowing down the right hon. Gentleman to a day, or a week, or even a month—so that these people may know that their cases will be heard in November or after. It is a matter of very great importance to these people, because they want to know whether they will have to pay their rent upon an unfair rent or upon a fair rent, which they hope to have fixed at some time; and I should like the right hon. Gentleman to give me some satisfaction upon this point before the Vote is taken.

THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Colonel KING-HARMAN) (Kent, Isle of Thanet)

I wish very much that I could answer the hon. Gentleman in a manner satis- factory to his constituents. I quite understand the hardship in the case of people not knowing exactly when their rents will be fixed; but it is really impossible for the Commissioners to know until some little time before when these cases will be taken. It is impossible to know the number of applications that will come before them at a particular time. There may be in the two or three counties which precede this particular county a large number of applications or a small number, and it is their duty to hear all the cases that come before them, and to consider the number when they make their appointments. There may be 200 cases, or there may be 300 cases, and until the Commissioners know the number of cases put down for the Session, which will be coming on in the ensuing autumn, it is impossible to say when they will be in a certain county on the Circuit. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Commissioners do their best to fix the earliest day they possibly can.

.MR. NOLAN

I would ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman if he will promise to communicate with the Land Commission, and ask them to give an answer to these farmers?

COLONEL KING-HARMAN

I will. Vote agreed to.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I would ask the Government respectfully to postpone the next Vote—" County Court Officers, &c." It is one on which a great deal of discussion will arise, and we have only just put into our hands the names of the gentlemen who are to be appointed Revising Barristers. I blame myself I did not ask a question this morning as to who the 16 gentlemen are to be, and I think it is a reasonable thing to ask the Government to consent to postpone this Vote. There are only two other Votes in the Class which are likely to give rise to much discussion.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I am quite ready to postpone this Vote, if, as I understand, the hon. and learned Gentleman would allow us to have the other Votes without much discussion.

MR. T. M. HEALY

The Prisons Vote must have discussion.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I have no objection to postpone this Vote.

(6.) £85,000, to complete the sum for the Dublin Metropolitan Police.

(7.) £83,050, to complete the sum for Prisons, Ireland.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

I now ask the Government to fulfil the pledge which was given by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary during the discussions on the Crimes Act. The Government were asked to consider the question of the treatment of prisoners under the Crimes Act, and especially prisoners committed for minor offences. With regard to men of a high rank in life, entrusted with positions of great confidence, these men ought not to be put in the position of Moonlighters. For myself, if I have to go to prison I ask for no favour. I will endeavour to keep out of prison as long as I can, but asking for no favour whatever myself, or for anything but fair play, I say it is against the best interests of the Government to reduce a Representative of the people to the position of a Moonlighter, to reduce persons accused, say, of the offence of sedition, of what is a political offence, to the same class as that of a man charged with Moonlighting. The Government have great power. I think they should work this Act as Mr. Forster did. He worked it, it is true, under circumstances which gave rise to great hardship. Nevertheless, there was no such feeling generated under Mr. Forster's working of the Crimes Act as there was in 1867 and 1868 with regard to the treatment of prisoners then. We know a great deal of feeling has arisen among persons in America on this subject. It was simply because of your treatment of O'Donovan Rossa in prison that the dynamite campaign arose. You had that man for 40 days with his hands tied behind his back, so that he had to lie down and lap his food like a dog. These men who will go in under this Act ought to be treated according to the measure of their iniquity—no better and no worse. The Government will have nothing to gain by treating these men as if they were criminals of the darkest die. Six ounces of oatmeal in the morning, plus six ounces at night, plus six ounces of bread in the middle of the day, is an absurd diet to give to a prisoner. It is absurd to suppose that the influence of bad food and a miserable diet will bring a man's feelings down. Instead of having bad food, a man ought to have good food. Then a man should have the option of hard labour. I think every prisoner sentenced under the Crimes Act should have the option of having hard labour, because he gets several ounces more food, and what is involved by hard labour is extremely little more. One of the meanest things about England is its fallacy about this matter. You talk about this confinement within high walls as a pleasant enjoyable relaxation. Why do not you try it? The Government have given us a pledge as to how they will treat their political prisoners. If they do not do so, these men will, in their own locality, have their prestige added to and will be regarded as martyrs in consequence of the prison treatment to which they will have been subjected. There is not a man on the Treasury Bench I could not reduce to a condition of ineptitude if I had it in my power to deprive them of sunlight for several months. When I was in Richmond we were drilled in a yard which was surrounded on all sides with high walls, and the smoke blew into our faces. During the four months I was in there I never breathed a breath of fresh air, and the only place we were exercised in was a little miserable triangular place where we marched round and round, and where we had the smoke blown right into our faces. I say that prisoners are entitled to fresh air if not to food, and to food if not to fresh air. Prisoners are men, and it is a monstrous thing to deprive them of both. The idea of this Crimes Act of yours is not simply that it is a punitive measure but a preventive measure. Now, it may seem that I am pleading for ourselves, but I am not doing that. As I have said, I shall do my best to keep out of prison, and I shall only go in when it is absolutely necessary to do so; therefore do not attach any feeling of bravado to what I say on this matter. I plead for men unable to plead for themselves, men imprisoned for simply returning for shelter to their miserable holdings after being put out by the Sheriff, men who are carrying on a purely political fight such as you have applauded when carried on in Hungary, in Italy, or in Greece. They will go into prison, and they will come out again as martyrs to the cause in which they are engaged, and your prison rules will not deprive them of the respect of their countrymen. Now, Mr. Forster treated his prisoners fairly well; but every one of them suffered in health from the confinement. The illness from which my hon. Friend the Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) is now suffering was, I believe, brought about by that imprisonment, and the health of others of my hon. Friends has suffered from the same cause. But not to speak of these, dozens of men have died—some have gone out of their minds, and all have been impaired in health, from their prison treatment. I say you have no right to take away their liberty, and inflict a life-long disability upon them and sufferings felt years hence. Confinement between high prison walls is bad enough for the most vigorous constitutions; the least you can do is not to starve the prisoners and deprive them of fresh air.

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J.BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)

I sincerely hope the hon. and learned Member will not have to undergo the disagreeable incidents to which he has alluded.

MR. T. M. HEALY

That is not the point.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

It is a point to which the hon. Member himself made reference, and that is why I refer to it. The policy upon which we have proceeded is simple. We are not of opinion, and I have never had the opinion, that prisoners under the Act require exceptional treatment. We consider that every man who is an offender under this Act, and is condemned for his offence, ought to have been condemned under the ordinary law; and if he was not so condemned, it is because of a failure of the machinery of the ordinary law, not that there is any difference in substance between the old law and the new. The offences are substantially the same, and I do not see any ground for altering the treatment of those who come under the operation of the law in one way or the other. I have made it my business to inquire into the treatment of prisoners, and to find out whether that treatment is the same in Ireland as in England, and I find it is under similar circumstances. I cannot suggest that any alteration in Irish prison discipline should be made in regard to one Act. If that discipline is wrong in one country it is wrong in both, and we ought to deal with it as a whole, in relation to the Criminal Law as a whole, and not in reference to one Criminal Act. The hon. and learned Gentleman has at tempted to draw a distinction between Members of Parliament —

MR. T. M. HEALY

No. I said that political prisoners should be treated differently to those convicted of manslaughter and other criminal acts. I would like to know—I hope the Committee will pardon me for using a vulgar illustration—how would the right hon. Gentleman like to be treated as my hon. Friend the Member for the Harbour Division of Dublin (Mr. T. C. Harrington) was, and be deprived of a pocket-handkerchief for a month, and obliged to blow his nose with his fingers?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The hon. and learned Gentleman alluded in his speech, to certain imaginary persons —

MR. T. M. HEALY

He is not an imaginary person.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order!

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Who wore disposed to look upon prison life as rather an agreeable retirement. I do not myself adopt that view —

MR. T. M. HEALY

We ask for decency, nothing more.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order!

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The hon. and learned Member asks that a certain class of prisoners convicted under the new law should be subject to a different discipline. My view is that the discipline should be the same as under the old law.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Give us hand-kerchiefs.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I hope the hon. and learned Member will allow me to finish my remarks, however he may differ from their substance. The discipline under the old and now law should be the same. There may be grounds for changing that discipline in the prisons of England and Ireland; but if that be the case, it is not more or less because of the passing of the Crimes Act, it is a question to be dealt with on its merits. I have inquired into the Irish system of prison discipline to ascertain if it differed from the English discipline, and I find there is no difference—it is the same. Under the circumstances, I see no ground for making a special inquiry into the Irish prison discipline, though I am perfectly ready, on the part of the Irish Executive, to enter into an inquiry into the whole system of prison discipline in England and Ireland.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON (Kerry, W.)

It arouses indignation against the Government of our unfortunate country, it is a burning shame, a crying injustice, that an Act essentially political in its application to the people of Ireland should be administered by rules under which you say prisoners shall be just as well treated as thieves and pickpockets in England; that no change in discipline is required. What is that treatment? I suppose it would be almost sacrilege to suggest that any right hon. Gentleman opposite would be subject to it. Yet, Sir, some of us who have been so treated have been as honest men from our boyhood, and held as blameless in our lives as any of the occupants of that Bench. We have been known in the locality in which we lived, and have earned here the confidence and respect of our people, and have never been accused of any crime except those your Government invented for us, and for which we have been flung into prison and treated like dogs. The right hon. Gentleman talks in frigid tones of prison discipline; let me refer to my own case. [A laugh.] The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland laughs; but it is no laughing matter to me—

MR. GIBSON

Indeed, I did not laugh.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON

No; I beg pardon. I will not say he did. I was too hot in this matter. I beg his pardon. Perhaps it will be no great infliction on the Committee if I detail the treatment of those you have kept in prison, and who were honest and respected among their fellows up to the time the Government laid hands upon them, on no charge, and brought them within the purview of the Criminal Law. In the first place, after being conducted to prison, I was required to take off my clothes and dress myself in prisoners' garments. It is not too much to ask, I think, that these should be clean. It may be unpleasant, but we must talk of these matters. Among the garments that come down by devolution from criminals who have worn them, there is one a man has naturally the greatest objection to get into—the breeches, in fact. I got a new jacket and waistcoat, but an old pair of breeches in which some criminal had luxuriated in company with a number of parasites for months before. I know these are nasty subjects; but remember, at the same time, that this is the treatment that will be applied to present Members of Parliament, and every respectable man, convicted of crimes you have manufactured in this House under false pretences. It would have been no great extravagance, seeing I had half-a-year before me, to have given mo a new pair of breeches; but the officials would do no such thing. Hon. Gentlemen may, perhaps, turn up their noses at the attempt to discuss these and similar matters; but recollect we stand in danger of this treatment. Here I see an Estimate for bedding. Good Heavens ! was there ever such a fraud? I will tell you what happened to Mr. O'Mahoney, who was brought up under a section of the Coercion Act, under which cumulative sentences were possible. What did the magistrates do. Instead of inflicting a sentence of six months' imprisonment, they sentenced him to a month's imprisonment on each of six separate charges. And what was their object? The rules provide, under the ordinary Criminal Law, that a prisoner sentenced to not more than a month's imprisonment shall use a plank bed, and if for a longer period then he shall use it for the first month only. So, through the vindictive-ness of the magistrates Mr. O'Mahoney had every month of the whole six months to go upon the plank bed, and every first week of each month he had to go through a course of bread and water as if he were a prisoner commencing a first sentence. Such was the system of persecution pursued in Ireland, and in the result this House, slow to move in the interests of humanity when Ireland is concerned, had to interfere and order that when a prisoner goes into gaol upon cumulative sentences he shall be treated as for one term of imprisonment, that the treatment of Mr. O'Mahoney might not be repeated. What is the bedding we get? You may often hear a man say he can enjoy a stretch on the hearthrug, and that he can sleep very well on a bench at a railway station; but let him try it for a month, and let him try sleeping on a plank for a month. I wish there were more Howards in the present generation; we have a great many Mantilinis, but very few Howards. If there is any hon. Gentleman who desires to know what the treatment is, let him manage through his friends in the Government to obtain a taste of it for a month. The plank bed is not the worst institution applied to political prisoners. What were the hardships of prison life invented for? Were they not to give gaols a deterring influence on hardened criminals going in from time to time? Was it ever intended as a system for the class of prisoners who are to be committed under this Bill? A greater torture than the plank bed itself is the pillow supplied. I could sleep on the hard plank bed myself if only I had half-a-pound of feathers to put my head on. Our heads contain our whole stock in trade, and you might leave them to us at least. Moreover, you torture our bodies, which in some cases, thank God, are strong enough to bear it. But your system is calculated to drive out of his mind a man who has been accustomed to do any intellectual or clerical work of any kind. The prisoner gets a pillow of oakum. It is pleasant enough at first; you would hardly care to exchange it for eider down, and as you stretch yourself out you disregard the plank bed. But as your head rolls about in the course of the night, and many an unpleasant dream follows your wandering thoughts, you roll the tarry oakum into hard lumps, until you fancy you have a bag of small potatoes or marbles under your head. If you will not abolish plank beds, if you say the body shall not be at ease by day or night, for goodness sake spare the head, which represents all that is intellectual, and contains whatever there is of the Divine in the attributes of man. Why we often see, from the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, the discomfort he feels from resting continually on one part of his body, and we see him change his posture, and rest on the curve of his spine. I ask him to imagine how he would feel if he had to recline with his head on a bag of marbles. I would not wish that any hon. or right hon. Gentleman should undergo the experience; I would not have a dog treated so. When by allusion I call up the prospect of any hon. Gentleman enduring these sufferings, do not mistake me. It is not that I would wish our bitterest political opponent treated in the way we have been treated, and I could wish them that state of mind that would not allow us to be treated so. But that is a matter for themselves. If I have said a harsh thing at all, I would recall it, and not even make an exception in the case of the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr. De Lisle). These are not pleasant subjects, I know. These Irish nights have not the interest and romance of The Arabian Nights, and half-a-year's experience in an Irish prison is not calculated to oil one's tongue, especially when we speak to men who were our gaolers and connived at every instrument of torture, every evil method of securing our conviction and punishment. But I pass it by now, emphasizing what my hon. and learned Friend has said, that you should bear in mind that those against whom this Act will be specially directed are not the inhabitants of towns accustomed to a certain quantity of impure air, but unfortunate farmers and those accustomed to the pure air of rural life. The sentences will be generally imprisonment without hard labour, and the pious, Pharisaic Englishman, reading this, says—" Well, that is not so hard." But the fact is, that the punishment of hard labour consists in being sent into the prison yard to break stones, and the prisoner gets two extra ounces of bread. This is a great consideration to a prisoner; he has the opportunity of air and exercise. He may even be sent outside the inner walls to work in a quarry or field, where a man accustomed to working in the open air would get through the work of two men not so brought up easily enough. What he feels acutely is being kept in his cell 22 hours out or the 24, and set to teazing oakum. Furthermore, if he has even finished his allotted quantity of oakum, and a warder passing by reports him idle, that prisoner is put upon bread and water punishment. Take the case of a man, a poor farmer, 50 or 60 years of age, never before accused of any crime, who in a hasty moment, perhaps, has resisted the writ of the Sheriff or returned for shelter to the home from which he has been turned out, or, perhaps, he has attempted to tell the agent a bit of his mind in the street, that man is locked up under the Act, and, unaccustomed to prison life, he may for a moment stop his weary work, his allotted task being done; he may offer a prayer or lapse into thoughts of his wife and children, and a warder passing catches his fingers idle, even though his work is done, that man is put on bread and water. You say the same punishment is applied to all convicted under the Criminal Law, but that is not so. I have known a man convicted a score of times enjoy his life in gaol, while a farmer, imprisoned for a slight offence under the Act, has been treated barbarously. The accredited corrupt and hardened scoundrel is a sort of midshipman, and can "boss" all around him. I do not wish to wound the susceptibilities of the gallant Admiral opposite; I have the greatest respect for all sailors. I will say he is a sort of petty officer; I will tell you what I mean. A farmer's son—a respectable young man—may be sentenced to six months under the Act, and simultaneously on the same day a hardened criminal may receive a similar sentence; the one may be committed to prison for being a member of the Land League, the other, perhaps, for an attempted outrage on a girl. These two prisoners enter the gaol together; the one has been in gaol many times before, the other hears the door close behind him for the first time. Each of these is entitled to be called upon for fatigue duty, sweeping and washing the corridors, and so on; and very acceptable duty it is for those who would otherwise be locked in their cells. They have the exercise in the corridors and fresher air. The work, however, is such as the farmer has not been accustomed to, while the criminal has often done the work before; he knows every corner, and does the work adroitly and gets approbation, while the farmer gets complaints and bread and water punishment. I have seen men thus ill-treated, not because there was any fair ground for complaint, but for what was called their stupidity. In Heaven's name, cannot you understand that this stupidity, this want of acquaintance with the routine of prison work, means innocence—means that the man is not a criminal! The effect of your prison discipline is to give reward in the shape of better treatment to the more experienced criminal. The right hon. Gentleman says that Irish prisoners are to be treated exactly as those in England. That is not what we want, nor do we ask for special favours. Will you do this? Will you give to pri- soners going in under the Coercion Act the option of getting the additional punishment of hard labour which makes prison life more endurable, and do not, by your system, mate them devils when they come out of prison, or make them lunatics? There is another odious custom. When the prisoners are paraded and drilled by the warders, the prisoners are required to lift their caps to every little brass-buttoned boy official. Why should this be? The law does not require it. The Irish people have given up the old habit of lifting their hats to their landlords, and they do not care to renew the custom towards their gaolers. But, after all, that may be counted but a sentimental grievance; but such grievances count for something among educated, thoughtful men who are sent to this House to represent their countrymen, and, man for man, are as capable of doing their duty in the House as any right hon. Gentleman over the way. Then, there is another barbarous and outrageous custom which exists at present in the gaols. The rules are bad enough, but the way in which they are carried out is worse. After the prisoners have been locked in at 8 o'clock at night, they are wakened up, if they have been able to get to sleep, once, twice, or thrice in the night, to say whether they are all right. When I first heard that phrase and was taught the answer to it, I thought it the greatest mockery on earth. The guard goes round to every cell; there is a loose flange of iron on the door which is struck with a blow of a heavy key that makes as much noise as if it had been delivered with a sledge hammer, and the prisoner has to waken up from sleep and to say, "All right." Was there ever a greater satire than that? A man lying on a plank bed, sore all over, feeling as if every bone in his body was travelling all round the cell, and with his head aching, is wakened up in the midst of torturing dreams to tell the warder that he is "all right!" He is forced to go through that farce in the middle of the night. The prison rules do not require it, and yet it is done. If the prisoner does not answer, the Governor goes into the cell, pulls all the clothes off him, drags him by the toes on to the floor and makes him answer. Now this, I say, is a bar- barous custom. Why do not the warders go into the cell and merely throw the light of their lamps on the prisoner, so as to see for themselves whether he is all right? He is not all right, and he is forced to tell a lie and say he is. There is another thing I wish to refer to, and it relates to the class of prisoners who will be sent to gaol under this Act. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Matthews) is going to approach the subject of changing the prison rules and prison discipline. We shall be able to give him every assistance, and we can throw some practical light—that is to say, the light of experience—on the subject. But I wish now to treat of the class of men who will be imprisoned under this Act, and to ask whether it is fair to make those men herd with all the criminals in the gaols? I may say that there is nothing that causes more friction and irritation between Parties is this House than the manner in which we are met when we try to draw a distinction between what are called political prisoners and other prisoners in Ireland. I can tell this Committee that the men who have suffered political imprisonment in Ireland are men who—whether they be alive or dead—will ever live in the minds of the Irish people, and some of them are as revered as the greatest patriots of whom any country can boast. When we know how such men as these will be treated in gaol if the present system is maintained, it is not unreasonable that we should ask that there should be some distinction made between them and ordinary prisoners. I do not think that hon. Members opposite, if they visited an Irish prison and saw what happens there—if they saw my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cork (Mr. William O'Brien), the editor of United Ireland, walking round the prison yard between two of the blackest criminals in the gaol—would be proud of the Government which sanctions such things or proud of the work of this House. The men who are convicted under this Act will be dressed in prison clothes with the name of the gaol painted on them as large as the name on a man-of-war, and will have to take their rounds, in the manner described by my hon. and learned Friend, between two of the lowest and worst class of criminals. The policy of the Governors of gaols is to put political prisoners in all kinds of odious positions. There is one barbarous and beastly custom which I must refer to. We are obliged to speak plainly on those subjects. Each prisoner when he gets up in the morning has to sweep his cell. He is not trusted with a brush with a handle for fear that he might destroy the British Government with it. He, therefore, has to go down on his knees and sweep the cell with a brush, without a handle, then he has to take his slops and go into the closet with them, there is nothing to prevent prisoners of nasty habits from using their chamber utensils in any way they like in following the ordinary dictates of nature. Every man has to take the same towel to wipe out his utensil. The result is that every man of ordinary cleanliness is in danger, if not of catching fever, certainly of being disgusted for the remainder of his life. I wish also to speak of the manner in which children and women will be treated under this Act. The British Government sometimes affects to be too noble to war with women and children. As far as my experience goes, however, they war chiefly with women and children in Ireland. I have seen children of tender years in gaol. The greatest punishment of my imprisonment was to see in the gaol a little boy whom I knew to be an orphan, looking up to the skies and calling on his mother and then bursting out crying. That was worse to me than the three months' imprisonment which I had still to serve. This boy was sent to gaol for two months for intimidation. I have seen respectable young girls sent to gaol because they went out on to the roadway to try and prevent cattle being seized. There was a house, used by the doctor, which stood between the male and female yards in the prison in which I was confined, and from the male exercise yard I have looked through the open door and the window of that house and seen those respectable girls taking exercise between two women of the streets. Sir, that is a disgrace. I swear before Heaven that, in any effort that could be made, I would willingly lose my life to prevent that wrong occurring again. And, Sir, if we do no more than talk about these matters, without being able to get them remedied by Parliament, it is only because we believe and hope that we are near getting the whole system of tyranny abolished. Otherwise the indignities which we have seen inflicted on our people would make us gladly lose our lives, or, at least, set very little value on them, whether we lost them or not. Whatever charges of treason you may bring against us, you cannot bring any such charges against these young girls. They may try to prevent their cattle being seized; they may throw a stone at the cattle to drive them back, or they may use words of intimidation, but they will do nothing more serious than this. And yet, says the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, if they are put into gaol they will be treated like criminals in England. They will be treated like the vile prostitutes of the streets; like those who have lost all title to the name of woman. No, they will be treated worse, because women of that character know the ways of gaols, and the matrons are glad of their help; but are hard upon young women and girls who are learning for the first time what prison life is like. I would say to hon. Members that when they passed the Crimes Bill they should have known what was before them, and that they should not have let go of it until they had measured the possibility of a great number of citizens coming under its operation. We hear to-night that 26 or 27 respectable men, who have never before been charged with crime, are to come under the operation of this law. One of them is the brother of my hon. Friend the Member for South Leitrim (Mr. Hayden), and the others are men of position. I have the pleasure of being acquainted with some of them. Whatever else may be said about them, they are men who have never been charged with the foul crimes that bring the barbarous punishment that I have been endeavouring to describe, and yet they are to be treated in this way. I see over the way an hon. and gallant Gentleman who is on the move as if he wanted to say something upon this matter. I will just refer to what he knows to be the case. The Visiting Justices, who go to these prisons from time to time to make inquiries, and to see how the prisoners are treated, cannot, of course, be kept out of the gaols. But if they visited the political prisoners they would only be accused of doing so in order to enjoy the fun of seeing their former opponents in prison. I will pay this compliment to the Visiting Justices of Kerry, who are opposed to me in politics, that they had the fair play and the manliness to refrain from coming to see me dressed up in the way I have described, and performing the menial functions of the prison. I think it was to their credit, and I thank them for it. It would not be a very pleasant thing for us to be visited by one of these Visiting Justices, and to have him smoking his cigar and watching you emptying your slops into the cess-pool. But then, if they do not come there is no one to protect the prisoners against arbitrary and unlawful conduct on the part of the gaolers. In average cases, when Prison Inspectors come round — and this is a matter to which some statesman will have to give his mind at some time —they simply thrust open the door of the cell, say, "Well, prisoner," without allowing the prisoner time to realize who they are, and then go away. How can these people, who are suffering these tortures and indignities, have ready on their lips, when no announcement has been made to them of the coming of the Visiting Magistrates, any charges which might be formulated against their warders? To be sure, the better educated among the prisoners might have a whole budget of these things to bring forward, and they could tell the Justices their complaints. But what is the good of it? We do not want to tell them. We want to be more manly than that. We do not like to sit at the pillar of the gate and expose our sore legs to the public gaze. I should not like to do that; and I should not have referred to these matters at all, but that I look on the speech which has just been delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland as the most heartless and frigid announcement I ever heard. Perhaps I am not right in making a charge of heartlessness against the right hon. Gentleman. Perhaps, if he went over to Ireland and saw these things for himself, even he would alter his mind with regard to them. But then the mischief would have been done, and redress would be hopeless. If the Government would consent to give orders to intelligent and fair-minded men from England to visit the Irish gaols to see the class of men who are imprisoned, to see how they are treated, to bear in mind that they are being dealt with under a needless and exceptional law, which makes new crimes and attaches to them a barbarous system of punishment, I think that the public opinion of England would sweep from power the men who are responsible for what is taking place. I fear I have troubled the Committee too long upon this subject, but I should like to say a few words more. What I have been saying has been wrung from me, and dictated solely by the view that you should have some consideration and some commiseration for the class of people who have never seen the inside of a prison before, and that you should not treat them as ordinary prisoners are treated. I think I have shown that these people are punished five times as much as the class of men who habituate gaols. When I was in prison, and was in the exercise yard, there was nothing but a cold and cheerless shed in which to shelter from the rain, and there I had to stand, almost famished, and in clothes that did not fit. Next door to me was a prisoner who was undergoing his twenty-fifth term of imprisonment, and he had a rousing fire because he was a tinker, I almost blamed my father for not making a tinker of me. The fact is that the ruffian and the pickpocket manages to get the soft treatment in gaol, whilst the man who was never intended for gaol, or for association with criminals, comes off the worst. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, even though he has given his answer—and, of course, after the step the Government have taken no other answer was to be expected from him—will do well to exercise a wise discretion in this matter. Believe me that if he does not this country and the world will hear of the consequences.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)

Sir, I consider the answer of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) to be quite worthy of the despotic and brutal policy of which he is the mouthpiece. I do not think there was ever a policy more despicable and more brutal than that of endeavouring to stifle political opponents by giving them six months' imprisonment with hard labour. In all the annals of coercionist ministries there never was a record so brutal and so horrible as that of Her Majesty's present Government. What does the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary say? He gave us an undertaking to look into this question, and the result of his far-sighted and elaborate investigation is that the rules of prisons are the same in England as in Ireland. That was not the question we asked him to consider. We asked him whether his was alone amongst European Ministries, excepting that of Russia, in treating political opponents in this way? There s not a Minister in any European country, except Russia, that would have the courage to stand up before a deliberative Assembly and declare that starvation and solitude and every instrument available for maddening and murdering prisoners should be used against political opponents. This is a question on which I have often had to speak in this House, and it is a question on which I feel most deeply. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary that men like him, language like his, conduct like his, have done more to produce dynamitards than the moat reckless agitation or than the most violent journalism. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will be ready to denounce the conduct of his Predecessors in Office, just as, five years hence, the speech of the right hon. Gentleman to-night will be marked out for infamy, as showing the last shameful stage which the Government have reached in this matter. What is the history of the action taken by the right hon. Gentleman's Predecessors on this subject? In 1865 the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, and numbers of men were put in prison in all parts of Ireland. Of those men a considerable percentage went out of prison lunatics. [Laughter.] That seems to extremely amuse the hon. Member for the Rye Division of Sussex (Mr. Brookfield). I wish he would have the courage to give articulate expression to his sentiments, instead of taking refuge in murmurs when a Member is talking of matters that ought to bring the blush of shame to his face. A large number of these men, I say, were lunatics when they left prison, a large number sought refuge in a suicide's grave from the miseries inflicted on mind and body by the Government, and the only man in America that I ever heard express himself in favour of the policy of dynamite was a man who for seven years had been tortured in prison in Ireland. These are the things, and not any speeches, or any acts, or any silence of ours, that have created the terrible condition of affairs which has been alarming mankind during the last few years. And yet, in face of these facts, up gets the right hon. Gentleman, in a manner which I should be un-Parliamentary if I described as I think it ought to be described, and, in his airiest style, says that offences of this kind are ordinary offences, which existed before the Act was passed. Is there a man in the country who will be deceived by language like that, and who does not know that this is an Act directed against political opponents? Such language deceives no man outside of this House. I do not know that it deceives even the right hon. Gentleman himself. Is there any other country but Russia—and I always except Russia—that makes no distinction between the ordinary criminal and the political opponent? I am old enough to remember the great outcry made by the Liberal and Conservative Press of this country over the despotism of the Third Napoleon, and how France was commiserated because she had not the benefit of a free Press and a free Parliament. Napoleon III. was a despot; but, under his rule, there never were practised in France such cruelties and brutalities as are now inflicted on political opponents in Ireland. M. Rochfort was put in prison for having made war upon the Government of the Emperor Napoleon with a vigour, and I might almost say a savagery, unprecedented in the annals of the country. And the despot Napoleon, with all the forces of France at his back, with a fettered Press and an enslaved Parliament—did he make M. Rochfort pick oakum or sleep upon a plank bed? No; he did what every decent despot and almost every civilized statesman would do; he treated him like a political prisoner, and M. Rochfort was allowed, when in prison, to edit his paper, to see his friends, to order his dinner to be sent to him from any restaurant he liked; and, indeed, except that he had not his liberty, he was allowed to occupy exactly the same position as before his arrest. Compare that with the despotism which you exercise in Ireland, where you are starving and torturing and driving into madness your political op- ponents. I do not know any page in political history that is so bloody as that which records your treatment of political opponents in Ireland. And yet we see hon. Gentlemen opposite who were elected to this House on the cry of equality for Ireland. [Mr. BROOKFIELD dissented.] The hon. Member for the Rye Division of Sussex shakes his head. I dare say he was unpledged on the point; but I say that, with the exception of two or three men—and that is the most I can allow, for I have read all your addresses to your constituents at the General Election—there is not a single Member sitting opposite who did not gain his seat in this House by telling his constituents that he was in favour of absolutely equal rights for Irishmen and Englishmen. And do you call it carrying out that pledge to say that because a man happens to be of a different political opinion from yourselves, because he is opposed to your system of Government, he is to be treated as no political offender is treated in any country except in Russia? I do not know that a political prisoner is treated, even in Russia, as badly as he is treated in Ireland. I do not join in the generous language used by my hon. Friend the Member for West Kerry (Mr. Edward Harrington) with regard to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland; and I do wish the day might come when I could give the right hon. Gentleman the six months' imprisonment which he is giving to many a braver and many a better man in Ireland.

MR. CONYBEARE (Cornwall, Camborne)

Mr. Courtney, I am bound to say that I think the eloquent speech which we have just listened to, and the experiences which my hon. Friend the Member for West Kerry (Mr. Edward Harrington) stated to the Committee just now, should make a deep impression, I do not say upon the Committee, because I apprehend that hon. Members opposite are far beyond being impressed by anything that can be said on this side of the House, but upon those who read of them. I believe that those speeches, if it were not too late for any report of them to get to the outer world, and the proceedings within these walls to-night, would make a deep impression on the mind and the conscience of the people of England. And though it may be very painful to Gentlemen like my hon. Friend the Member for West Kerry to recount the dreadful experiences they have endured to their friends and supporters in this country, I do hope that they will be nerved by the importance of the subject to that effort, and that they will make these horrible stories ring throughout the country to such an extent as shall shake this miserable Government to its foundations, both in England and Ireland. I am almost amazed at the audacity of some of the utterances that have proceeded from the Treasury Bench. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) gets up and talks in sanctified tones about no new crimes being invented under this Act. I will not characterize that statement; but the country knows how to characterize it. Although the right hon. Gentleman may, perhaps, delude himself into the belief that he is telling the truth, it is perfectly notorious throughout the country that it is for a new crime that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cork (Mr. William O'Brien) is being prosecuted, and will, in all probability, be consigned to the horrors of that gaol life which has been just described so graphically. It is perfectly certain that it is a new crime; and when the right hon. Gentleman tells us that the acts which my hon. Friend has committed, and which have brought him to this pass, are acts that ought to be, and always have been, punished under the Statute Law of this country, I will not say that is untrue, because that would be un-Parliamentary, but I will say that it is a statement which will not be accepted by those, both in this House and in the country, who know what has been going on in Parliament. What has been done in the case of those 26 men whose prosecution we have heard of this evening? What has been done in the case of the brother of the hon. Member for South Leitrim (Mr. Hayden), of whose arrest we have been informed to-day? Will the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary get up and state as the truth that these gentlemen have been guilty of crimes for which they deserve to be ranked as common criminals, and punished like pickpockets, or men who commit rape and every other crime in this City? [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite may laugh now; but the time will come when the laugh will be on the other side. Will the hon. Member opposite have the audacity to get up and say that these gentlemen have committed a single offence for which, if they had been in this country, they could have been made to suffer in this country's laws, which you pretend, falsely, are equal?

CAPTAIN COLOMB (Tower Hamlets, Bow, &c.)

I rise, Sir, to a point of Order. I want to know if it is in Order for the hon. Member to discuss a question already discussed under a former Vote?

THE CHAIRMAN

It is advanced as an illustration of what is supposed to be the discipline in the prisons. I think it is not out of Order; but the hon. Member is, in my opinion, allowing himself great latitude, and is somewhat abusing the privileges of debate as well as the patience of the Committee.

MR. CONYBEARE

I hardly think the Committee has shown any patience, so I can scarcely be said to be abusing it. With respect to the interruption of the hon. and gallant Member opposite, I was not commenting on the crime for which these gentlemen had been arrested and prosecuted—I was merely employing it as an illustration, in order to traverse the assertion of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. He says he is making inquiries into this matter. He looked into these prisons himself. Has he taken the trouble to ascertain for himself what is the condition of things there, and what is the treatment to which political prisoners are so cruelly subjected? Has he taken the trouble to ascertain for himself a single one of these facts so vividly placed before us by the hon. Member? I suppose that when he gets away from the trammels of business in this House he will go and look into these matters. Well, whether or not he does, we will take care that there shall be men in this country and in Ireland who will act as a vigilance committee, who will see what is the condition of your gaols, who will see what the treatment of political prisoners is, and who will let the people of England know of this consummate tyranny. [Ironical cheers.] You may cheer ironically at that; but I am in the habit of addressing public and not packed meetings, and I know what we can do. I know what the feeling of the people on this subject is, and if we do not make the whole country ring with our denunciations it will not be for want of effort on our part. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite who laugh will not trouble themselves about anything but their own comfort. They are but smugfaced Pharisees —

THE CHAIRMAN

I have already reproved the hon. Member for allowing himself so much latitude. I must ask him to be a little more careful in the language he uses.

MR. CONYBEARE

I was not aware that I had used any language objectionable to hon. Members; but if you ask me to withdraw the expression I will do so. I was commenting on the indifference with which a great many Members of the House treat these things and these statements by men who have experienced these horrors—horrors enough to make any man shudder. The British people have not yet been stung into action upon them, but I hope soon that they will be. I think it is a pity the Representatives of the people do not take more interest in these matters, which are of supreme importance. These diabolical laws, so far from promoting the cause of law and order which you are always prating about, are rebelmaking laws which drive men into despair. I hope the time will come when the whole nation will rebel against such a dastardly state of things.

MR. T. M. HEAL Y

When the hon. Member for the Harbour Division of Dublin (Mr. T. C. Harrington) came out of prison I wanted him to tell the story of his treatment, and I suggested that he should take an opportunity of doing so when the Princess of Wales and a number of Duchesses and Countesses and all your fine ladies were in the Gallery, and say how the Government of the country made him blow his nose with his fingers, and, while the Governor's daughters were watching him through opera classes, carry the slops from his cell in a bucket to empty them into the cesspool. So far as my experience goes, I have nothing whatever to complain of against the Government of their treatment of me in prison; but I say, and with regret, that in my opinion there is no retribution which these men could visit on their enemies that could be sufficient. They are going to put them in gaol by the score, and I declare before Heaven that if I were put into gaol like my hon. Friend, and compelled to do the tasks which he was compelled to do, I would save up a bucket of the slope, carry it across the floor of this House, and fling it in the face of the Irish Secretary as he sat on that Bench.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. and learned Member must be aware that he is quite out of Order in using such language. I call on him to withdraw it.

MR. T. M. HEALY

not complying—

MR. DE LISLE (Leicestershire, Mid)

I beg to say, Sir

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order! I call on the hon. and learned Member for North Longford to withdraw the expression he used.

MR. T. M. HEA.LY

I say that the fact that these things have been committed induced me to use language which if it is language I ought not to have used I regret. But I do say that you are manufacturing men by the thousand who will be opposed to you. You are modelling them on your own models. Fancy depriving a man of a pocket-handkerchief for an entire month, and compelling them to such hideous degradation! Can you expect to make patriots in that way? If it had been done to me, I would have waited until the Princess of Wales was in the Gallery and then made a statement about it. Aye; if you do it, why should we not tell you about it? I say, Sir, that the callousness of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland may be in the end the best thing for the Irish people. We have told you what is going to take place; we have warned you what we will do, and I will raise up my voice no more against it. Let the result be on your heads. When I see my poor friend—William O'Brien—in his prison dress walking between convicts and subjected to such treatment as I have described, I pray God that the time may corns for his release, for he will have 1,000,000 friends here and in Ireland who will be revenged for your horrible despotism.

MR. BIGGAR (Cavan, W.)

I wish to ask a question with regard to the escort of prisoners in Ireland. It appears it is customary to send prisoners to gaol, although only, perhaps, for a short term of imprisonment, for offences such as drunkenness; it is deemed necessary to have a large escort of police. I wish to ask whether or not some cheaper mode could be arranged? I should also like to know if prisoners when released have anything given them to pay their fares home? No doubt it is necessary that the prisoners should have no chance of escaping while being sent to prison; but I am told that never less than half-a-dozen constables are sent as an escort even for a small number of prisoners. It seems to me that thereby much unnecessary expense is incurred.

THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Colonel KING-HARMAN) (Kent, Isle of Thanet)

The question of the escort of prisoners has very often been brought before Grand Juries. I can promise that attention shall be given to the matter with a view to reducing the expense.

MR. BIGGAR

Is the expense paid out of this Vote or by the Local Authorities?

COLONEL KING-HARMAN

The Local Authorities have to pay their share.

MR. BIGGAR

Now, with regard to the return expenses. Do the prisoners have to return home at their own expense, or do they have some of it allowed them?

COLONEL KING-HARMAN

I am afraid I cannot give an exact answer to that. The allowances differ according to the train the men travel by.

MR. BIGGAR

I will ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to make inquiries between now and the Report stage. I think it is in his power to do so.

COLONEL KING-HARMAN

I am afraid I cannot get any further information on this point before the Report stage.

MR. NOLAN (Louth, N.)

After the eloquent speeches we have heard from this Bench with reference to the treatment of political prisoners in Irish prisons I do not feel called upon to deal further with that subject; but I should like to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to a case which has been brought under my notice—that of a prisoner confined in Dundalk Prison by order of a County Court Judge for refusing to sign some document. I should like to know what are the powers of Judges in connection with these matters. In this case I have heard —

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order! That is not a question which can be discussed on this Vote at all. The powers of a Judge cannot be discussed on this Vote.

MR. NOLAN

If I am permitted to do so, I should like to ask if there is any chance of this man being released from prison? Is there any way by which he can be discharged? He is a man who has been 30 years in America, and since then he has been a number of years working upon the farm in Ireland on which he invested his savings; and I think it is a hard thing if he is to be kept in prison for a much longer time. I remember a case in which a woman was kept in prison six or seven years, because her friends had gone away to America, and she was forgotten. She has only recently been released.

Vote agreed to.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.

Committee to sit again upon Monday next.