HC Deb 16 April 1888 vol 324 cc1322-4
MR. JOHN MORLEY (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, When he proposes to inform Parliament as to the particulars and results of the inquiry into the affray at Mitchelstown in September last?

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

The inquiry alluded to was a Departmental one, and it is, I believe, unusual to lay the particulars in such cases before Parliament. The main object of the inquiry was to investigate the action of the officers responsible for the handling of the police; and though the Report deals also with such matters of public interest as the action of the hon. Member for East Tipperary (Mr. Condon) in urging the crowd to obstruct the reporter, the necessity for taking the reporter by the particular route selected, the consequences of the (doubtless well-meant) interference of the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), and the justification for the firing from the barrack window, their comments are only incidental to the main subject of their investigation, and are, moreover, not, I think, of a character which would give any satisfaction to the friends of the right hon. Member. But though I do not think it expedient to make the Report public, I am perfectly prepared to show all the papers confidentially to the right hon. Gentleman, should he desire to see them.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

May I explain to the right hon. Gentleman that I did not ask for these particulars in my own interest, or in the interest of any friend of mine, but in the interest of the public? No confidential communication which he may do me the honour to make will, in the least degree, satisfy the public interest or curiosity in the matter. I wish to ask him whether I am to understand that he declines to state publicly any of those particulars or results that he has partly enumerated?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

If the right hon. Gentleman would really like me to make a selection from these Reports of the statements of the Commissioners which I think might usefully be made public, I will consider the propriety of doing so; but I thought that probably he and his Friends might have some reason to complain of a selection which would entirely depend on myself. That is why I said that I would allow the right hon. Gentleman to see all the Papers confidentially.

MR,. JOHN MORLEY

What I wished the right hon. Gentleman to do was to produce all that could be produced without direct injury to the Public Service.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

What I should like to produce would be the comments of the Commissioners upon all these Questions of what I may call matters of public interest; but I think the people who might have reason to complain of that would be the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

The evidence I should like to see much more than the comments.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Of course, if the comments were published, the evidence upon which they were based would be published also. It would be an entirely new precedent, and the selection would take a long time to make.

MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)

May I ask whether the Members of this House who were present, or any of the priests or others who were spectators, were brought forward as witnesses on the occasion of this inquiry?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Will the hon. Gentleman give Notice of that Question?

MR. JOHN MORLEY

Might I ask the right hon. Gentleman a Question on another subject not immediately with regard to this matter? Whether he is able to tell the House the result of the inquiry that he promised to make into precedents in connection with the proceedings at Ennis?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Of course, the right hon. Gentleman is aware that there is at this moment a legal investigation going on into the circumstances of the Ennis meeting. I have made some inquiry into the precedents. I am sorry I have not brought down to the House the papers; but there were three or four instances during the last few years in which there have been collisions between the people and the police ending fatally to a certain number of the people engaged. An inquiry was constantly asked for by the Representatives from Ireland, and was, I think, constantly refused by the Government of the day, The results in those cases were of a far more serious character—leading to loss of life sometimes—than any of the injuries which occurred at Ennis, the most serious injury at Ennis being that which occurred to the little finger of a reporter. Under these circumstances, and pending the result of the legal investigation, I do not think it necessary to make any further statement on the matter.