§ MR. JAMES STUART (Shoreditch, Hoxton)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he is aware that in the case of Mr. George Phillips, summoned for unlawful assembly at Dundalk on the occasion of Mr. Dillon's appeal there on June 20 last, at the hearing of the case on July 27, Police-sergeant M'Barren having proved that defendant made use of the following expressions, "to——with Balfour" and "the police are blackguards," and Mr. Adams, counsel for the defendant, having argued that
Evidence must be given of some circumstance of actual force or violence, or at least of such apparent tendency thereto as are calculated to strike terror into the public,and no such evidence having been given, Captain Preston, the Resident Magistrate, held that the language above quoted brought the meeting within the following definition of an unlawful assembly—namely—Persons assembled to sow sedition and to bring into contempt the Constitution;and, whether, considering the extreme difficulty of connecting the phrases used by the accused with "sedition" or with "contempt of the Constitution," he will instruct Crown Prosecutors in future not to pursue such cases unless there is evidence of at least some kind of tendency to violence?
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)The Constabulary authorities report that while the sergeant's evidence incidentally showed that the expressions referred to 82 were made use of by some of the members of the crowd, it was proved by him and several witnesses that the expressions, demeanour, and actions of the mob, of which Phillips was the ringleader, was such as to put law-abiding persons in fear and dread, and to bring the administration of the law into contempt. I do not see any ground for instructions of the nature referred to in the concluding portion of the Question.