HC Deb 01 December 1888 vol 331 cc814-21

Resolutions [30th November] reported.

(1.) "That a sum, not exceeding £139,510, 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 1889, for Superannuation and Retired Allowances to Persons formerly employed in the Public Service, and for Compassionate or other Special Allowances and Gratuities awarded by the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury."

Resolution read a second time.

THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON) (Belfast, W.)

said, that a difficulty had arisen in respect of pensions for public officials in Ireland. The House was aware than an agreement was arrived at that no Votes on Expenditure in Ireland should be taken until next week. When last night it was discovered that the Vote for Civil Service Pensions included a sum of £69,000 for pensions to magistrates and prison officials in Ireland, several Members remained in order to engage in the discussion; but they were debarred from doing so by the application of the Closure, on the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House. Ordinary opportunity being thus denied them, the Irish Members had to take advantage of the Report of Supply to make themselves heard. The first item to which he had to call attention was that the charge for prisons in Ireland had been increased by a sum of £500 for Superannuation Allowances. He wished to know why it was that at a time when ordinary crime had diminished, and when oven agrarian crime had become so reduced that hon. Gentlemen opposite made a boast of it, the charges for prisons should be increased? He observed that four Resident Magistrates had been retired during the year on account of age. The system of retirement seemed to him very peculiar; and it was suspicious that those four gentlemen were men against whom the people or their Representatives had no grievance. In Ireland there were 174 Resident Magistrates; and he wanted to know how it was that those gentlemen should have been selected for the purpose of being weeded out of the Service? The reason, it was presumed, was that the Castle authorities could replace them with men who would baton the people and pass judgments in accordance with the views of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Those gentlemen were Mr. Barry, Colonel Wyse, Mr. Starkie, and Mr. Mullin. There were one or two other points to which he would venture to call attention. There was the case of Mr. J. H. M'Farlane, whose pension had been revived. He had not heard of that custom before; but he supposed the pension was revived because he had distinguished himself by evicting his tenants in Donegal.

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

said, he desired to add a few words to what had just been put forward by his right hon. Friend the Lord Mayor of Dublin. It was a remarkable thing that while the Government pretended that Ireland was in a very disturbed state, they were shutting up prisons and pensioning Resident Magistrates and prison officials. In Nenagh there was a vast prison, which had been shut up, and the building handed over to the nuns, and in one or two other instances the same thing occurred. He thought it was one of the most creditable things that the Government had done; and he commended it to the attention of the hon. Member for South Belfast.

MR. JOHNSTON (Belfast, S.)

The nuns are always in prison.

MR. T. M. HEALY

asked how, while they were closing the prisons and pensioning off the prison staffs, they could stand by their policy of repression? They had closed Richmond Prison, every stone of which was built by the Corporation of Dublin out of the money of the citizens. It cost them not less than £50,000, and they had to pay half the pensions of the prison staff—the men whom the Government had disemployed. The Government had closed this prison, and turned it into a military barracks, and, at the same time, had built a new wing to Mountjoy Prison at an enormous cost. He had reason to believe that some of the Resident Magistrates who had been pensioned off objected to it, and he (Mr. T. M. Healy) had on several occasions in the House raised questions in reference to that very point on behalf of those gentleman who had written to him. The fact was that when the Government got a decent magistrate he was compelled to retire in favour of some gentleman who failed in his examination as an ensign at Sandhurst, and had been drummed out of the Cape Mounted Cavalry for peculation or embezzlement, who was a person positively unfitted for any position, and who was not fit to drive an outside car. Those were the men who would carry out the orders of the Government, and who were ready to baton the people. The Caddels, Seagraves, and the Cecil Roches were the men that wore appointed in their places. He hoped the House would look into the matter. He did not object to either warders or Resident Magistrates getting pensions when they were no longer employed; but he objected to the system under which men who were able and willing to continue in the Service were turned off with pensions. He did not desire to detain the Speaker and the officers of the House upon a Saturday evening, and he would, therefore, reserve any further observations for another Vote.

MR. MURPHY (Dublin, St. Patrick's)

said, he wished for some explanation with regard to the pension of Mr. J. H. Macfarlane. If he remembered rightly that was the gentleman who was formerly Chairman of the North Dublin Union, and who resigned in order to accept the position from which he had now retired, and for which he was receiving a pension.

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

was understood to ask for some information as to the case of Mr. Starkie, who had also been retired? Was that gentleman drawing a salary or receiving a pension?

MR. CONYBEARE (Cornwall, Camborne)

said, he considered that the discussion which had taken place justified his protest against the manner in which the subject was closured last night.

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

, in reply, said, he took full responsibility for taking the Vote yesterday. He considered it did not come within the Scotch or Irish Votes, which were kept quite distinct. Although there might be some charges in respect of Irish officers, the Vote could not be considered an Irish Vote strictly and solely; and, therefore, they were justified in taking the Vote the previous day. The principal cause of the increase in the Pension List was owing to the fact that the Government had found it possible to close some of the prisons in Ireland. [Mr. T. M. HEALY: Hear, hear!] He entirely re-echoed the cheers of the hon. and learned Member. They regarded it as a most gratifying circumstance to be able to close these prisons.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Will the hon. Gentleman make that statement before the Special Commission now sitting at the Royal Courts of Justice?

MR. JACKSON

said, he adhered to his opinion. It was a gratifying circumstance to be able to announce that some of these prisons had been closed. They had before them the recommendations of the Prisons Commission, and the experience of the results of closing certain prisons in England. In reference to Richmond Prison, he regarded the arrangement by which that prison had been converted into a barracks as an extremely economical one. He was in Dublin last year, and went through all the circumstances connected with the scheme, and he was satisfied that by this step they would effect a saving of £3,000 a-year. He could assure the House that, so far from being an increase in the annual charges, there had been a course adopted which would result in a large saving. With reference to the revival of Mr. Macfarlane's pension, the explanation was very simple. If a gentleman who was in receipt of a pension took employment for which he received a salary his pension dropped; but if he ceased to receive that salary, then that pension revived, and that was the explanation of it. With regard to the various questions raised in the other cases, the system on which the pensions were based was 1–60th for each year. Where there was a previous qualification 10 years was added to the service to begin with. He had no information with regard to the case of Mr. Starkie.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

said, he did not consider the answer just given was a very satisfactory one, and he rose for the purpose of moving the reduction of the Vote by £1,200. He was utterly opposed to the principle of granting pensions to Resident Magistrates in Ireland. He thought there existed no greater scandal in the whole of the Estimates than that of granting pensions to these particular officials, who were generally men who had failed in other walks in life, and were then appointed to those positions. They were the most overpaid officials in the entire Service of Her Majesty, and they were put on the same scale regarding pensions as men who had entered the Service of the Crown in their youth, and who had had to pass a very severe test before their appointment. Imagine a system which granted a pension to a man like Captain Seagrave, who had tried in this country and South Africa to make a living, and, having utterly failed, came home, and without any sort of test, without any knowledge of law or experience in business, was appointed a Resident Magistrate at £400 or £500 a-year, and who, after he had served some years, would probably be retired on a pension of £400 or £500. Those men were frequently appointed at the age of 40 years or over, and that after a few years they should be able to retire on those large pensions as having served the public was a scandal and robbery of the Public Exchequer. He should like some explanation of the case of men of 56 years of age and so on who had been retired—got rid of—by the Government in order to make room for the Cecil Roches and Seagraves. It was monstrous that men who had only reached such an age should be retired from one of the easiest and most healthy occupations in the entire Service of the Crown. He saw that Colonel Wyse had retired on a pension of £229 3s. 4d. and Cecil Roche put in his place, whilst there was no ostensible cause for the increase in the Pension List of that amount. They were entitled to know whether those Resident Magistrates had been asked to retire or not; and, if not, on what grounds they had retired.

Amendment proposed, to leave out "£139,510," in order to insert "£138,310."—(Mr. Dillon.)

Question proposed, "That '£139,510' stand part of the Resolution."

MR. T. M. HEALY

said, he wished to point out that the Statute provided that the Government were bound to lay before Parliament the Minute to the Treasury granting the allowances to Civil servants, and setting forth the amount and the cause of the allowance. The Government should comply with these provisions. With regard to Richmond Prison, the Secretary to the Treasury had not met his point as to why it was abolished when the citizens of Dublin had to pay half the pensions? Were they going to make up that amount to the people? Richmond was built and paid for by the citizens of Dublin, and now the Government had closed it up because the people had control over it, and so as to enable them to send their prisoners to Mountjoy. The least the Government might have done, when they had done with the prison, would have been to have handed it over to those who owned it.

MR. JACKSON

said, that with regard to pensions which would have to be borne by the locality, he took it that it would be so borne in consequence of a certain liability of the Local Authorities before the taking over of the prisons. That was the first time that he had received any intimation of the Government having closed this prison because it was not in the position of other prisons; and he could assure the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) that he might relieve his mind that the Government had closed the prison for any such reasons as he suggested. He had nothing to do with the retirement of the Resident Magistrates, but only with the amount of their pensions. He would put it to the House whether it would be proper to Civil servants if the Government repudiated the bargain into which they had entered with these men. He did not doubt but that the Minute was laid before Parliament as to the whole of these cases, although he could not at present point to any particular case.

An hon. MEMBER

said, he thought that in the case of Captain Wyse there had been a great abuse. The Statute had been nominally complied with, but had been practically evaded.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL (Kirkcaldy, &c.)

said, he thought it was unfortunate that the Secretary to the Treasury could not give an explanation of the particular cases which were brought forward.

MR. SEXTON

said, he would recommend his hon. Friend (Mr. Dillon) not to go to a Division on the Amendment, as they would have an early opportunity of raising the whole question of prison administration. He wished to bear out the statement of the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) with regard to Richmond Prison. The citizens of Dublin built it, and the Government had appropriated it without giving one penny compensation for it; but he would tell them that they would press for compensation until they got it. They never heard a word of its being closed until his predecessor in the office of Lord Mayor (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) was imprisoned there as a first-class misdemeanant. The Corporation had a right to appoint Visiting Justices, and those Visiting Justices endeavoured to secure his treatment as a first-class misdemeanant; but the moment they made that effort the Lord Mayor was removed to Tullamore, where the Visiting Justices had no control, and the impression of the citizens was that the prison was closed because of the power which the Visiting Justices had for looking after the treatment of the prisoners there.

MR. DILLON

said, that in deference to the suggestions of his right hon. Friend the Lord Mayor of Dublin he would withdraw his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

First Resolution agreed to.

Subsequent Resolutions agreed to.

House adjourned at half after Six o'clock till Monday next.