CLASS III.—LAW AND JUSTICE.

HC Deb 06 December 1888 vol 331 cc1324-80

Motion made and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding£32,665 (including a Supplementary sum of £10,000, 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, of Criminal Prosecutions and other Law Charges in Ireland, including certain Allowances under the Act 15 and 16 Vic. c. 83.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT (Derby)

I desire under this Vote, which I believe to be an appropriate Vote, to call attention to a matter to which I confess I attach the most supreme importance, and that is the principle upon which criminal prosecutions are conducted in Ireland, and particularly the principle upon which criminal prosecutions are not conducted in Ireland, which is equally important. I referred to this matter yesterday on the Vote for the Chief Secretary, but though, no doubt, the whole of the Government are the people ultimately responsible in this matter, the people primarily responsible are unquestionably the Irish Law Officers for the advice which they give in the matter. Now, I venture to lay down as a proposition which cannot be disputed, that it is the practice of England that when life has been taken—about the gravest character of offence—there shall be some method of redress for the subject through the Coroner's Jury, and alter proceedings from the Coroner's jury, then through the legitimate tribunals of the country. Now that that is a practice which is fundamental in our Constitution I think nobody will deny. I do not want to dogmatize or lay down universal propositions in this matter, but it is certainly not within my knowledge or recollection that where a Coroner's Jury in England have found that life has been improperly taken away by any individual, it has been the practice to treat that finding with contempt, and take no action upon it. The usual course, not only with reference to individuals, but especially with regard to the Police Force—a force which is under the immediate control of the Crown—is that when serious charges are made they shall be inquired into. I have been responsible myself for the conduct of the police in England for many years. I have never known a case, I will not say where the verdict has been returned by a Coroner's Jury, but where a charge has been brought against the police on any reasonable ground, when there have not been instructions given for a prosecution—and that even in cases where the Government were convinced of the innocence of the police. And this has been always done in order that the conduct of the police should be cleared. That is the course that is pursued in England upon the matter, and we have demanded that the same course should be pursued in Ireland. We have said that when charges are brought against the police, I will not say by a Coroner's Jury, but any other reasonable charge, that there should be due inquiry made, as we make it in England, by bringing the matter before the magistrates or the Court, or in having the matter inquired into by some other appropriate method. In Ireland we find that the lives of people may be taken away, and that the subjects of the Queen may be slain, and yet the Executive not only refuse to make any inquiry, but interpose every obstacle in the way of any inquiry that would satisfy the public as to the grounds upon which and the manner in which those lives had been taken. Now, Sir, that is, to my mind, a double mischief. In the first place, it is treating human life in Ireland in a way in which you do not treat human life in England. But it has a still greater and more mischievous effect. It is educating the police into the belief that they may do what they please with impunity—that they can take life—that they can do anything they please, being quite certain that the Executive Government will protect them from any inquiry and from all responsibility. That is a state of things unknown to the liberties of England, and without precedent in the practice of this country. To teach the police that whatever they did they would never be called to account is a doctrine preached by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland in this House, and that, apparently, is the principle practised by the Law Officers in Ireland; and I desire to-night on this Vote for Criminal Prosecutions to challenge both the doctrines of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary and the practice of the Law Officers of Ireland. Well, when we laid down these principles, familiar, inveterate, never departed from as I know in the practice of this country, how are we met by the Government? Do the Government think it worth while to deny it; do they think it worth while to argue against it? Not a bit of it; they meet us with a tu quoque, that most conclusive of all arguments. Now, to my mind, the practice is one that cannot be justified, and if a practice is to be condemned as inconsistent with the doctrines and the traditions of English liberty, you do not make it any better by showing that other Governments have done exactly the same thing. You may make that taunt against individuals, but you cannot establish the principle for the nation. If, therefore, the charge of the tu quoque were as true as I am going to show the House it is absolutely false, it would be an argument of no avail at all. What would it show us? It would only show that the traditions of Irish Governments under whatever administration had always been evil. ["Oh, oh!" and Laughter.] Well, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) laughs, but I am afraid that is a proposition that cannot be denied. I do not believe that there is any Irish administration of historical times that can bear to have applied to it tests of English liberty. That is the unfortunate consequence of generations and centuries of coercion. You have never governed Ireland on the principle on which you have governed England, and you have never applied to Ireland the principles which you apply to the English subjects of the Queen, and, unfortunately, this habit of special legislation and exceptional administration has poisoned the blood of Irish administration in Dublin Castle, and nowhere has the poison been more deadly than in the legal portions of the administration of Dublin Castle. They have ceased to believe and they have ceased to practise the principles which are familiar to Englishmen in reference to the liberty and the rights of the subject. Well, but if this miserable tu quoque had been true it would have been a bad and worthless argument. But I have a more important subject, and I wish to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to the fact that these tu quoques of his are manufactured to order. I will meet the right hon. Gentleman and his precedents. Everybody in the Committee will remember the triumph with which he propounded his seven cases the other night—his seven lean kine of tu quoques which he introduced as a conclusive argument to deal with this important subject. Now, what was the object with which he propounded these tu, quoques of his? His great object was to show that no action had been taken, or at all events in these seven circumstances had not been taken, by the Executive Government in cases where Coroners' Juries had found that life had been taken by the police. Now, he triumphantly demonstrated this, and his great confederate and exponent of the Press, The Times newspaper, I see this morning says:— As Mr. Balfour was able to show, Mr. Gladstone's Government had in seven cases, between 1881 and 1885, treated the verdicts of Irish Coroners' Juries against policemen as mere attempts to turn an antiquated form of legal inquiry into a political weapon wielded with a malignant purpose, and had consequently declined to institute proceedings, or even to order a departmental investigation. So you see the right hon. Gentleman has succeeded in persuading The Times newspaper, and probably even more intelligent parties, that the Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), where Coroners' Juries had found verdicts against the police, invariably declined to institute proceedings—or at least in the seven tu quoques which were produced the other night by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Well, now, I ask the House to mark these words—"That the Government instituted no proceedings." I am going to test the crediblity of the official statements of the right hon. Gentleman, which every day are becoming weaker in my estimation, as I find that the most solemn of his official declarations appear on examination to be entirely without foundation. Now, I will take his seven cases. The first three of them are cases in which he says the Grand Juries threw out the bills. How came it that the Grand Juries had bills to throw out? Who presented the bills? The Coroners' Juries found verdicts against the police, and there were bills put to them; but who presented those bills? Why, the Government which instituted the proceedings upon the subject. Of course the Government considered it their duty upon the finding of the Coroner's Jury to present indictments—I presume that to be the case, for I do not know how otherwise the bills could have come before the Grand Jury. The Grand Jury ignored the bills, but that was not the act of the Government. The act of the Government was in presenting the bill—the act of the Government was in accordance with the finding of the jury to bring the person implicated by the Coroners' Jury before a Court of Law in order that the case might be investigated. Therefore the statement—the self-contradictory statements of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, confuting itself as to three cases out of the seven—showed that the late Government did institute proceedings, and that if they came to an end it was the act of the judicial authority and not of the Government who presented the Bill.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

What statement did I make?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

Why, the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was that the Coroners' Juries found their verdicts, and the Government took no action on them, and never prosecuted.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I never made that statement in regard to seven cases.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

With the right hon. Gentleman's statement we are all familiar. What I say is this, where Coroners' Juries have found verdicts since you have been in Office, why have you not presented bills to Grand Juries? Have you presented bills in such cases, and, if not, why not; and why has The Times newspaper, on your statement, charged us that we never instituted proceedings in any case on these findings? Then I say that the mere fact that the Grand Jury ignored the bills showed that the late Government did prosecute, and that they considered it their duty to prosecute in these cases. I say nothing about the character of the Grand Juries in Ireland. I leave it to the vindicators of law and order to degrade the Coroner's Jury, a Constitutional tribunal. I leave them to speak of it with contempt, and treat it with contempt, and to trample it under foot because it does not suit their purposes. I will not deal with the Grand Jury in Ireland in the same spirit as the right hon. Gentleman deals with the Coroner's Jury. From the three cases I have mentioned I will go to other cases. Now, it is a very short time since the right hon. Gentleman made his statement, and it takes a considerable period, even more than 48 hours, to show up completely and absolutely the unfounded statements which the right hon. Gentleman is in the habit of officially making in this House. Now, I will take two of these cases which I have been able to test, and I will state to the Committee what are the facts. Having stated what are the facts, I will compare them with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He did not give the names of the cases, or where they occurred, but I am entitled to identify them. I will state the facts of these cases on official authority, which I will pledge myself are much better than that of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Now, the last case he referred to was one which occurred on the 27th of October, and I have no doubt that that must be the same case as the Belmullet case, which, according to my record of the proceedings, took place on the 28th of October. It is certainly the same case, because the right hon. Gentleman spoke of two women who died, and were killed. [Laughter.] This seems to be a subject for mirth for hon. Gentlemen opposite, but that I cannot help. It is in accordance with the spirit in which they receive all observations of this character. The whole object of that statement of the case was to show that though the police had fired, and though two women were killed, the Government took no action—that though the Coroner's Jury had found a verdict against the policemen, the Government thought themselves justified in treating that verdict with contempt, and taking no action at all. That is the statement made deliberately to the House of Commons by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland. I will tell the Committee what are the facts. After the verdict of the Coroner's Jury was given, the two persons impugned by the Coroner's Jury were both subsequently prosecuted by the Crown Solicitor at Belmullet. That is an absolute contradiction, an absolute refutation of the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. They were brought up before the Resident Magistrates for the purpose of being returned for trial, the investigation took place before a Resident Magistrate, and the Executive Government took all the measures which were necessary for bringing about a trial founded upon the finding of the Coroner's Jury; and, if the matter did not proceed further, it was because of the action of the magistrate, who found it was not necessary to proceed in it, and not to the action of the Executive Government, who were bound to bring the men to trial. That is my answer to the fourth of the seven eases of the right hon. Gentleman. Now I come to the next case, and that is the only case which occurred under the administration of Lord Spencer. Some of the former cases to which the right hon. Gentleman referred were in the earlier years under Mr. Forster's administration, and when, under the unhappy suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, it might possibly be supposed all law was suspended in Ireland. But I will show you that in all the cases which I have been able to examine in which a Coroner's Jury found a verdict, proceedings for bringing the persons to trial were instituted by the Executive Government. I come to the next case, and I am able, fortunately, very easily to identify it. It is a Ballina case, which took place on the 5th of May, 1882, the day before the Phoenix Park murders, and the day before Lord Spencer arrived in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman said with triumph, "Now we come to number six." You will remember his manner, you will remember the sort of air with which he brought these eases forward. This is his statement to the Committee of the House of Commons, and I ask you to compare it with the true facts of the case— On the 5th of May, 1882, a detachment of police was attacked by a mob, and the police fired. A man was shot, and no steps were taken in pursuance of the verdict of the Coroner's Jury. Now, that is the deliberate statement made by the Minister responsible for the Government of Ireland—namely, that on the finding of the Coroner's Jury no steps were taken by the Government. What are the facts of the case? It apperred that on the release of Mr. Davitt from prison, demonstrations had taken place. There were processions, and the police had seized the musical instruments of the band in one of these processions, which act led to a tumult. The police fired, and a boy named Mellody was wounded, and from his wounds he ultimately died. What did the Government do? The Coroner's Jury found a verdict, and the Crown Solicitor was directed to report to the Government. That official stated that he did not think that there could be any doubt that at the time of the firing the situation was so serious that the police were justified in firing for their own protection, but that certainly there might be a difference of opinion as to their conduct in seizing the drum. Now, mark how alike that is to Mitchelstown. The opinion was that when a tumult had reached a certain point the police were justified in firing, but the Crown Solicitor considered it was a matter of very serious consideration what provocation had been given by the police in seizing the drum; as in the Ballina case by the seizure of the drum, so in the Mitchelstown case by the forcing of a reporter through the crowd. An inquest was held, but proved to be abortive through some legal defect. A fresh one was then held, and an open verdict returned—namely, Mellody died from a gunshot wound inflicted by the Constabulary under Inspector Ball. Thereupon the Attorney General directed Ball to be summoned before a magistrate. And this is the case brought forward after deliberate inquiries by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland as one in which the Government took no step. What are we to think of the official statements of the right hon. Gentleman? The Attorney General directed Ball to be summoned before a magistrate to show cause why he should not be returned for trial. These are the tu quoque of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland, these are the manufactured precedents from the statements brought forward to mislead the House and to mislead the people.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order! I must point out that the right hon. Gentleman is making an imputation that is un-Parliamentary.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I beg pardon. I will say, which would have the effect necessarily of misleading the people. Now, the magistrate, after legal investigation, determined that the information should not be granted, but compensation to the amount of £195 was paid to Mellody's father and to the other persons injured. This is a case which is brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland as demonstrative that the Government took no steps upon the finding of the Coroner's Jury. I have not had time to examine the only two remaining cases, but, out of the seven cases, I have shown the Committee that in five of them the Government took the necessary steps upon the finding of the Coroner's Jury to bring the person impugned to a public trial, and that they instituted proceedings in all the cases. That is what I have to say upon the seven precedents of the right hon. Gentleman. Now, what is the position in which the responsible Government stands in making such statements as that? The right hon. Gentleman, flourishing his arms the other night, jeered me for audacity on the strength of these precedents. I will not characterize the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman, because you, Sir, have very properly reminded me that it is difficult to do so in Parliamentary language. I shall, therefore, refrain from doing so. I am quite satisfied to state the facts, and to allow persons to form their own judgment and express their own opinion upon the subject. I do not wish to be understood for one moment as charging the right hon. Gentleman with having deliberately stated circumstances of this kind not believing them to be true, but I say the right hon. Gentleman is in the habit of very recklessly making statements which, upon inquiry, turn out to be unfounded, and that he is in the habit of trusting to informers, and to information much of which does not deserve to be relied upon, and I think a good deal of reform is required in that matter. It is becoming an habitual practice of the Irish Government. A statement as to evicted farms has been made by the Lord Lieutenant, but he has declined to state the source of his information or to prove it. We should like to know very much where the information came from, or what foundation there was for that statement. To justify it or maintain it there was no attempt made; the point was evaded in the usual manner, and it was said—"Oh, you are in favour of derelict farms." That is no answer to the charge that the statement of the Lord Lieutenant was a statement which had no foundation in fact. Who supplied the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary with the documents which he displayed to the Committee the other night; who wrote the papers which he paraded before the House? I have long ago come to the conclusion that there are persons in the secret recesses of Dublin Castle whose business it is to issue false coin. They manufacture specimens of tu quoques to order; they have always got a reserve of precedents to be used when they are wanted by the Chief Secretary; and this metal with a false stamp is manufactured wholesale, and then it is dealt out retail, and, after the fashion of false coiners, they find simple and innocent persons—I mean simple and innocent persons like the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen)—who know nothing about it, to retail this bad coin. That, in my opinion, is the real source of the extraordinary statements which are made day after day, and which, as soon as they are examined, are found to be entirely without basis. Now, I think we ought to have an end of this kind of thing, and that upon great questions of this kind, before they launch these tu quoques, they might at least ascertain that they had some foundation in truth. But, putting aside these precedents and these tu quoques, about which I have said enough—[Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: Quite.] Yes, I should think quite enough for the right hon. Gentleman. I wish him joy of them; and I hope, as he has had enough of them, we shall hear no further reference to them. I can promise the right hon. Gentleman that, if he will not repeat his tu quoques, I will not repeat my criticisms of them; we will, if he likes, pair on that point, and I will let him off in future. But what I challenge is the policy which these tu quoques have been brought forward to justify. That is to say that, when men's lives are taken, when a Coroner's jury has found that the responsibility rests with individuals, the Government should come forward and say—"We will treat that evidence with contempt; we will treat that taking of life with indifference. We will not prosecute; we will not hold any inquiry. We will"—to use the language of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary—"take no steps." That is the policy I challenge. What is the consequence of that policy? It is to inculcate in the minds of the police a most dangerous and most mischievous doctrine—namely, that they may commit whatever acts of violent outrage they please, but that they shall have no responsibility for them; that they shall never be called to account for them; that they shall not hesitate to shoot, but that they are to take care to shoot to kill; and that no man shall ever examine whether they were justified in that conduct or not. That is a doctrine against which I am here to protest. No such doctrine has ever been tolerated in this English land. I do not say the police in England are not instructed to shoot to kill. Happily, they are not armed, and that is a very fortunate distinction between the English and the Irish police. But to preach a doctrine of that kind, to tell the police that their conduct shall never be inquired into, and that they shall never be called to account, is to demoralize the police, is to destroy the protection of the liberty of the subject which has been promoted before. What is the doctrine we have always taught our police? It is—"If you do your duty, you shall be protected and defended." [Cheers.] Yes; I have always acted upon that doctrine—"If your conduct is called in question, it shall be investigated"—I have always acted upon that principle, too—"and if there is no justification for your conduct you shall be punished." Upon that principle I have always acted. These are the principles upon which the police of England have been conducted, greatly, in my opinion, to the advantage both of the police and the people. But it was not the principle upon which the police of Ireland are conducted. It is a totally different principle. It is the principle—"Satisfy the Government. Do not hesitate to shoot—shoot to kill. We will take care of you." The contrast between the conduct of the police in England and the conduct of the police in Ireland is a very painful one. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland regards this matter, no doubt, from an entirely different point of view. I cannot help thinking that there are too many people in this country who regard it from a different point of view. If you attempt to apply this principle or the practice which you employ in Ireland to them, almost every man on the other side of the House will agree with the principle for which, we contend, you are not accustomed—you are not disposed to apply the same principle to Ireland that you apply to England, and that is the real cause of the difficulties which exist between England and Ireland. I am afraid that you do not think that, either in the administration of the police or in the administration of justice, you should treat the "black man" as you do the "white man." These are the Hottentots of the United Kingdom; these are the men who have as little right to the ordinary privileges of British subjects as the 200,000,000 subjects of the Empress of India. It is the same spirit—the same spirit of insolent contempt for inferior races, for subjected people, which dictates this policy, which is the real cause of the distinction between your action in these matters—your action in regard to the police, your action in regard to the Courts of Justice, your action through your Law Officers in Ireland and in England; and it is upon this Vote that I take the opportunity of protesting against these things. I protest against your refusal to deal with these cases in Ireland as you deal with them in England, as you have dealt with them even in Ireland previously. I protest against your refusal to take any notice of the sacrifice of human life, and the verdicts found upon the matter; I protest altogether against your conduct in the administration of justice. I remember a piece of striking testimony which came from one to whom the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary will pay more attention than he will to me. [An hon. MEMBER: Hear, hear!] Yes; I thank the hon. Gentleman for that civil cheer, it indicates the courtesy of hon. Gentlemen opposite. I am speaking of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James). We discussed some time ago a legal reform—the examination of prisoners—and my right hon. and learned Friend said—"He would not dare to apply that which he would wish to apply to England to the Courts in Ireland, because he had not the same confidence or reliance in the manner in which those Courts were administered." That is a very serious assertion coming from such an authority as my right hon. and learned Friend; but, unhappily, we find, at every opportunity, you cannot examine any of these proceedings without seeing that the measure of justice, that the measure of liberty is a different one for Ireland and for England. It is against this difference that I am here to protest. I believe it is the fundamental ground of the mischief which exists between the two countries, and I believe you will never have peace between England and Ireland until you are prepared in the administration of justice in Ireland to apply the same principles of Constitutional liberty which govern the administration of justice in England.

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

The right hon. Gentleman (Sir William Harcourt) is a man of courage, but I do not think he is a man of discretion. I think that had his discretion equalled his courage, he would not have attempted to revive the debate of Tuesday night, in which, I venture to say, he did not get the best of it, and in which I think there is some doubt whether he will get the best of it to-night. Now, the right hon. Gentleman accuses me of, if not myself manufacturing tu quoques to order, at all events of distributing the goods which are thus manufactured for me. I think I caught in that metaphor a slight reminiscence of a speech I made at Glasgow. In that speech I drew a parallel between the manufacturing agency in Ireland, and the advertizing agency of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone). But I have always noticed that the right hon. Gentleman (Sir William Harcourt) did not entirely comprehend the full force of the arguments which he describes as tu quoque arguments. I think that, perhaps, in this matter, he is slightly misled by his own self esteem. He apparently thinks that when I quote some action of his Government I quote it as a ground for thinking that the action of the present Government is justified. He appears to think that I quote his action as a precedent which ought to be followed. I never thought of such a thing; it never occurred to me that the fact that the right hon. Gentleman had thought a particular course was right was the slightest presumption that such a course ought to be pursued by his Successors. But I think the tu quoque argument, though it is, I admit, no justification whatever for the course of the present Government, has a most important bearing upon current controversies; for, after all, it enables the country to put a tolerably accurate estimate upon the value of the opinions of the gentlemen who chiefly occupy themselves with criticizing us. The country may be regarded as a Court of Appeal, before whom two opposing clients are arguing. If you can show that every statement now made by one of these gentlemen is in direct contradiction to something which the same gentleman under different circumstances—under similar circumstances. [Ironical cheers.] I thank hon. and right hon. Gentlemen for that cheer; "it indicates the courtesy of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite." If it can be shown that some of the statements which one of the parties made are in direct contradiction to statements made by the same party under similar circumstances on a previous occasion, why that party is absolutely discredited, and it is in order to show the right hon. Gentleman and his friends in their true colours before the country, and for no other object whatever, that I indulge in this tu quoque to which the right hon. Gentleman, not unnaturally, most strenuously objects. Now, the right hon. Gentleman has entirely and gratuitously misinterpreted the motives with which, on Tuesday, I read out the seven cases in which life had been lost in Ireland through the action of the police. The right hon. Gentleman was not present in the debate on Monday. I recollect that to-night, when he was arguing with my right hon. Friend the Member for the Sleaford Division of Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), he reproached my right hon. Friend because he had not been present during the debate. It was a lapse of memory; the right hon. Gentleman has not been present during all these debates; he was absent on the most important night of all. Had he been present on Monday night, and listened to the—I will not say to the speech I delivered on that occasion—but to the interruptions made in that speech by his right hon. Colleague the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) he would have known that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) challenged me to produce a case in which life had been lost by the action of the police, and it was not as a tu quoque to the right hon. Gentleman, but in obedience to a request made across the Floor of the House that I produce certain cases. And that is not all. The right hon. Gentleman appears to think that, so far as the arguments brought forward on Tuesday were concerned, I introduced these cases to indicate that, judging by precedent, the Crown ought to take no steps whatever when one of the crowd is killed by a policeman. But the right hon. Gentleman forgets his own argument, that instead of having a Departmental Committee in order to investigate the action of the police on the occasion at Michelstown, I ought to have had an inquiry into the causes which led to the death of the men.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I said a judicial inquiry.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

No, not at all. I brought forward the seven cases, not merely in obedience to the request of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, but also to show that in not one of those cases did his Government hold the judicial inquiry which the right hon. Gentleman has now discovered to be absolutely essential when the life of one of Her Majesty's subjects is sacrificed in conflict with the forces of the Crown.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

We had a judicial inquiry in five of them.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I pointed out that in not one of the seven cases did it ever occur to the right hon. Gentleman to hold the kind of inquiry which he now contends ought to have been held into the action of the police. The right hon. Gentleman will observe that I never concealed for a moment that in some of the cases the matter was brought before the Grand Jury; on the contrary, I stated that this was the case, and it was not in reference to the action there has been on the part of the present Government in not allowing the Michelstown case to go before the Grand Jury, that I quoted the seven cases. The right hon. Gentleman was mistaken, as he often is, in stating that in three of the cases the subject was brought before the Grand Jury. I believe him to be wrong in this; according to my information, which I believe is accurate, instead of the three cases it was two cases that came before the Grand Jury, and in the first of those two, according to my information, the Grand Jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against a policeman, who was arrested and committed for trial at the Assizes, but the Crown refused to prosecute, and nothing more was heard of the matter.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I said there were two cases.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

No; the right hon. Gentleman said three—he repeated the word "three" over and over again. But I accept the correction which the right hon. Gentleman has now made upon his own statement after I corrected him; he now substitutes two for three. Then I go on. No. 1 and No. 2 have been brought before the Committee; of No. 3 the right hon. Gentleman says nothing; of No. 4 he says nothing; of No. 5 he says nothing, and we now came to Nos. 6 and 7, With regard to No. 7, this was the case of the 27th October, 1881, in which District Inspector Stritch and a party of police who were protecting a procession were attacked, and two women were killed. The right hon. Gentleman stated that I misled the House on this matter. That is not the case. Even the report of The Times, which is in the third person, and does not profess to be a verbatim report, makes it clear that I said that the District Inspector was proceeded against at Petty Sessions, but that the information was refused, and nothing further done by the Crown. That is the essential point. It comes to this, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman is of opinion that everything is done to protect the life of the subject if, when life is sacrificed by the forces of the Crown, one person is brought before one removable magistrate.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

There is no question of Resident Magistrates. It was under Mr. Forster's administration.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Is the right hon. Gentleman in such utter ignorance of the history of events as to suppose that Resident Magistrates were the invention of Lord Spencer?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

They did not exist at all.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

There have been Resident Magistrates for more than 50 years, and during that time they have been as much at the mercy of the Crown as they are at this moment, and they have as much deserved the epithet of "removable" as they do now. Well, sir, I repeat that the right hon. Gentleman is content with saying that the life of the subject is adequately safeguarded if a person is brought before a magistrate whom he is prepared to qualify as a "removable magistrate." Then I come to the last case touched upon by the right hon. Gentleman. The first statement which I made on that case I believe to be perfectly accurate, and I believe the statement of the right hon. Gentleman with regard to it to be wholly misleading. A certain man was killed; the Coroner's jury returned a verdict of death from gunshot wounds, and wilful murder against Inspector Bali; no steps were taken by the Crown in pursuance of the verdict. It is quite true that Inspector Ball was prosecuted, but I believe he was privately prosecuted by the next-of-kin, and not by the Government; and it was not due to the ardent desire of the Government of the day to protect the lives and liberties of the subject that the case ever came before a magistrate at all.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I have stated, on authority which I have, that the Attorney General directed that Inspector Ball should go before a magistrate.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I have stated my belief that he did nothing of the kind. I have not had time to inquire into statements made 10 months ago; but I absolutely disbelieve that this was the case, notwithstanding the statement of the right hon. Gentleman—made, doubtless, in good faith; and I assert, without fear of contradiction, that, so far as the information which I have is concerned, the prosecution of District Inspector Ball was not done at the instance of the Attorney General at all, but that it was a private prosecution, probably at the instance of the next-of-kin. Now I come to the cause of my surveying these cases. There were seven cases which I brought forward, not to discuss the action of the Crown, but to illustrate the number of cases in which life was sacrificed under the late Government. I say absolutely that my statement has not been shaken in reference to a single case. The right hon. Gentleman has made a practical misstatement with regard to three, and he has misrepresented what I said with regard to No. 7. He has made another mistake with regard to No. 6, and has absolutely said nothing whatever about Nos. 3, 4, and 5. Now we have the exact value of the argument of the right hon. Gentleman, and I think the Committee will bear me out in saying that the right hon. Gentleman's conduct on this occasion was dictated rather by courage than prudence. I noticed that the right hon. Gentleman attempted to draw a distinction between what happened under Lord Spencer's Government and what happened under the Administration of Mr. Forster. Now, I should like to know on what ground that distinction rests. I was drawing a moral from the action of the Government of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. Do they repudiate responsibility for what happened under Mr. Forster's Administration? Did virtue reign for the first time in the Liberal Party in 1882? Did they violate all the rights and liberties of Her Majesty's subjects before that date, and did they only begin to practice true Liberalism after Mr. Forster resigned and Lord Spencer became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I did not repudiate Mr. Forster's action. I said the practice might, perhaps, be expected to have been more lax after the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act than when it was not suspended.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I understand the right hon. Gentleman to accept the full responsibility for anything done in 1880. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: "Hear, hear!"] Then what does it matter about the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act? Because the right hon. Gentleman was guilty of one gross violation of the liberty of the subject under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, was that any justification of another gross violation of it in dealing with the verdicts of Coroners' Juries? They were doubly guilty. Then in what particular does the tu quoque fail? It turned out that the whole seven were but too well founded; it turned out that the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a Member did all these things for which he attacks us, and the right hon. Gentleman had acknowledged the responsibility for them. The right hon. Gentleman said I misled the Committee. I completely and categorically deny it; and not only that, but I say that the right hon. Gentleman had not the courage to say so when he was on his legs. The right hon. Gentleman had seven eases to deal with. He dealt with several cases, but the others he did not touch upon at all. I do not mean, of course, to say that the cases which he did touch upon were accurately given.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

I assumed, from the way in which the right hon. Gentleman misstated four out of the seven cases, that he misstated the rest; and when I have time for investigation I will prove it.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The right hon. Gentleman's courage has diminished very much. I have told the Committee frankly that I admitted that the first and second cases went before the Grand Jury. Will the right hon. Gentleman say I have misstated either of those two cases?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

You stated that we had taken no action whatever.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I stated equally in the first case as in the second that it came before the Grand Jury. In the third case the right hon. Gentleman stated that it came before the Grand Jury, and I stated that it did not; but the right hon. Gentleman was wrong, and I am right. So much for three cases. He did not touch on the fourth case or the fifth. I have proved that he was inaccurate in the sixth case, and in the seventh that he was misleading. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman has not a particle of evidence on which to assert that I have misled the Committee. I will now leave this particular matter, and make one general observation. The right hon. Gentleman has asserted that I have attacked Coroners' Juries specially. I have not specially attacked them. I have attacked them, and I have not been alone in doing so. It was Mr. Forster, the Colleague of the right hon. Gentleman—for whose action the right hon. Gentleman had justly expressed his own responsibility—who stated substantially that the verdicts of Coroners' Juries in Ireland, if carried out to their legitimate conclusion, would often be instruments of judicial murder, and I absolutely indorse that statement. The Coroner's Jury in Ireland was too often nothing better than a conspiracy to assassinate, and the Attorney General for Ireland as well as the Government would be parties to that conspiracy to assassinate, if, when they knew that the Coroner's Jury was acting corruptly or incompetently, they were to allow the matter to go on. That had always been felt by responsible Governments of Ireland. It was felt by the Government with which the right hon. Gentleman was connected and when he was a Member of it, and it is not the less felt by the responsible Government of Ireland now; and he should feel that the Government were disgraced if, in obedience to any clamour, from whatever quarter it might come, they were to make themselves parties to a gross injustice, to carry out the doctrines which the right hon. Gentleman has represented to be the doctrines which ought to govern Constitutional action. Let the Committee recollect what the situation of the police often is in the remote districts of Ireland. You have a small town in which there are not more than four or five policemen; and some agitator goes down and rouses the feelings of the populace against the police. [An HON. MEMBER: Quite right]. The result of that has been in some cases, and may be in others, that the small handful of police in a remote district are attacked by overwhelming numbers. Absolutely in self-defence, perhaps with no other means open to them to preserve their lives, it may be that these policemen have either to fire or to charge; some member of the crowd falls a victim; a Coroner's Jury is called—the Coroner possibly being a gentleman of very violent political convictions, and probably the 13 or 14 jurors being under the influence of a powerful organization not favourable to the police, or under the influence of a feeling in the town thoroughly hostile to the police. They bring in a verdict possibly against all the evidence, accusing some unhappy policeman of being a wilful murderer. Are we to make ourselves accomplices in that scandalous transaction? Would any Government worthy of the name acquiesce in such a proceeding? I say no. If the right hon. Gentleman, instead of being a critic of the Government, were responsible, I say he would himself shrink from such a course and spurn it as unworthy of a British Statesman, and the Committee will believe that conduct which the right hon. gentleman thinks unworthy of himself and his Colleagues is not that which we on this Bench are likely to adopt.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

said he had had no intention of intervening in this debate, but although it might be a little out of place he could not think it right to allow a charge so reckless and so horrible as that with which the right hon. Gentleman had concluded his speech to go unanswered. The right hon. Gentleman deliberately charged the Irish agitators—and he presumed he had in his eye hon. Members on those Benches—with going down into remote villages where there were but a few policemen in charge, and inciting angry crowds to attack them. He was glad to be there to meet that charge instantly with the most absolute and unqualified denial. He said it was a false charge, and he now challenged the right hon. Gentleman to produce a single instance in the course of a long and excited agitation, lasting for years, on which he could base a charge of the kind. It was a sample of the conduct Irish Members had been obliged to submit to in that House, and which the right hon. Gentleman had very frequently exhibited in the country when they were not present to meet charges of the most insulting character which were hurled at them without the smallest shred of justification. He wondered that the right hon. Gentleman was not ashamed to level such a charge against them. Was it not true that he (Mr. Dillon) and dozens of those around him had stood on platforms in the presence of thousands of men and a small handful of police, and that in no single instance had a hair of a policeman's head been injured, except where they, as aggressors in large force, had attacked peaceable meetings. Let the right hon. Gentleman stand up and select one out of all the thousands of meetings where the police were outnumbered by 10 to one, or 30 to one, at which the slightest injury had been done to a policeman. He would go further, and say that in no single instance that his knowledge would carry him to, and where any leading or responsible member of his Party was present, and where the police were in a small minority, had the slightest offence been offered to them. Let the Committee take the case of the midnight meeting at Woodford, where, if anywhere, under the circumstances, in Ireland one might naturally have expected that some violence would be shown to the police, because the dis- trict had been police-ridden, and insult and injury had been inflicted upon the inhabitants for years, yet at that meeting, when the police did not attempt to concentrate at night, the 5,000 or 6,000 men collected, and it was found that there were in the town only seven or eight policemen, who were far away from aid, and among a peasantry many of whom had grudges against the police for insults and injuries, no injury was done to them; and the police themselves were obliged to swear that not only had they received no violence or injury, but that they never received an insult throughout the whole time. Was it not shocking that a Minister, responsible for the government of so difficult and troublesome a country as the right hon. Gentleman had made Ireland, should stand up in his place and aggravate his offences by hurling base and detestable charges across the Floor of the House at Irish Representatives, when he must know that there was not a single instance of such a thing as he had described having occurred during the last eight years? In Ireland the story was all the other way. When the police were outnumbered there was peace and quiet and good humour, and there was never the riots and loss of life such as the right hon. Gentleman described: it was only when the police were in sufficient force, and handled by some intolerant and incompetent magistrate, that they broke up musical instruments, or made some brutal or unjustifiable and illegal attack upon the people, and that then, in the riot which naturally ensued, life was sometimes lost. He had thrown out a challenge to the right hon. Gentleman. He maintained that they were entitled to one of two things from the right hon. Gentleman—either to an apology for the charge, or a withdrawal of the charge he had made against them, or else that he should stand up at the Table and mention the date and place when the police had been attacked as he had alleged.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The hon. Gentleman has thrown out a challenge which I do not think is a particularly unfair one. He states that these incidents never occur when the police are small in number, and only occur when the police are in large force, and are handled by some violent and indiscreet magistrate. The very last case in which loss of life occurred in consequence of a collision between the police and the people was, I believe, a case in which there were not more than five policemen in the whole town, and where there was no magistrate in charge of them. It is impossible for me, for obvious reasons, to go into the details of the case at the present moment; but I think if the hon. Gentleman will only consider the circumstances attending the loss of life at Midleton, he will find the general description I have given to the Committee of what may occur now is absolutely borne out by the facts.

THE CHAIRMAN

It is obvious this is a digression from the main Vote.

MR. J. E. ELLIS (Nottingham, Rushcliffe)

It was begun by the Chief Secretary.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order! The hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division is abusing his position in interrupting the Chair in that way. He must allow the Chairman to direct the discussion, and not interfere when the Chairman is giving a ruling. As I say, this is obviously a digression from the main Vote, to which it has no relation; and now that the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) has uttered his protest against the statement of the Chief Secretary, and the Chief Secretary has replied, I think this particular subject ought to drop.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE (Bradford, Central)

Mr. Courtney, I think that after that intimation from you it will be for the convenience of the Committee that we should return to the Vote immediately before us; and I rise to move a reduction of the Vote by the sum of £500, in order to raise a question as to the administration of the Coercion Act in respect of a large class of cases—namely, the prosecutions for Boycotting in Ireland, which I believe were all directed and authorized by the Attorney General for Ireland. I believe I shall be able to show that a very grave miscarriage of justice has taken place, and that many scores of people have been prosecuted, convicted, and sent to prison for offences which they did not commit, and which are not offences under the Crimes Act. I shall also show that these prosecutions were used for the purpose of sending to prison persons selected for that purpose, or because the police authorities thought it expedient to send them to prison; and I shall show that they were denied every opportunity of raising a question of the legality of their convictions before the Superior Court in the manner in which it was, undoubtedly, intended and promised should be done. It seems generally to be thought that the Killeagh case stood by itself; but I shall show that it was one of a large class of cases of precisely the same nature, and that the same illegality of conviction took place without any redress. Two or three of the cases which I shall deal with were brought before the Committee in July last upon the Vote on Account. The Chief Secretary for Ireland and the Solicitor General for Ireland gave very unsatisfactory replies. Since then I have had the opportunity of being in the district of Ireland where the greater number of these prosecutions for Boycotting took place, and I was able to make personal inquiry into them; and, as a result, I am able to say that nearly all the convictions, if not all of them, have been as illegal and unwarrantable as those in the Killeagh ease. I find in all that there have been 18 batches of persons prosecuted for conspiracy to compel and induce others to refuse to deal with and supply goods to persons. These included 118 persons. There were convictions in 17 of the batches, and 78 persons were convicted; nearly all of whom were sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour. I have made careful inquiry into a large proportion of these cases; I have obtained and read the depositions in many of them; in others I have obtained what information was available in the reports of the trials; and I have consulted persons who were present. I have been unable to discover more than a single case in which, read by the light of the Killeagh case, there was any evidence of a conspiracy to compel or induce other persons to refuse to supply; in all the other cases where I have been able to obtain information there was no such evidence; and it is absolutely certain that the convictions were illegal. It may naturally be asked by the Committee why it was that if these illegalities were committed they were not sooner detected and set aside? The answer is that in every case the Resident Magistrates refused to state a case to the Superior Courts; in many of them the Crown Prosecutors used their influence to prevent the magistrates stating a case. In some of them, where the sentences were for more than a month, there was an appeal to a County Court Judge, and the County Court Judge fell into the same error of law as the Resident Magistrates, and there was no appeal on point of law from them to the Superior Courts. When the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. Healy), on behalf of some of the accused, endeavoured to raise the question of legality before the Superior Courts, he was met by every possible resistance on the part of the Attorney General for Ireland. At the instance of the Attorney General for Ireland the Court of Queen's Bench, which is the proper tribunal for dealing with criminal cases, refused to intervene; and it was only when the hon. and learned Member discovered a method of raising the question by a writ of habeas corpus before the Court of Exchequer, reviving an almost forgotten practice, that the point of law was brought before a Superior Court, and the three Judges then held that in the case before them there was no evidence whatever to warrant a conviction under the Act. The decision in the Killeagh case was given on June 25 last, and since then there have been no further prosecutions for Boycotting of this kind; and this alone raises a strong presumption that all the previous convictions were illegal. Let it not be said that the point raised was a purely technical one, and one which was contrary to the spirit of the Crimes Act. All these prosecutions took place under a sub-section of Clause 2 of the Crimes Act. The next Sub-section was copied from the Act of 1882, and was aimed at Boycotting when accompanied by intimidation. The new sub-section aimed at conspiracies to compel and induce others to refuse supplies. I find in the debates on this sub-section that the Attorney General for England justified this addition to the Clause of the Act of 1882. He said— We have over and over again pointed out, and we maintain that in our view there were important matters with which the Act of 1882 did not deal in respect of Boycotting. It may he that there may not be individual intimidation; but persons may meet together, and, without performing the acts themselves, may provide money or inducements, or adopt other measures commonly practised by Associations, to compel or induce others to take the steps complained of. It is quite certain, from this and many other passages I could quote, that the decision of the Exchequer Judges in Ireland was in complete accord with the intentions of the Government, and with their declarations and promises to this House, and that it never was intended to give to Resident Magistrates power to send to prison persons for merely refusing to supply goods. Let me say of exclusive dealing, refusing to supply goods, and other acts included in what we call Boycotting, that where they are accompanied by intimidation, or where an association of persons by threats or inducements compels or induces others to refuse to supply, such acts are highly criminal; but where individuals under the influence of public opinion, whether singly or at the same time, refuse to supply, their acts are certainly not criminal. We may regret and deplore them, as we may regret and deplore the harsh evictions or the harsh action of the police which have led to them; but they are certainly not criminal. It is, and ought to be, the right of any individual to refuse to supply any other, and any attempt to extend the Criminal Law so as to include such persons would work enormous injustice, and could be used, as I shall show it has been used, with injustice as a means of oppression. In none of the cases which I have been able to inquire into, with one possible exception, has there been any evidence of a conspiracy to compel or induce within the meaning of the clause in the Crimes Act. The only evidence, as a rule, produced was the bare refusal on the part of some tradespeople, selected by the police for the purpose, to supply goods. The cause of action may be the same in all of them. When the Crimes Act armed the police or the landlord with what they they believed to be its power, they went round to such of the tradespeople as they wished to send to prison, perhaps, even others, and where they refused to supply they were prosecuted, convicted, and sent to prison. In most cases they called on tradesmen they had never dealt with before, generally asking for goods they did not want, and which they could have got elsewhere. Let me give a few illustrations. There have been two classes of cases under the clause I refer to—one of prosecutions for refusing to supply the police, the other for refusing to supply some landlord who has incurred unpopularity, or some person who has taken an evicted farm, or an Emergency man. Of the first class of cases I could supply numerous illustrations. In all that I have examined there has been no evidence whatever of any conspiracy within the Killeagh decision. At Kildysart, in County Clare, a batch of farmers were prosecuted for refusing to supply turf to the police. The evidence showed that the police had a plentiful supply at their barracks. The farmers had simply refused to supply. There was no evidence of any conspiracy to compel any of them or any others not to supply. Some of them proved that they were not allowed to sell turf by their landlords; one of them showed that he had to buy turf himself. They were all convicted and sentenced to two, three, or four months' imprisonment. A more extraordinary case was that of the 24 publicans at Miltown Malbay, who were prosecuted for refusing to supply drink to the police. A prosecution under the Crimes Act was about to come on. The parish priest had reason to fear that there would be a renewal of disturbances between the police and the people coming into the town from the country, as had occurred on a previous occasion. The Sunday before the trial he addressed the country people in his chapel, and he urged them not to come into the town during the trial. With the same object he also addressed the shopkeepers in the town, and especially the public-house keepers, to shut their shops during the trial. The people followed his advice; all the shops in the town were closed during the trial. The police took the opportunity of getting up a number of prosecutions. Two of of them were sent round the town by the Inspector to ask for refreshments at 34 of the public-houses. They were refused, and 24 of the publicans were prosecuted under the Crimes Act. It was admitted at the trial that the police did not want any refreshments; they had all they wanted in their barracks. The parish priest came into the witness-box and stated that it was by his advice that they had acted as they had done. There was evidence that on previous occasions the police had been served. There was no evidence of any conspiracy to compel or induce. In spite of this, 21 of them were convicted, and were sentenced to a month's imprisonment with hard labour. They asked for a case to the Superior Courts. That was refused. After the sentences, Colonel Turner offered to remit them if the men would acknowledge themselves in the wrong by entering into a written agreement not to do it again. Ten of the accused adopted that course; the others refused, and went to prison. It may be interesting to the Committee to hear that the public opinion of the district was so strong against the men who signed the agreement that during the month the others were in prison no one went near their shops, and even their brothers and nearest relatives would not have a word to say to them. I quite admit that in strict law a publican is bound to keep his house open; but if he fails to do so it is only a matter which can be dealt with when his licence is renewed. I have the depositions before me in this case, and there is absolutely no evidence on which a conviction could be supported. In another case, at Fermoy, two policemen went into the shop of a man named Moloney, and asked for a pair of boots hanging in his shop, and when he declined to sell he was prosecuted. It appeared that the police did not want the boots; they merely went there to get up a prosecution. In cross-examination one of them was asked— Who directed you to go to the shop?—Inspector Jones. Why did he tell you to do this?—He told me to get a pair of boots in the house. Were they for himself?—No. Any pair of boots you put your eyes on you were to get?—Yes. And you did not care a pin who they were for?—No. Was it for the purpose of getting up a prosecution that you went into the house?—I did not know at the time what it was for. Do you know it now?—Yes; certainly. It is obvious that the man was simply sent there to ensnare the shopkeeper, There was absolutely no evidence of conspiracy. The man was convicted on this evidence, but was allowed to go out on his own recognizances. I could multiply cases of this kind. The other class of eases—those of landlords or others—were much of the same kind. There was the case of the farmers at Mil-town Malbay. There had been a long-standing dispute between a Mrs. Moroney, the owner of the land in the neighbourhood, and her tenants, and the people of the district. The dispute had arisen from the belief of the tenants that their rents were excessive, and that her evictions were harsh; and she had, in consequence, been more or less avoided by the people ever since. The shopkeepers of Miltown Malbay, mainly under the influence of the opinion of the country people, refused to supply her. I will not enter into the merits of the case, which are not very relevant, to what I desire now to describe; but I may mention that Sir West Ridgway and Colonel Turner have urged her to reinstate the evicted tenants in order to bring about peace. She was a very courageous and determined woman, and set up a store where she supplied her servants and her hotel. When she found herself armed with the Coercion Act she determined to turn the tables on the Miltown Malbay tradespeople. She began by sending her horse to three blacksmiths in the town, asking them to shoe it. She had never employed them before; she had no difficulty in getting the work done elsewhere. When they refused she had them prosecuted. They were convicted and sent to prison for a month. They asked for a case to the Superior Courts, but were refused. I have seen the depositions; they disclose no evidence whatever of a conspiracy. I have myself heard the story of those three men. They are most respectable tradesmen. They said that if they supplied Mrs. Moroney they would lose their customers among the country people. They had entered into no conspiracy against Mrs. Moroney. There never had been a resolution of the Land League to Boycott this lady. It is absolutely certain that the convictions were illegal; and, if a case had gone to the Superior Courts, they would have got off. Mrs. Moroney, after this success, sent two of her servants into the town to get up prosecutions. They asked for a pennyworth of lace at one shop or a bottle of porter at another, and, on being refused, four or five of the shopkeepers were prosecuted. On cross-examination the servants admitted that Mrs. Moroney did not want the goods; that her servants had no money to pay for them; and that they had simply been sent there to get up pro- secutions. The magistrates in this case had a glimmer of good sense and refused to convict—Mr. Hodder, one of them, saying that the conspiracy was on the other side. There was another case of much the same kind at Miltown Malbay connected with Mrs. Connell. Mrs. Connell and her son had come under the ban of popular opinion there, on account of the son having taken part of an evicted farm, and his offence was aggravated by the fact that he was a member of the Land League. He was turned out of the League, and he was consequently avoided in the town. The case is alleged to be one of hardship. I think it has been much exaggerated; but it is immaterial to my case whether it be so or not. One day, accompanied by two policemen, Mrs. Connell appeared in the town, and, going to various tradesmen, asked them for supplies of sugar and tea. She and the police picked out the shops they thought fit, passing by others, and, when refused, they prosecuted these shopkeepers. Some of them were convicted and sentenced to three months' imprisonment. They asked for a case to the Superior Courts, which was refused. They then appealed to the County Court, where the sentences were increased to six months. I have the depositions before me of the evidence taken before the magistrates, and I say with the utmost confidence that there was no evidence whatever of any conspiracy within the decision of the Kelleagh case. When this case was under discussion in July last the Solicitor General for Ireland stated that there was further evidence given before the County Court Judge which showed a conspiracy to compel or induce. From inquiries I have made, I am satisfied he is misinformed, and I am confident no further evidence was given which justified conviction. At all events, I will challenge the Chief Secretary to state what this further evidence was. It is my conviction that these men have been sent to prison unjustly. The Kanturk case was very similar in its general features. Mr. Leader, when armed by the Coercion Act, went round to the shops of the people he wished to prosecute and send to prison and asked them for goods. He admitted that he did not want them; that he had never dealt with these men before; and that he could have got his supplies elsewhere. I must frankly admit that in this case there was evidence of these men having been present at a previous meeting of a threatening character, which I think might support the conviction; but the case is interesting as showing how the selection of persons is made. The last case I shall deal with is that at Drangan. Five tradesmen there were charged with conspiracy to compel others not to supply a man named Mitchell with goods. It appeared that Mitchell had been employed as an Emergency man in charge of an evicted farm, and had, undoubtedly, been avoided by the people, and refused supplies by the tradespeople in the town. He had, however, left the district, and his son was in charge of the farm. The police sent for him to come back to Drangan in order to get up prosecutions. They took him round to various tradesmen, selecting those they thought fit, and, when refused, they prosecuted four or five of these shopkeepers. The case was on all fours with the Killeagh case; there was absolutely no evidence whatever of conspiracy to compel and induce others. They were convicted and sentenced to two months' imprisonment. They appealed to the County Court Judge. Before the appeal came on the Killeagh case was decided. The County Court Judge reversed the sentences against two of them, and sustained them in the other two, without giving any reason for this distinction; and, in fact, there was no difference between the four cases. The convictions were all illegal; but there was no appeal from the County Court Judge. I say that in all these cases the police have acted as what the French call agents provocateurs. They have got up prosecutions; and have called on tradespeople, either alone or with some landlord, selecting the people they desired to prosecute, not wanting the goods, but simply bent on getting up prosecutions and getting convictions. I feel absolutely certain that in all the cases I have mentioned, save one, the convictions were illegal, and would have been quashed by the Superior Courts if they could have been appealed. What I desire is to point out three main points. First, the illegality of all these convictions. Secondly, that the accused were in all of them deprived of the power of obtaining a decision of the Superior Courts on the legal point. Thirdly, and not least, the use made of these prosecutions by the police and some neighbouring landlords to select for prosecution persons against whom they had special spite, or whom they thought expedient for other reasons to send to prison. I have to ask the Committee who was responsible for these proceedings and for the grave miscarriage of justice. I cannot but think that the Attorney General for Ireland was mainly responsible—it was he who directed the prosecutions; he must have had all the facts before him; he ought to have known that there was no evidence to justify the charges against these men for conspiring to compel and induce them; he ought to have known that the prosecutions were against the spirit of the Act and contrary to the intentions of the Government as assured to Parliament in the debates to which I have alluded; he ought to have been aware of the arbitrary and unjust selections that were being made by the police and the local officers for prosecution; and he ought to have been aware that the police were provoking prosecutions and using the Act oppressively and unjustly. The Resident Magistrates are not responsible for their own incompetency; but I think we had a right to expect that the Attorney General for Ireland should guard against a miscarriage of justice of this kind by not allowing all these proceedings. I ask the Committee to express an opinion on his action by proposing a reduction of the vote for his salary of £500.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A, Law Officers, be reduced by £500, part of the Salary of the Attorney General."—(Mr. Shaw Lefevre.)

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN) (Dublin University)

said, he must say he thought the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Shaw Lefevre), considered as an attack upon the Attorney General for Ireland, was a very remarkable speech, and for this reason. In the attack the right hon. Gentleman had made upon the Attorney General he had brought before the consideration of the Committee a number of cases directed by the Attorney General in which the prosecution had been success- ful. That seemed to him (Mr. Madden) a most remarkable form of attack upon a Law Officer of the Crown. Let them consider what was the argument of the right hon. Gentleman. He first asked them to assume that, because the Court of Exchequer decided a particular case in a certain way, therefore in all the other cases mentioned to the Committee, had an appeal been possible to the Court of Exchequer, the conviction would have been quashed.

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

The circumstances of each case being similar.

MR. MADDEN

The right hon. Gentleman had assumed that the circumstances were similar; but, even if the circumstances were, how does his argument affect the Attorney General? The decision in the Killeagh case was a useful decision to hon. Gentlemen opposite, and the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) no doubt deserved the highest thanks of his political friends for having unearthed it. It was a useful case, because it served as a means of attack, not only on the Resident Magistrates, but upon the County Court Judges, as well as the Attorney General. It was said that if the Resident Magistrates had followed the law as laid down in this case they would not have convicted; and, so far as the County Court Judges were concerned, it was said that they would not have confirmed the decisions of the Resident Magistrates if they had followed the case; and against the Attorney General the case was held up in proof of the erroneous and illegal character of his action in directing a large number of prosecutions. But this must be on the ground that he had deliberately directed prosecutions in cases in which he knew that the evidence was insufficient, with a view to having those prosecutions followed up by illegal decisions. This Killeagh case had done duty on the Vote for the salary of the Chief Secretary; it was now doing duty on the Vote for the salaries of the Irish Law Officers, and, no doubt, it would do duty again at a later stage on the Vote for the Salaries of the Resident Magistrates. The first remark he (Mr. Madden) had to make on this subject was that, after all, the Killeagh case was an isolated one. No matter into what topics the Committee wandered from time to time, this case cropped up again in debate after debate, discussion after discussion, night after night, being used against the Chief Secretary, the Attorney General, and the Resident Magistrates. He thought anyone who had been a student of the Dublin newspapers recently, and had taken note of the cases which had come before the Court of Exchequer, would not be suprised at the right hon. Gentleman opposite making so much of this isolated case, because they would have found in 14 consecutive cases which had come before the Court of Exchequer from Resident Magistrates during the last sittings, the decisions of magistrates had been confirmed in each and every one. Therefore, he was not surprised at the Killeagh case being made such use of, although it had happened so far back as January of the present year, He, however, gave the fullest credit for the discovery of the case to the hon. and learned Member for North Longford. He (Mr. Madden) and other Members of the Committee had had experience of Courts of Appeal dealing with the decisions of Inferior Courts, and he must say it would be difficult to find another instance where 14 consecutive cases were decided by the Court of Appeal in favour of the decisions of a single tribunal. He was afraid, however, that, notwithstanding that circumstance, they would hear over and over again of the Killeagh case. Well, he did not shirk the Killeagh case, although, as he had said, he invited the attention of the Committee to the fact that it was an isolated case. He rather liked the Killeagh case, because he thought it brought out very clearly the distinction which was to be drawn between that case and the other cases which ranged under what he called statutable conspiracy, by which he meant a, particular kind of conspiracy, indictable at common law independently of the Statute, but which fell within the Statute, inasmuch as it enabled magistrates to deal with such cases summarily. The Killeagh case fell short of that, and ranged under another head of conspiracy which could be dealt with at Common Law, and which might be described in the words "refusing to deal with a person with the view of injuring him." He had examined into the circumstances of the Killeagh case, and he asserted that it contained this peculiarity—that there was no proof in it of the existence of a Boycotting conspiracy. If the right hon. Gentleman opposite would take the trouble to examine the depositions in the case, he would find that there was no allusion to Boycotting from one end of them to the other. His view of the law was this—mere proof of refusal to deal on the part of a number of persons, even if it were proved that the refusal to deal was directed against a certain person, with a view of injuring his business or starving him, failed as a case of conspiracy summarily punishable under the Act of last year; but if it could be proved that in a certain neighbourhood there was a conspiracy for the purpose of Boycotting any individual, and if there was evidence that the refusal to deal was an act done in pursuance of a conspiracy of that particular kind, there would be evidence to justify conviction under the Act for an offence, which would not only be conspiracy to refuse to deal for the purpose of injuring, but a conspiracy to Boycott. The right hon. Gentleman would ask—"What do you mean by Boycotting?"

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON (Kerry, W.)

Is it in the Act?

MR. MADDEN

said, he would rather give the opinion of a very high authority, the weight of which would be acknowledged by hon. Gentlemen opposite. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) had given a definition of Boycotting, which, he ventured to say, in legal accuracy, would have done credit to any Judge on the Bench. The right hon. Gentleman had said this— What is Boycotting? In the first place, it is combined intimidation. In the second place, it is combined intimidation for the purpose of destroying private liberty of choice by the fear of ruin and starvation. He (Mr. Madden) fully adopted that definition of Boycotting, and he maintained that if they could prove in any case that a man was told he was Boycotted, or could otherwise prove the existence of the class of conspiracy described by that word, as defined by the right hon. Gentleman, there was ample proof of the existence of conspiracy for the purpose of combined intimidation made use of to destroy private liberty of choice through the fear of ruin and starvation. There was no proof of such a conspiracy in the Killeagh case, and that was really the foundation of this decision—that there was no evidence to that effect. These cases were used as an attack upon the Attorney General. The argument must be that he was foolish enough, or wrong-headed enough, or malicious enough, to direct improper prosecutions against certain men, foreseeing or intending that the Resident Magistrates would be malignant enough or foolish enough to give effect to the Attorney General's directions in the absence of evidence. But, even if that were so, what about the County Court Judges before whom appeals had been heard? Did the Attorney General direct the prosecutions, foreseeing that the County Court Judges would be foolish and malignant and wrong-headed enough to give effect to them? The argument used in this connection was rather a roundabout one. The Attorney General ordered prosecutions in all important cases in Ireland, and he would assume that in the particular cases the right hon. Gentleman opposite had mentioned, the Attorney General had discharged that function and had directed the prosecutions to take place; but, seeing that those prosecutions had been successful, how the director of those prosecutions could be quarrelled with he failed to see, unless on the grounds which he had suggested. Before they could make the Attorney General responsible, they must consider the cases in which the County Court Judges had erroneously—it must be assumed—affirmed the decisions in the proceedings which the Attorney General had erroneously directed. There was an appeal allowed in certain eases to the County Court Judge, and appeals had been made in several of the cases mentioned. No doubt it would be said that the decision of the County Court Judge was wrong; but he found, on looking into the facts in the Kildysart case, that when the appeal came before the County Court Judge the appellants had all pleaded guilty. He had the greatest respect for his learned Colleague the Attorney General for Ireland; but to say that his learned friend could have the prescience to know beforehand that the prosecutions, which he is supposed to have improperly directed, would succeed because these unfortunate creatures would come in and plead guilty was carrying argument, even in political matters, to an extraordinary point. A number of cases had been referred to, and, perhaps, he might group them together for the convenience of the Committee. For instance, there was the celebrated boot case, and the case of the publicans of Miltown Malbay. The gravamen of the charges in those eases was that the cases were got up by the police. If the cases were got up by the police, he should be the very first to denounce the action of the police; but let the Committee consider for one moment the circumstances of the case. There was either a conspiracy to Boycott, or there was not. If there was no conspiracy, his argument on this point did not apply; but that was not the particular point on which he was addressing the Committee. Assuming there was conspiracy to Boycott, it was said that the police selected the persons who were to be convicted of conspiracy. Now, suppose the police went to a man who was not a member of a conspiracy. How could they get up a case against him? If a policeman went to a publican for supplies, and the publican supplied him, how on earth could the police get up a case against the man? It really seemed to him that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite were confounding two distinct matters—namely, getting up a case of conspiracy, and procuring evidence of acts done in pursuance of an existing conspiracy. It was utterly impossible to call into existence a conspiracy which did not exist. The right hon. Gentleman had mentioned the Kildysart case and the remarkable case of Hannah Connell. Those cases went up to the County Court Judge. He reminded the Committee that the County Court Judge had the evidence which was given before the magistrates, and additional evidence given orally before the Judge, and not in the form of depositions. He was certainly of opinion that if they had all the details of the case before them the Committee would feel that they had satisfactory proof of a Boycotting conspiracy. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) had fairly challenged him to state what additional evidence was given of a Boycotting conspiracy in the case of Hannah Connell before the County Court Judge. He had a distinct recollection of the facts of the Hannah Connell case, and there was evidence, in his opinion, to sustain the allegation which he submitted was the fundamental allegation in Boycotting conspiracies—namely, that there was a conspiracy to combine to intimidate. When the case came before the County Court Judge additional evidence was given, and, in particular, the evidence of the son of the Boycotted woman, who gave important evidence as to the nature of the conspiracy. Hon. Members, who were acquainted with the practice in the Irish Courts, would know that the depositions were taken in writing. The evidence before the Resident Magistrate was in the form of depositions, which were available and could be examined; but when the case went before a County Court Judge upon appeal, not only were the depositions usually put in evidence, but it was the constant practice to take additional evidence orally in open court. Therefore, when the right hon. Gentleman asked him to refer to the depositions in the Hannah Connell case, and to point to anything there to show the existence of a Boycotting conspiracy, he was bound to reply that they could not look at the depositions only, because, in addition to the depositions, there was evidence, not in the form of depositions, but in the form of oral evidence. He had informed himself as to the additional evidence given in this case, and he asserted that it conclusively proved the charge. It was proved, for instance, that Hannah Connell was told by several shopkeepers to go out of their shops because she was Boycotted. The conspiracy to Boycott was carried to such an extraordinary length that this poor woman would have actually starved had it not been for the action of a charitable neighbour. He confessed that, if he were lecturing law students upon this branch of the law, and wanted to illustrate the difference between a conspiracy which could not be proceeded with under the Act, and one which could, he should select, as illustrations, the Killeagh case on the one side and the Hannah Connell case on the other. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had been courteous enough to intimate to the Government his intention of moving this reduction. In his speech the right hon. Gentleman did not refer to what was known as the Killarney case; but in the notes which he supplied the Government with that case was mentioned. That was a very remarkable ease. It came before the Court of Exchequer, and the decision of the magistrates was reversed as regards Sullivan, one of the persons charged. There were five persons tried; but, although they were tried at the same sitting and before the same Court, they were technically tried separately—that was to say, the depositions were separately entered in each case. How was it that the decision of the Resident Magistrates was reversed? In the first case which came before the Resident Magistrates full evidence was given that Mrs. Curtin was Boycotted, but in the other cases, including Sullivan's, the evidence entered in the first case was treated as applicable to the other cases in which it had not been formally entered up. When the case came before the Court of Exchequer this defect was pointed out, and the conviction was quashed; but that was due to the informality of not repeating in each case the evidence as to Mrs. Curtin being Boycotted. Any person, however, reading the judgments of the Court of Exchequer, must come to the conclusion that if the evidence given of Boycotting had been formally entered against Sullivan, the decision would have been different. In the Drangan case the right hon. Gentleman asked them to draw a most extraordinary conclusion. In that case there was an appeal to the County Court Judge. It was well the Committee should bear in mind the nature of the attack made in this case—in the first place upon the County Court Judge, and through him upon the Attorney General, who had the hardihood to recommend the prosecution. In that case the County Court Judge confirmed the decision as regards two men, and quashed it in regard to two others. An hon. Member opposite said the Judge split the difference. But had it come to that, that such an argument was seriously addressed to the Committee? Indeed, the fact that the County Court Judge confirmed the decision in two cases and quashed it in the other two cases raised the presumption that he acted with great consideration and discrimination in the matter. The right hon. Gentleman would have the House of Commons infer—in a case where the Resident Magistrates had convicted, and where the County Court Judge, while reversing two of the convictions, had confirmed two others, the Attorney General was culpable in directing the prosecution. He had now gone through all the cases raised by the hon. Gentleman, and he felt bound, in conclusion, to remind the Committee that all these cases had been threshed out over and over again, and that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, in order to attack the Resident Magistrates and his learned Colleague the Attorney General, were obliged to go back upon what was somewhat ancient history.

MR. CLANCY (Dublin Co., N.)

said, that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland had stated that these cases had been threshed out over and over again. That statement was quite unfounded. One case, he admitted, had been threshed out, and that to the great disadvantage and detriment of the Government—namely, the Killeagh case. The hon. and learned Gentleman had alluded to the Killeagh case as a marvellous discovery. He (Mr. Clancy) did not know whether it was or not, but it certainly was a very fortunate case for the Opposition, and a very unfortunate case for the Government. The Killeagh case was certainly marvellous in this respect—that the Government did their very utmost to prevent the Court of Exchequer from having anything to say on the case, and that it was only in consequence of the ingenuity of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) that an opportunity was obtained of bringing the case before the Court of Exchequer, and of exposing the action of the Attorney General and of the magistrates as a gross outrage even upon the Coercion Act. The Solicitor General for Ireland had made a most extraordinary excuse for the Resident Magistrates, and, consequently, for the Attorney General for Ireland. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that he had examined 14 cases in which the magistrates' decisions had been confirmed, and he left the Committee under the impression that those 14 cases were all cases of conspiracy. [Mr. MADDEN: Oh, no!] He appealed to the Committee whether what he had said was not the fact.

MR. MADDEN

said, that he was then dealing with the use made of the Killeagh case to support an attack upon the decisions of Resident Magistrates; and he remarked, that if they went back over the last 14 cases they would find that the decisions of the Resident Magistrates had been confirmed in every case.

MR. CLANCY

said, they were talking about conspiracy prosecutions, and conspiracy prosecutions only; and when the hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned that the magistrates' decisions had been upheld in 14 cases, without mentioning that these were not conspiracy cases, he left every man in the Committee under the impression that he was referring to conspiracy cases only. The Committee would be surprised to learn that not a single one of those cases was a conspiracy case. On the contrary, they were entirely different from conspiracy cases, and it was a remarkable fact that since the Killeagh case neither the Attorney General had dared to direct a prosecution for conspiracy to Boycott, nor had the magistrates ventured to make a conviction. The Killeagh case had been referred to as an isolated case; but he remembered very well that when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) first called attention to this case last April, the Chief Secretary for Ireland was as cock-sure about it as the learned Solicitor General for Ireland was about other cases. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian asked the Chief Secretary whether, in the particular case of Thomas Barry and the others, there was evidence of the express conspiracy with which they were charged; and he was told by the Chief Secretary that there was evidence of that express conspiracy. On that occasion he (Mr. Clancy) asked whether, as a matter of fact, in that or any other case of conspiracy prosecution, there was evidence of anything except a refusal on the part of certain persons to supply goods; and in regard to all the cases, the answer of the Chief Secretary was that there was the additional evidence of conspiracy to compel and induce. In spite of the Government, in spite of the right hon. Gentleman, and in spite of the Attorney General for Ireland, the Killeagh case was brought before the Exchequer Division, and the Lord Chief Baron, Mr. Justice Andrews, and Mr. Baron Dowse flatly contradicted the statement of the Chief Secretary. The Solicitor General for Ireland to-night had made a great point of the fact that some of these persons pleaded guilty. It was very natural that they should. The reason was perfectly plain. Scores and scores of eases had been decided in defiance of the law, and the people very naturally considered it was no use for them to fight their cases. They felt that they would be convicted anyhow, and they thought that if they pleaded guilty, they might be let off. His wonder was that they had not even more people accused of conspiracy to Boycott pleading guilty for the express purpose of getting off. The Solicitor General for Ireland had expressed surprise that it had been stated that the police selected persons for prosecution, and he had asked how the selection was made. He (Mr. Clancy) begged to refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to the Leader case in the County of Cork. The landlord in that case was at war with his tenants, and he determined to punish the leaders, or the persons whom he believed to be the leaders of the agitation. It was proved in that case that, after consultation with the police, he visited some of the houses of the accused, some of which he had never visited before. It was proved that he selected some of the houses for visitation for the express purpose of getting up a prosecution, and not for the purpose of getting the goods for which he asked. It was proved, in the third place, that he did not want the goods he asked for, and that he did not tender any money when he asked for them. It was proved in the fourth place that he could have got the goods elsewhere in the very same town, and at the very same time. There was no doubt about all these facts; and now he came to the part the police had taken in this prosecution. District Inspector Jones, the chief prosecutor in the case, was asked if he had chosen respectable persons for the purpose of prosecuting them, and he had answered in the affirmative. When asked if he had been sent to these places by Captain Plunkett, he had refused to answer, on the ground that any communication made to him by Captain Plunkett was a privileged communication. Then, in the "boot case," hon. Members would remember that, in cross-examination, Constable Corrigan bad declared that District Inspector Jones had not given him instructions to obtain any specific pair of boots, but to get any boots in the shop, and bad given him a sovereign to tender for the purpose. He acknowledged that the boots were not for himself. He was asked, amongst other things:— Is it the duty of a policeman to create crime?—It is not. Did you attempt to create it here?—No, I did not. Did you go with that object?—I did not know what the object was. Do you know it now?—I do. What was that object?—A prosecution. It was clear that this case had been deliberately concocted by the police, and they had here a proof that the real conspirators in this case were the police and the landlords, who strove to injure the shopkeepers. The shopkeepers were the very persons who naturally would be the intimidated, and not the intimidators, as they were people between the upper and the nether millstones. If a tradesman refused to sell goods to Boycotted persons, on the one hand they were prosecuted by the Government, and, on the other hand, if they sold goods to Boycotted persons, they were Boycotted themselves, so that they were the very last people in the community who should be accused of intimidating. They were the intimidated. Instead of intimidating others they themselves were intimidated, sometimes by the action of the Government and sometimes by the action of the surrounding people. As to the case in which the name of the man Mitchell had been used, the Boycotted person had actually left the district and had no share in the prosecution until one of his neighbours had written him asking him to come down to Tipperary in order to institute a prosecution. As he had said before, the police seemed to him to have been the conspirators in all these cases. Who conspired in this case he should like to know? Evidently the police who wrote to Mitchell, for there would have been no prosecution but for that letter to Mitchell. They had heard a great deal to-night about the Sullivan case; but he (Mr. Clancy) was afraid they had not heard all they ought to have heard about it. The Solicitor General for Ireland had said that if certain formal evidence had been given in that case that was given in other cases the Court of Exchequer would not have convicted. If that evidence had been in the depositions it would not have made a bit of difference. The case was the most flagrant instance of illegality that could be brought before the Committee. What was the crime in that case? Why, that of intimidating certain smiths against shoeing Mrs. Curtin's horses; but the allegation was preposterous, as there were no smiths there to intimidate. As to the Miltown Malbay case, three smiths had on different days separately and individually refused, on one pretence or another, to shoe a certain person's horses; and on that evidence, and that evidence alone, these smiths were actually convicted by the Magistrates of conspiracy to "compel and induce" other smiths who did not exist in Miltown Malbay at all. As to the case of Hannah Connell, he challenged the Solicitor General to produce either the original depositions upon which the Magistrates convicted, or the additional evidence of conspiracy to compel and induce, which it was alleged had been produced before the County Court Judge. The hon. and learned Gentleman had a dozen times declared that he was going to produce this additional evidence, but he had never done so. He (Mr. Clancy) remembered that the very last time the hon. and learned Gentleman had spoken he had favoured them with a great deal more of it. On that occasion part of this additional evidence was that Hannah Connell's son went to a certain person and asked him to go fishing with him, which this person refused to do. The idea that everybody in Mil-town Malbay was to fish with Hannah Connell's son on pain of being prosecuted for conspiracy to compel and induce other persons not to fish with him! Why, the thing was eminently ridiculous. He had listened very carefully to the hon. and learned Gentleman to-night, and had not been able to discover a single scrap of additional evidence. The hon. and learned Gentleman had talked of two convictions—first, that before the Magistrates and then that before the County Court Judge. Well, he (Mr. Clancy) was ready to produce to night a copy of the depositions on which the Magistrates had convicted, and he maintained that there was not in those depositions one single scrap of evidence to do more than prove refusal on the part of these persons to deal. Would the Chief Secretary undertake to say that there was anything more than that in these depositions; and, if not, could he defend, at any rate, the conviction before the Magistrates? As to the case before the County Court Judge, he challenged the Chief Secretary or the Solicitor General to produce a shred of additional evidence. Could anyone think of such additional evidence? The only thing he could remember was that some person had said to Hannah Connell that she was Boycotted. The hon. and learned Gentleman, in his argument, had simply smothered up the facts with a cloud of words; but would anyone venture in his waking moments to contend that to say to a person, "You are Boycotted," was evidence against the person using the words of taking part in a conspiracy to compel and induce others not to deal with the person spoken to? The thing was in the highest degree absurd. It had been said that this woman was starving; but, even if that were so, what had it to do with the case? If it were to be understood that in matters of this kind they were to proceed on moral considerations, he could understand that suggestion having some weight attached to it; but he had thought that the present Government was a law and order Government which held itself bound by the strict letter of the law. It now appeared, however, that in the absence of express evidence of conspiracy to compel and induce they were bringing in as proof of a particular conspiracy the fact that somebody was starving through some other conspiracy. If that was the argument of the Government, it seemed to him like the doctrine attributed to the Jesuites—namely, that one might do evil in order that good might come of it. Was that the argument of the Chief Secretary—was it that in order to keep this woman from starving they were to violate even the Coercion Act? He regarded that attempt to excite the sympathy of the British public for Hannah Connell as an impudent fraud, and whoever invented the story of Hannah Connell's starvation he did not hesitate to say was a liar. Starving, indeed, she having Mrs. Moloney's shop on the other side of the road, at which she had been dealing for years. This woman starving who it appeared had enough money to buy whisky with, so that she came on the witness-table drunk when she was examined. That woman starving whose son swore she had a pit of potatoes, which pit of potatoes had been seen by the hon. Member for West Clare (Mr. Jordan). Why, if she had been starving, the relieving officer would have attended to her, and the medical officer would have relieved her. On her examination this woman declared that when she went to look for the goods for refusing to sell which people were prosecuted, she passed by certain shops and went to others in Milltown Malbay. This whole story, concocted by God knows who, and taken up by the Chief Secretary some months ago, was a most impudent fraud, got up for the purpose of deluding the British public. All convictions for conspiracy under the Crimes Act were, as a matter of fact, illegal convictions, there not being a scrap of evidence to support the charge of conspiracy. There were two sorts of conspiracy which came under review in these cases—the conspiracy to Boycott, and the conspiracy to compel and induce other people to Boycott. There might be evidence in some of these cases—though he did not say that there was—of some sort of conspiracy to Boycott; but in a country like Ireland, where there was a class like the landlords, who were generally detested, it required no conspiracy on the part of the general public to refuse these people the courtesies of life. It needed no concert to establish in people's minds a desire to refuse these persons the courtesies of life; nevertheless he was willing to admit that in some of those cases there might be evidence of a conspiracy to Boycott, There was, however, not a single case which was not on all-fours with the Killeagh case, and which was not as destitute as was the Killeagh case of any scrap of evidence of conspiracy to compel and induce. In other words about 100 people had been imprisoned in Ireland against the law, against even the Coercion Act, under this single head of conspiracy alone. He challenged the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland to produce a single scrap of evidence to sustain this charge of conspiracy, and denied that any evidence had been adduced that night. Here were the depositions; if they were not all there it was the fault of the Government, they had been asked for by Irish Members and they had been refused; the House had been denied the means of forming a judgment on the matter. But he had no hesitation in relying on the evidence he had himself collected, and in all these depositions there was not a scrap of evidence to sustain the charge of conspiracy to compel or induce to Boycott. There might be evidence of other conspiracy, but there was no evidence of this particular hind of conspiracy which was to be treated under two Resident Magistrates. He hoped the discussion would not be allowed to drop so soon as was anticipated by the hon. and learned Solicitor General. There was the most flagrant illegality about all these cases, and it was important that the matter should be thoroughly investigated to completely disclose this vile conspiracy on the part of the landlodrds, police, and Government against the shopkeepers of Ireland, who, in many cases he was glad to say, were the mainstay of the National cause. In the very nature of the case shopkeepers were the very last to be suspected of intimidation, for this was the class between the upper and nether millstone, between popular disfavour on the one hand and prosecution by the Government on the other.

MR. KIMBER (Wandsworth)

said, he only intervened for a few moments to defend the character of two defenceless women, who could not speak for themselves, from aspersions that were unworthy the character of Englishmen or Irishmen. He alluded to the widow Connell and Mrs. Moroney. During the Recess he travelled through Ireland to find out the truth of much that had been said as to the condition of things, and he found himself, though he did not know it at the time, travelling in the footsteps of the right hon. Gentleman who had spoken from the Front Bench opposite (Mr. Shaw Lefevre). The hon. Member who had just sat down (Mr. Clancy) said the case of the widow Connell was an impudent fraud, and that those who said this woman was Boycotted nearly to starvation were liars. Well, he did not hestitate to incur the risk of such a reputation in saying a few words on behalf of the widow Connell. She was described by one of the hon. Members opposite as a strong, vigorous woman of 50, who, on the floor of an Irish Court, appeared as a drunkard. He himself found the widow Connell living with her son, a man of 54 years of age, a woman with one foot in the grave and, apparently, of about the age of 80; a woman who bore no signs of intemperate habits, and who had about her in her cottage all the evidences of having been a thriving, careful, industrious woman; and the tale he heard from her, and which he found corresponded with the information he had collected in the neighbourhood, was that not only had she been Boycotted to the edge of starvation, but an attempt had even been made to deprive her of that first necessity of life, water; that her son had been prevented, forcibly and physically prevented, from obtaining a supply of water for her daily wants from the source where he was in the habit of obtaining it. He found that but for the charity of that much-maligned lady, Mrs. Moroney, this woman would have starved. It was well for hon. Members to say that she picked out and applied to certain shops in Miltown Malbay to plant upon them a charge of refusing to supply her, and that she must have passed scores of shops where she could have been supplied, but the Committee would be surprised to hear that Mil-town Malbay scarcely possessed a score of shops altogether [Cries of "Hundreds." "Twenty six publicans."] He had no interest in misrepresenting what he found. He did not know if hon. Members would wish that an aged woman of 80 should go to a public-house to be supplied with the necessaries of life? He did not know whether there might be 26 hidden places where liquor could be supplied; he knew there was not outward evidence of them. At least he had no knowledge of Widow Connell, and spoke only from what he found from personal observation and inquiry, and felt bound in the interests of truth, justice, and common humanity towards a poor woman to say what he did. He had a word to add on Mrs. Moroney. The right hon. Gentleman opposite spoke of her in terms which were a disgrace to manhood. He found that the right hon. Gentleman had called on the lady, and from her he must have heard, and did hear, the other side which he kept back from the Committee, and which in common fairness he might have given.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

said, he had avoided expressing any opinion on Mrs. Moroney herself.

MR. KIMBER

said, he understood from Mrs. Moroney that the visit of the right. hon. Gentleman had preceded his by about a week, and he must have heard from her, as he (Mr. Kimber) and another hon. Member who accompanied him heard, enough to show that the statement the right hon. Gentleman had made as regarded her dealings with the three blacksmiths, and her power to get served from other sources, was quite incorrect and unfounded. So far as he had been able to ascertain from inquiry, these three blacksmiths would have been very glad indeed to have been again summoned and prosecuted; it would have been the best justification they could have had for them to deliver themselves from the thraldom of the National League. The right. hon. Gentleman said, without a word of proof, that this lady could have have her horses shod at other places, but he found as a fact that Mrs. Moroney had to send her servant at dead of night to the distant town of Ennis to get her cart-wheels tyred that the daily work of the farm might go on. A most unfair attack had been made on this woman. He understood she was to be brought before the Royal Commission as a witness, and this most unmanly attack made upon her by the right hon. Gentleman—though he would not attribute to the right hon. Gentleman so unworthy a purpose as to say it was intended—would have the effect, if nothing were said on the other side, of prejudicing the woman's evidence. This was his justification for intervening in the discussion.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

asked, how the hon. Member knew Mrs. Moroney was coming forward as a witness for The Times?

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

said, he did not express any opinion on the conduct of Mrs. Moroney; he expressly refrained, as he had said, from doing so. Of course he had not been to the place without forming an opinion, and if necessary he would express it, but it was not necessary for the purposes of his argument to do so.

MR. KIMBER

said, he certainly understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that Mrs. Moroney had justly incurred the indignation of the neighbourhood by the course she had adopted towards her tenants.

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

said, he did not know whether to admire more deeply the powers of observation or the method of reasoning of the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken. To deal first with his powers of observation. He said he collected his facts in the place, but he did not tell the Committee who were the persons with whom he communicated, he did not say whether he confined his inquiries and his interviews to one side, or whether he extended them impartially. It might be presumed that, like a great many other visitors of the same type of politics as the hon. Gentleman, he confined his communications to the landlords and the police.

MR. KIMBER

said, he did not call on a single landlord.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, the hon. Member was a member of the Legal Profession and appreciated subtile distinctions. He was correct in saying he called on no landlord, but he admitted that he called on a landlady of the district, a large distinction perhaps to the legal mind, but not to a common-sense lay Assembly like the House of Commons. But as an example of the hon. Member's powers of observation, he said there was not a score of shops in the whole town, and yet the right hon. Gentleman opposite was able to prosecute no less than 26 publicans in the town. And then, to give a specimen of the hon. Member's powers of argument and logical inference. The question Irish Members had been endeavouring to bring before the Committee was this—that in this case it was the persons who had been intimidated who were convicted as intimidators, and among these persons in this district were the three blacksmiths alluded to. His hon. Friend said that these blacksmiths refused to shoe the horses of Mrs. Moroney, not because they wanted to intimidate her, but because they were afraid of the popular disapproval that would follow if they did this work. Therefore, these blacksmiths, he and his hon. Friends argued, ought not to be convicted as intimidators, because if there was any intimidation at all in the case, these persons were the victims. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Gentleman cheered that; his reason was still obfuscated. The hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland entirely rebutted that statement of fact and justified the action of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, and then the hon. and learned Gentleman, by way of backing up the argument of the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland, said that these persons described as intimidators by the Executive Government were really intimidated; in fact, he said they would have been glad to have been convicted twice, because they would then have been free from the thraldom of the National League. But these tyrants were sent to gaol for intimidation! This was the kind of reasoning by which Coercion Acts were passed and justified in Parliament. It was not at all surprising from these specimens of observation and reasoning that the hon. Gentleman should have misapprehended the whole point of the discussion during the evening. They had not been discussing the dealings of Mrs. Moroney with her tenants, though they were quite willing to discuss them if necessary, nor had they been discussing the age of Mrs. Connell. What they had been discussing was whether the statement was or was not correct that Mrs. Connell went to these shops, because if she were not supplied from those shops she would be starved. What answer had the hon. Gentleman given? He said the woman was Boycotted. Well, she may or may not have been; that was not the point. Irish Members said, and it had not been denied, that Mrs. Connell could have got every necessary of life from Mrs. Moroney, who had been keeping a shop to supply goods to persons in the position of Mrs. Connell. To say, therefore, that the woman was in danger of starving was an impudent fabrication on the part of the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland to bolster up his case. Whether Mrs. Moroney was a good or a bad landlady might be properly discussed, but Irish Members had not raised that discussion; it had been raised by the hon. Gentleman opposite, though for the reputation of his powers of observation and inference he had better have avoided the subject.

MR. KIMBER

said, he did not speak of Mrs. Moroney as a landlady at all.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

asked, as what did the hon. Member speak of her?

MR. KIMBER

said, he spoke of her in relation to the three blacksmiths.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he was afraid the hon. Gentleman's intervention did not remove their desire to be governed by the intelligence of their own people instead of by the ignorance and want of understanding of those who claimed to be members of a superior race. Mrs. Moroney as a landlady was not discussed, but she was discussed as a victim of the National League, with others, by the hon. Gentleman, but whom the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland said were intimidators. But he was not going further with that. There had been no reply to the convincing speech of the hon. Member for North Dublin (Mr. Clancy); perhaps because the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland happened to be absent during that speech, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had given those indications of physical fatigue he could appreciate, for he was in much the same condition. In mercy to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, the Committee, and himself, he moved that the Chairman do report Progress.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. T. P. O'Connor.)

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, he hoped the hon. Member would not think it necessary to press this Motion. He would feel that the discussion had strayed very wide indeed of the personal merits or demerits of the present holder of the Office of Attorney General for Ireland. Of course he was well aware that a large latitude of discussion might well be allowed on the Vote by hon. Gentlemen who wished to canvass the acts of the Government in Ireland; but he would suggest to them that a later stage of the Vote, or the Vote for Resident Magistrates, would afford opportunity. The Amendment now before the Committee, not the Vote itself, might very well be disposed of now. Subjects which hon. Gentlemen desired to raise could be raised with more appropriateness at a later stage, and a Division might well be taken on this particular reduction.

MR. DILLON

said, he had no desire unduly to prolong discussion, but it was utterly impossible to pass away from that point of criminal prosecutions in Ireland without raising serious questions, such as the manipulation of Irish juries—a matter entirely foreign to anything the Committee had been dealing with, and touching the liberty of the subject in the gravest possible way; and this was a matter for which the Attorney General for Ireland was solely responsible. There was no desire to prevent this Division being taken, but it must be understood that Members were not precluded from opening a subject of the utmost gravity and importance, the manipulation of juries and the transfers of venue under the Crimes Act.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, he did not think that the hon. Gentleman's claim was at all unreasonable. The matter was entirely alien to that the Committee had been discussing, but it was germane to the Vote. He repeated the suggestion that a Division on the reduction of the Vote should be taken, and then the matters the hon. Gentleman referred to should stand over for another occasion.

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

said, he was disposed to accept the suggestion, if it was understood that by allowing a Division now to be taken they were not precluded from discussing other matters appertaining to the functions of the Attorney General for Ireland, that they would not be called to Order when resuming the debate.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

said, this request was only reasonable.

MR. DILLON

said, there should be a distinct understanding that Members were not precluded from raising other questions touching on the responsibility of the Attorney General for Ireland, if they consented to a Division now.

THE CHAIRMAN

A Division taken upon this proposed reduction will not preclude bringing up again the action of the Attorney General for Ireland in respect to other matters.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON (Kerry, W.)

said, there were matters exactly on all fours with that which had been made subject of debate in reference to various counties, and it would, he thought, be better, having these matters in view, to report Progress.

THE CHAIRMAN

I intimated at the beginning that the discussion which has taken place would be more appropriately taken on the Vote that follows.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON

said, the matter he desired to discuss had relation to the action of magistrates in County Kerry but it was not a matter properly pertinent to the Vote for Resident Magistrates.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, he did not know if he was quite in Order, but he earnestly pressed upon the Committee to recollect that Christmas Day was approaching, and that the Committee had to consider, not merely the intrinsic interest of this Vote but the amount of time at their disposal, with a view to apportioning that time fairly among the various topics that claimed attention.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he thought, after the statement from the Chair, they might proceed to take a Division on this particular reduction, because perfect liberty of action would be left in regard to other matters. As to the right hon. Gentleman's remark that Christmas Day was at hand, he had occasion to recollect that more than others.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

said, before a vote was taken, he would like to say, in reference to the observations of the hon. and learned Solicitor General, that he had brought forward six cases, going at some length into two of them, of prosecutions under the Boycotting Clause of the Crimes Act. The hon. and learned Solicitor General had dealt with two of those cases only. One case he did not dwell upon, saying that fresh evidence might be forthcoming, but as to four cases the hon. and learned Gentleman had left his argument absolutely untouched, and the discussion, as it was left, was entirely favourable to the contention he raised.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 76; Noes 157: Majority 81.—(Div. List, No. 329.)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)

MR. SEXTON

asked, when the Vote would be taken again?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, at the next Sitting in the evening.

MR. SEXTON

At any hour?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, the understanding was that for the present there should be no suspension of the Midnight Rule on Fridays.

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

suggested that Irish Members were entitled to a night off. [Laughter.] It was rather an odd way of putting it perhaps, but the Government might be content with taking every night recently for Irish Business, and might surely devote the possible fragment of Friday's Sitting, after the Employers' Liability Bill, to other Business. It was a good principle to make a concession to opponents when it was possible, and Irish Members were entitled to some concession, and the Chairman stood in need of relief from his duties for one night.

MR. CONYBEARE (Cornwall, Camborne)

asked the Government to fulfil the pledge they had given, that after four days of Irish Estimates, Friday should be devoted to the Employers' Liability Bill. Indeed, he was given to understand that no arrangement had been arrived at in regard to that Bill, and that it would be fought through until 12 o'clock, there being no possibility of taking Irish Estimates.

DR. TANNER (Cork Co., Mid)

referred to several items on the Orders of the Day which required some discussion, and might well be disposed of on Friday night.

THE CHAIRMAN

Questions of this nature should be raised, not in Committee on a Motion to report Progress, but with the Speaker in the Chair on the Question when Committee should be resumed.

MR. T. M. HEALY

said, there was a disadvantage then that Members could only speak once—an equal disadvantage to Members of the Government. A brief statement now might facilitate matters.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, he doubted if he was in Order, but he might be allowed to say that he did not understand that any pledge was given that Irish Estimates should not be taken, if time allowed, on Friday. The Employers' Liability Bill would be taken first, and would probably occupy a considerable part of the evening, during which Members might take that repose he could quite understand they needed, for he felt the want of it himself. It would be inconvenient to put aside the Irish Estimates, having entered upon them.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolutions to be reported Tomorrow.

Committee also report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.