HC Deb 13 December 1888 vol 332 cc102-24

Order for Consideration of Report of Select Committee read.

Report again read.

MR. WHITBREAD (Bedford)

said, he had waited, as he presumed every one else waited, to see if the Leader of the House would take any action in this matter, and propose something that would uphold the dignity of the House. As he had not done so, he (Mr. Whitbread) would move "That this House doth concur in the Report of the Committee appointed to consider the attempted Service (together with the attendant circumstances) of a summons on Mr. Sheehy, Member for South Galway, made in the Outer Lobby of this House." Whatever might be the opinion of the House, he felt confident of one thing—namely, that the House would not consider the Committee went too far in regard to the Breach of its Privileges. He thought it would be convenient in every way that the approval and concurrence of the House should be signified and entered on the Journals of the House. Looking at the Report it would be found that Committees of this nature [Cries of "Speak up"] always had to go back in order to inquire into precedents, and unless something was reported in the Journals, great difficulty was experienced in ascertaining precisely what the mind of Parliament was, what its action would be, and what its intentions were. He was strongly of opinion—

MR. SYDNEY GEDGE (Stockport)

We cannot hear a word the hon. Member says.

MR. SPEAKER

Order, order!

MR. WHITBREAD

said that he would be very brief. He was of opinion that the House would do well to secure itself and the whole of its precincts from incursions of this kind. The Select Committee seemed to have treated the matter in a perfectly Constitutional spirit when they dealt with it rather as a contempt of the House than as a question of the breach of the privileges of an individual. Without saying more, feeling sure that the Leader of the House could not object to the House recording its approval of the report of this Committee, he begged to submit his Motion.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth concur in the Report of the Committee appointed to consider the attempted Service (together with attendant circumstances) of a Summons upon Mr. Sheehy, Member for South Galway, made in the Outer Lobby of the House."—(Mr. Whitbread.)

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

said, that perhaps he might be allowed to make one or two observations on the remarks which had just fallen from the hon. Gentleman. He need not say that, as far as he was concerned, he entirely concurred with much that was said in the first three paragraphs of the Report of the Committee. He did not know whether the view he took of the fourth paragraph could be described as violent dissent; but certainly, speaking for himself, he did not particularly admire the terms in which the Committee had expressed their view with regard to the Irish police. He had two reasons for that. He thought that in some respects the Committee went further and that in other respects it went less far than he himself should be disposed to go. In the first place the Committee appeared to have distinctly contemplated that the circumstance of executing process against a Member of the House within the precincts of the House might, under certain precautions, be the usual and proper course to take. He should be unwilling to go that length. He was disposed to think that the circumstances under which the right to arrest a Member in the precincts of the House could properly be exercised were so rare, that he should be indisposed to draw up that paragraph in the way the Committee had drawn it up. In that respect therefore, he thought the Committee had gone too far. In other respects the Committee had not gone far enough, because they did not do full justice to the Executive in Ireland in this matter. Perhaps he might be allowed to state the circumstances under which a summons of this kind came to be served at all. According to the view taken of the law by the Law Advisers in Ireland, a summons issued by an Irish magistrate had no legal validity in this country whatever. The only course contemplated by law under which a person guilty of a crime in Ireland could be arrested in England was by warrant, and if a warrant was issued in Ireland involving the arrest of the individual in England it was executed, not by the Irish, but by the British constabulary. Therefore, the Committee did not appear to have sufficiently indicated that if the ordinary course contemplated by the Statute was pursued, it was not a question for the Irish police at all; the Irish police should not have been mentioned, and the direction should have been given, not to the Irish, but to the London police. Under what circumstances and for what motive did the Irish police depart from the course distinctly contemplated by Statute? The sole and only reason why they proceeded by summons and not by warrant was because complaint had been made by hon. Gentlemen opposite and by their friends that the arrest of an Irish Member in England was an unnecessary indignity put upon him, and that it would be sufficient to let him know there was to be a trial in which he was concerned, and that then he would be ready to present himself before the Court at the proper time. It was in deference to that representation of hon. Members that the Irish Executive departed from the ordinary course contemplated by Statute, which had been invariably followed when persons accused of offences against Irish law had to be dealt with in England. The summons was a document of no legal validity whatever—of no more legal validity in England than an advertisement in the daily newspapers requesting the hon. Member concerned to appear on a certain day in a certain Court in Ireland. What occurred? The constable came to the House; and let him interpolate this statement—the Committee did not very clearly explain the grounds on which they thought that the breach of Privilege occurred. They acknowledged that no violation of the privileges of the Member himself had occurred, but said that to compel him to leave his Parliamentary duties when the House was sitting without consulting Mr. Speaker or the House was a breach of Privilege of the House. But what compulsion was there in this case? What happened was this. A card was sent in which the hon. Member need not have obeyed. The hon. Member went out and saw the policeman in the Lobby, who asked him whether he would receive a summons. That request he need not have obeyed. Supposing even that the hon. Member had received the summons, he need not have obeyed it. There were three stages in this transaction, none of which involved any species of compulsion upon the hon. Member, and none of which compelled his absence from the House while the House was sitting. Speaking for himself, therefore, while he should describe the action of the constable as a gross breach of propriety on the part of those who had instructed him, it did not constitute, strictly or properly speaking, a breach of the Privilege of the House. He repeated what he had stated on the first occasion when the matter was brought before the House, that it was a highly improper proceeding, but not a breach of Privilege, that any summons or quasi-legal document, still more any warrant or strictly legal document, should be served on any Member in the precincts of the House; and long before the Committee had concluded their valuable investigation he had given such instructions as lay in his power to all those concerned in Ireland to prevent any recurrence of the blunder in the future. For the reasons that he had given he could not agree with the fourth paragraph, and was of opinion that the more expedient course for the House to adopt, having heard his public declaration that many days ago proper precautions were taken to prevent a recurrence of the lamentable episode, would be to proceed with the Orders of the Day.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT (Derby)

said, the course taken by the Government seemed to him to be of the most singular character. A transaction took place upon which the First Lord of the Treasury, the Leader of the House and the guardian of the dignity and Privileges of the House, almost implored the House to appoint a Committee to inquire into the matter. The Committee proceeded to inquire and reported, and it was the clear duty of the Leader of the House to take some action upon this Report. He took none at all. So indifferent was he apparently to the dignity and Privileges of the House that he thought it right to pass the matter by in silence. The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread), one of the oldest and most experienced Members of the House, then came forward and took the usual, and he ventured to say, the Parliamentary course in the matter, and proposed to vindicate the Privileges of the House. Then not the Leader of the House, but the Chief Secretary for Ireland got up and denounced the conclusions at which the Committee arrived. ["No!" and cheers.] Well, the Chief Secretary for Ireland was ever ready with contradictions of facts which could not be disputed. The right hon. Gentleman said he was of opinion there was no Breach of Privilege; but in the draft Report presented by the Home Secretary, a Colleague of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and prepared no doubt by the Solicitor General, were these words— Your Committee are of opinion upon the evidence that the action of Sergeant Sullivan was a Breach of the Privileges of the House. This was not in the fourth paragraph, to which the right hon. Gentleman objected, but in the first; and it continued, Inasmuch as it was an attempt to serve a summons on a Member within the precincts of the House, while the House was sitting, without the leave of the House first obtained. Was there ever a Government in such a predicament in the face of the House of Commons, whose privileges it was bound to maintain? After this Report of the Home Secretary and the Solicitor General the Government put up their Chief Secretary to say that there was no Breach of Privilege, and that he must object to the fourth paragraph. But the second paragraph affirmed all that was objected to in the fourth paragraph. The Chief Secretary said the summons which was attempted to be served was of no force or effect, and as invalid as though it had been an advertisement in a newspaper. Was that so? He wondered why the sergeant was dispatched by his superior officer from Limerick to serve the summons, and why the sergeant on reaching London consulted his colleagues, who told him to serve it at the House. The decision of the Committee was clear, and yet the Government proposed to take no action whatever. No such course had ever been taken before according to his knowledge. The Committee declared that instructions ought to have been given to the constable, and now they heard that they had been given since. The Solicitor General would agree that it was a good thing to tell the constabulary not to do things which were Breaches of Privilege of that House. This was in effect what was said in the fourth paragraph, which recommended that such an instruction should be given to the Irish police. The Irish police had no business there at all. There were policemen attachéd to the House. Instructions ought to have been given to them to tell Jeremiah Sullivan not to do what he did. The character and dignity of the House ought not to suffer simply because the Chief Secretary for Ireland happened to differ from the rest of his Colleagues. He protested against surrendering the character of this Assembly purely to gratify the amour propre of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. The hon. Member for Bedford had suggested the most moderate and reasonable course to be taken in this matter. His hon. Friend the Member for Bedford had raised no Party issues. He might have moved something in the way of a Vote of Censure upon the authorities, but he had abstained from doing so, and proposed a Motion which he hoyed the House would accept.

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

said that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby had imported rather more heat and feeling into this discussion than was necessary or judicious. He (Mr. W. H. Smith) was anxious that the matter should be dealt with by the House in a judicial and perfectly calm spirit. He had been reproached because he made no Motion on the subject when the Order was called. But it would be in the recollection of hon. Members that he distinctly stated last night that it was not his intention to make any Motion, as when he read the Report he came to the conclusion that it would not be in the interests of the House that a Motion should be placed on the Paper. The right hon. Gentleman complained of his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary because he stated what his own individual opinion was of the second paragraph of the Report. He thought it was rather hard that a Colleague was not at liberty to state what his own individual opinion was upon the Report. Besides, that was an unreasonable complaint, because he had himself stated yesterday that so far as the Government were concerned they were not desirous of contesting the conclusion at which the Committee had arrived. Surely, the solidarity of the Government need not be so complete and entire that a Member of the Government should not express his opinion as to an assertion which was implied in the Report. For himself he desired that the precincts of the House should be sacred to the Members of the House, and that Members should not be molested within those precincts. He had had no hesitation in expressing his regret at the incident the moment he was made aware of it; but when he was challenged to express approval or disapproval of the Report he replied that there had been many occasions on which the House had appointed Committees of Privilege, but had taken no action on the Report of those Committees. And in this case the Committee itself had recommended that no action should be taken. The third paragraph expressly stated that the Committee did not recommend the interposition of the House, because no Breach of its Privileges was intended. In his opinion, therefore, it was totally unnecessary for the Government to notice the second or third paragraphs of the Report. As regarded the fourth paragraph he protested his unwillingness to place on record in a Resolution of the House a recognition of the fact that a Member could or ought to be arrested within the precincts, because there was in the fourth paragraph a distinct recognition that in certain circumstances, with the observance of due care and respect for the House, process might be executed within the precincts of the House. He declined to put on record any recognition of that right. He did not wish to embarrass the question in the slightest degree, and his right hon. Friend had given the strongest assurances, and he repeated them, that in no circumstances whatever, so far as the Government were concerned, should a repetition of the incident of last week but one occur within the precincts of the House. That was an undertaking which the House might accept, as it was given with a complete intention to see that it was carried out. Precedent and the substantial interests and honour of the House would lead them rather to pass to the Order of the Day than to accept the Motion of the hon. Member opposite, whose judgment and experience he fully recognized, and who had only made the Motion out of respect to the decision of the Committee. He therefore begged to move as an Amendment that the House do pass to the Orders of the Day.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the first word "House," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "do now proceed to the Orders of the Day."—(Mr. William Henry Smith.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. JOHN MORLEY (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

said, he had hoped that the discussion of the Report would have been very brief and entirely divested of Party feeling, because the House would observe that even the fourth paragraph upon which so much had been said, was not carried by a Party majority of the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury had just said that he did not accept the fourth paragraph, because it seemed to allow the possibility of process being executed upon Members within the precincts of the House. But by the qualifications and conditions which the Committee had imposed in regard to service of process within the precincts they did assert that if those conditions were satisfied—namely, if the House were not sitting, or, if sitting, leave had been obtained, service within the precincts would be justifiable, and no breach of Privilege. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary and the Irish Government admitted that Paragraph 4 had a foundation and a justification, because he had told the House that instructions had now been issued, and he (Mr. John Morley) wondered whether those instructions were issued before it was known to the Irish Government what the Report was.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

My instructions are not the same as those contemplated in the Report. The instructions suggested in the fourth paragraph are that when processes are served upon Members in the precincts of the House, the conditions suggested in the second paragraph should follow, and the leave of the House should be obtained. My instructions go much further than that. They are that no Member should have any process served on him under any conditions within the precincts of the House.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

said, that the issue of those instructions was the justification for the fourth paragraph. If necessary he could produce abundant proofs from answers to questions during the inquiry, showing that those who were responsible in London and those who were most responsible in Ireland for the action of the Constabulary had been sensible that it would have been well if instructions had been issued; and it appeared that, as far as the London police were concerned, there were standing instructions, or at least a standing provision, that processes were not to be served or executed within the precincts of the House. There was one very important point in the evidence brought before the Committee bearing upon the new instructions which ought to have been given the moment it had been found necessary to issue a warrant or summons against any Member of the House. It was the case of the proposed arrest of the hon. Member for Eos-common; and the Irish Attorney General had in that case taken the course which he believed the House would expect an Irish or English Government to take in such cases. The Irish Attorney General had minuted the warrant to the effect that care should be taken that the accused was not arrested in the precincts of the House or in any place near the House. If the Irish Government in July last had been so much on the alert, had been so sensible of the impropriety of executing processes within or near the precincts of the House, he could not understand why general instructions had not been issued, and why the Chief Secretary or the Government should object to placing on record the opinion of the House that such instructions ought to have been issued. It was perfectly clear that the minds of some of the officials in Ireland did need to be seriously enlightened on this subject; because the Committee had it from the District Inspector who had instructed Sergeant Sullivan to come to London and serve the summons, that the service should be effected upon the two Members while they were coming to their Parliamentary duties. He did not wish in the least to widen the area of the discussion; he should like to contract it as much as possible. But it seemed to him that they should have fallen short of what was expected from the House if they had not placed on record their regret that the ordinary sensible precautions had not been taken to prevent, not merely a breach of Privilege to the individual Member, which was a small matter, but the placing of a great contempt on the dignity and authority of the House. He regretted that Divisions had to be taken on the subject; he had hoped that the matter would have been disposed of without them. But it was not the fault of hon. Members on that side of the House if the question had assumed a Party complexion.

MR. HANBURY (Preston)

said, that as his vote had turned the scale on the paragraph in dispute, he would explain the history of it, to show that it was not framed on Party lines. The paragraph had been drawn up by the hon. Member for Blackpool (Sir Matthew White-Ridley), and the hon. Member had been prepared to vote for it until the hon. and learned Solicitor General, with wonderful dexterity, had inserted in the previous paragraph the words— Inasmuch as your Committee are satisfied that he did not intend any violation of the Privileges of the House, and he had not received any special instructions with regard to the service he was directed to effect. Only then, when the purpose of the hon. Gentleman had been thoroughly fulfilled, had the hon. Gentleman not felt justified in voting for the paragraph. As far as he (Mr. Hanbury) was concerned, he did not care in the least whether the paragraph were placed on the Records of the House, because they had gained their purpose, which was to prevent in the future any similar inroads upon the Privileges of the House. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would not only see that hon. Members were protected within the precincts of the House itself, but would also carry out what he thought was the wise direction of the Attorney General for Ireland when he had ordered that care should be taken that the accused should not be arrested within or near the precincts of the House.

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

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had deprecated any introduction of heat into the discussion. The right hon. Gentleman could afford to keep cool. No one was likely to try to serve a process on him. The opposite Party were quite free from danger; but the Irish Members were the Party affected, as they were constantly subjected to molestation and insult. It was the duty of the right hon. Gentleman to have risen in his place when the Order of the Day was called, and, if rot prepared to make a Motion, to state the intentions of the Government. But he had only risen when encountered by the Motion of a private Member to deal with the Report of the Committee. The House had appointed a Committee to Report on a matter vitally affecting hon. Members, and the House had no right, when the Report of the Committee was presented, to be quiescent; it was bound to take such action as would put its opinions on the purview of the Report beyond question for the future. The House, in the course of the debate, would expect to hear from the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for England (Sir Edward Clarke) and from the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Matthews) on the subject of the second paragraph of the Report. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had moved in the Committee that the action of Sergeant Sullivan was a Breach of Privilege; and the hon. and learned Solicitor General for England had moved the explanatory paragraph that followed. These two hon. and learned Gentlemen were the constructors of the second paragraph; and the dissent of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland upon the second paragraph showed that, whatever else he might be, he was certainly not a modest statesman. The dissent of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary could not be minimized. It was his action in the past that had formed the subject of condemnation; it was his failure to instruct Sergeant Sullivan that had led that officer into the morass of a Breach of Privilege; it was his action that might be dangerous in the future. And therefore the dissent of the right hon. Gentleman, instead of being a matter that could be ignored, was of the utmost importance. That dissent having been expressed, it was the duty of the House, upon the Motion of the hon. Member for Bedford, to determine whether it agreed with the First Lord of the Treasury, the Home Secretary, and the Solicitor General for England, or with the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary declared that though what had happened was not a Breach of Privilege, it was highly improper. [Mr. A. J. BALFOTTR: "Hear, hear!"] He (Mr. Sexton) so seldom agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary that he was glad to do so in expressing the opinion that when the Committee had agreed that the Breach of Privilege was committed they ought to have gone a little further and declared that all such actions, when a Member was engaged in his Parliamentary duties, would constitute a Breach of Privilege; because it must be evident that when an hon. Member came down to the House at 12 o'clock in the day to await the Sitting of the House, that he was just as much engaged in his Parliamentary duties as if the House was actually sitting. Therefore he thought that the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman in reference to the fourth paragraph in the Report were wide of the mark. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had said that if a warrant had been issued it could not have been executed by the Irish police, but would have been executed by the English police. But it was apparent that if proper instructions had in due time been issued to the Irish police by the right hon. Gentleman's administration, in the event of the issue of a warrant for the arrest of Irish Members in England, the Irish police would have communicated to the English police the instructions necessary for a due execution of the warrant. The right hon. Gentleman sheltered himself under a flimsy pretext—because it was nothing else—that no compulsion had been used. But had there been no molestation! The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary smiled; but would he like to be molested himself when he was delivering one of those weighty and interesting speeches with which he was in the habit of gratifying the House? His hon. Friend the Member for South Galway (Mr. Pickerton) was actually taking part in the debate when he was induced to go into the outer Lobby, where a further attempt was made to inveigle him to go beyond the precincts of the House. That was a much more serious matter than the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was disposed to imagine. The right hon. Gentleman said that the matter was a trivial one because the summons was not a valid summons. If the summons were not a valid summons, why was it issued at all? Perhaps what was meant was that the summons was issued because Irish Members objected to be arrested on warrants in London. Surely it was not a reasonable thing for the Irish Government, having given up one form of proceeding, to substitute for it a form which was not only ineffectual but was also invalid. The reasonable and the proper course to have taken would have been, if they determined to give up the course of arrest under warrant, to take the sensible course of informing a Member by letter that his attendance was required on a certain day in Ireland, because the letter would have been equally valid with the summons if neither had binding force. He was bound to admit the readiness, sincerity, and earnestness with which the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury at first expressed to the House his condemnation of what had occurred; and he was glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chief Secretary for Ireland that no attempt should be made to execute any legal process of any kind in the precincts of the House. But there was not a particle of difference in principle between the serving of process within the precincts of the House and dogging the steps of a Member when he left to a point at which process could be served, or lying in wait for him to follow him when he left his residence in London. In the one case he was taken when in the actual discharge of his Parliamentary duties, and in the other he was interfered with in the effort to discharge them. All these processes against Irish Members were under the Coercion Act. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary knew that when Members came over to England they came to attend to their Parliamentary duties, and, therefore, the least that could be expected was that he would arrange to summon or arrest them when they were in Ireland. It could not be said that there was any urgency in the proceedings, and the ends of justice would be just as well served by postponing any attempt to serve process until Irish Members were in Ireland. He was sorry that no further reference was made in the Report to the action of the Crown Solicitor for Limerick, Mr. Leahy, who certainly had committed a distinct Breach of Privilege. What was the action of that gentleman? He showed contempt for the pledge that had been given by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, and he disregarded the action of the House in appointing the Select Committee. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had given a pledge that Irish Members should not be arrested until the Irish Estimates had been disposed of, and the House had also appointed a Select Committee to inquire whether a Breach of Privilege had been committed. By the action he took in addressing letters to two hon. Members in reference to prosecutions he ignored the action of the House, and determined for himself the character of the transaction referred to the Committee. Therefore, Mr. Leahy had been guilty of a Breach of Privilege far more gross than that of Sergeant Sullivan, who erred from the insufficiency of his instructions. Yet Sullivan was the instrument of a policy, the ignorant instrument of a well-considered policy; he was really not to blame; he was the servant of a Government which lost no opportunity of molesting and insulting the Representatives of the Irish people; he was well aware that many of them had been batoned by the police when attempting to address their constituents. He knew that the hon. Member for a Division of Kerry had been taken out of prison in the garb of a convict and conducted through the principal town in his constituency—deliberately paraded in that garb to make a landlord's holiday; and he knew that the hon. Member for South Galway had been taken from Clonmel Gaol—in which he was serving in prison garb—and when he refused to wear the prison cap he was taken bareheaded half-way across Ireland to Galway. He (Mr. Sexton) maintained that this Irish constable was not to blame, because he had no respect for Irish Members.

MR. SPEAKER

The right hon. Member is deviating from the question before the House, which is the Report of the Committee on the question of Privilege.

MR. SEXTON

said, in that case he would not proceed any further in showing that Sergeant Sullivan had been misled by the policy of the Government. Another point he wished to take was that the Blue Book containing the evidence taken by the Committee was not placed in their hands until 10 o'clock that morning, and they had not had sufficient time to make themselves acquainted with it. He observed in this proceeding a tendency to repeat the practice of obliging the Members of the House to come to decisions on important public questions without any facts to go upon. During the day he had succeeded in reading only 40 pages out of the 72 to which it extended. Before the House could discuss the Report it was necessary that it should be acquainted with the evidence, which was known only to the 11 Members of the Committee. Members were entitled to ask for an opportunity of reading the evidence before they were called upon to ratify the fourth paragraph of the Report. Unwilling to vote on the matter without reading the evidence, and believing that other Members were in the same position, he moved that the debate be adjourned to to-morrow.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Sexton.)

MR. W. H. SMITH

said, he trusted the House would not consent to an adjournment of the debate. The hon. Member's Friends had pressed the Government to put down the question for Tuesday, and he (Mr. W. H. Smith) had stated that it would not be possible to have the evidence printed in time, and that it would not be possible to have the evidence printed before Wednesday. The evidence was in the Vote Office on Wednesday, and arrangements were made for the consideration of the Report that day. He thought that after the discussion that had taken place it would be for the advantage of the public interest generally if a Division were taken on the Main Question.

MR. JAMES LOWTHER

said, he thought it most important that this question should be treated without the introduction of the element of Party.

MR. SPEAKER

The question before the House is the Adjournment of the Debate.

MR. CHILDERS (Edinburgh, S.)

said, as a Member of the Committee, he was of opinion that the evidence, so far as it bore on the Report, was within such compass that it could well have been studied since it was put into the hands of hon. Members. It was obtainable at the Vote Office yesterday. He hoped, therefore, that the Motion for Adjournment would not be pressed by the hon. Member.

MR. SEXTON

said, he had pressed for the naming of an earlier day, expecting that the evidence would have been circulated previously. He did not admit the sufficiency of the time for the study of the evidence, but in deference to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh he would not press his Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Question again proposed.

MR. JAMES LOWTHER (Kent, Isle of Thanet)

said, that the subject was one that ought to be discussed without Party spirit. He was one of a somewhat old-fashioned number who held that the privileges of the House were a matter of extreme importance, which ought to be maintained without regard to the quarter of the House in which a Member sat who might for the time be affected by any question of Privilege. Therefore, he held it was very desirable that the views of the Committee should be clearly explained, not only as regarded the conduct of the individual officer who had the duty cast upon him of serving this somewhat irregular document, but also upon the whole policy of the service of proceedings within the precincts of the House. If the fourth paragraph of the Report, upon the composition of which he could not congratulate the draftsman, had stopped in the fourth line at the word "House," omitting the words "in serving or executing process against Members within the precincts of the House," he should have indorsed it heartily, because the House had never been satisfied to deal merely with the humble instrument through whom a Breach of Privilege had been committed, but had always gone to the fountain-head and dealt with the persons who instructed him to act. A case in point arose within his own personal knowledge in that House in 1866, with regard to the supposed arrest of Sir Robert Clifton, respecting whom a Committee of the House were about to report that he had been incapacitated from sitting through the corrupt practice of his agents. A noble Lord sitting on the Front Bench below the Gangway opposite rose to a point of Order to call attention to the rumour that Sir Robert Clifton had been arrested under some civil process while the Committee were waiting to present their Report to the House. This statement the noble Lord gave on the authority of one of the counsel engaged in the case. It was eventually shown in the discussion upon that particular matter that Sir Robert Clifton had not been arrested at all, and he himself saw that Gentleman a few minutes afterwards in the Lobby. But what was the Motion which the present Prime Minister (then Lord Cranbourne), the noble Lord to whom he referred, presented to the House? It was not that the myrmidon of the law who was supposed to be guilty of this Breach of Privilege should be brought to the Bar, but that the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, the responsible officials under whose orders he was acting, should be brought to the Bar of the House; and Mr. Ayrton suggested that the Sheriffs should be ordered to bring Sir Robert Clifton with them to the Bar of the House. All this showed that the House had never allowed itself to deal merely with the humble instrument; and although he was not one of those who thought that the Government were to blame for the stupidity of Sergeant Sullivan, he thought it was quite right that the Committee should express regret that an officer of the law should be sent over from Ireland charged with official duties and should not be told to give a wide berth to the House of Commons. As to the remaining portion of the paragraph, he thought with his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary, that the House would be stultifying itself if it were to recognize a right on the part of any person, under any circumstances, to serve processes within the precincts of the House, and he should therefore vote for the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury. He, however, felt bound to remark that all this difficulty had arisen from the Government making concessions upon points upon which they would have been wise to stand firm. The Government were urged to afford facilities to Irish Members to be present when the Estimates were discussed. In his opinion the Government would have done better if they had said that the law was equal for all, and that all were equal before the law, and that they could not make any exception in the case of persons charged with criminal offences whatever their station in life might be. With regard to facilities being afforded to Members of Parliament to attend the debates on the Estimates, that was a matter on which he did not feel himself competent to enter. It might be a part of latter-day Parliamentary tactics to inform hon. Gentlemen that if they wished to eat their Christmas dinner otherwise than at Her Majesty's expense, they had only to prolong discussion on the Estimates beyond that festive period. But unless they were prepared to say that the offences of persons arrested under the Crimes Act had a political character, it was not desirable in administering the law to give them different treatment from that allotted to other persons charged with criminal offences. If the Government reverted to the sound Constitutional doctrine that Her Majesty's subjects were all equal before the law; if they said that Members of Parliament who placed themselves within the meshes of the law must take "pot luck" with other people; and if they stated that the officers of the law would be employed for the purpose of carrying out the orders of the Queen's Courts without any interference from the Executive, it would be a more Constitutional course of action, and one more likely to avoid incidents of this kind than that which had been adopted. He knew that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland was as anxious as anybody to prevent such incidents arising, and they had only occurred through the right hon. Gentleman's good nature in listenting to suggestions which were made to him, and which were conceded by the Government with the view to meet the wishes of Members of the House. No doubt the Government thought that unfair advantage would not be taken of those concessions. What had happened would show them, however, that it would not be wise to repeat proceedings of that kind. As it was not open to him, under the Rules of the House, to move to omit a portion of paragraph 4, he should vote for the Motion of the First Lord of the Treasury, to avoid the House stultifying itself by recognizing the right of any person to serve a process within the precincts of the House.

SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

said, that his right hon. Friend who had just sat down had stated that there should be no distinction between Members of Parliament and other citizens.

MR. JAMES LOWTHER

Outside this House.

SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN

Quite so. In that case Privilege must go. He wished to put forward what he considered to be the spirit as well as the letter of the question of Privilege in the words of a very much abler speaker than himself:— I feel, and I am sure that we must all feel, that a Member, though unseated, ought to be treated as game and not as vermin; that law must he given him "before he is pursued. Those words were used by the present Prime Minister—then Lord Cranborne—in 1866, from a seat below the Gangway. If that amount of respect ought to be paid to a Member who was about to be unseated, surely it ought to be paid to those who were still the Representatives of the people. He conceived that during the present year, and in consequence of those arrests which were made just outside that House—about which he personally felt as strongly as about the serving of processes within the precincts—questions had arisen which it was absolutely necessary should be solved. There were two points of view expressed in the evidence given before the Committee. The first was given by Mr. Williamson, Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police. The following was his evidence:— Would you have directed Sullivan to prowl about the approaches to the House?—Yes, I think so. You would have advised him to lie in wait for Mr. Finucane or Mr. Sheehy?—Yes; by 'the House,' I should mean in any way inside of Palace Yard. You would not mean one inch outside the gates?—Outside the gates. You would think that Mr. Finucane was fairly served, or that any Member might be served with process, or that process might be executed upon him, immediately outside the gates?—Yes; that would be my opinion. The other view seemed to be embodied in an answer given to his right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley) by the learned Gentleman the Clerk of the House (Mr. Palgrave) sitting at the Table— That is to say, that the Privilege is bound up with, and based upon, the performance of Parliamentary duties. It is a Breach of Privilege if it interferes with the conditions of the due performance of Parliamentary duties; is that the proposition?—That proposition applies both to Members or to other persons attending the House. Of those two views he held the latter very strongly. He believed that it was a sound view, and the best way to establish it was for the House to adopt the Report of the Committee, which appeared to be as full and accurate and satisfactory a Report as they were likely to get from any Committee. He was not anxious to get a large Division, but he wished to know who were the hon. Gentlemen who thought that Members ought to be dogged by constables in Palace Yard and those who thought that they ought not.

MR. BRADLATJGH (Northampton)

said, that the Chief Secretary for Ireland had contended first that there was no breach of privilege because the document sought to be served by the policeman had no legal value, and next that the Royal Irish Constabulary exercised no jurisdiction and performed no duties in executing process in England. The Chief Secretary further objected that the fourth paragraph of the Report did not sufficiently maintain the privileges of Members of that House, The question of the summons being of no value was met by Answer 21 of the evidence given before the Committee. It was there expressly stated that the document which was sought to be served upon the hon. Member contained the words— This is to command you to appear at the Petty Sessions on the 26th of December, 1888. Whether the document was worthless or valuable, if it pretended on the face of it to be a legal process commanding anyone to attend anywhere, it was an absolute Breach of Privilege to attempt to servo it upon a Member of that House. Then it was said that the document was worthless because if it had been a warrant it could not be executed here by a member of the Irish police, as the Royal Irish Constabulary exercised no jurisdiction and performed no duties in this country. Mr. Lowndes, District Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary, was asked by a Member of the Committee whether he was aware that there were serving in England a great many Irish constables, and he answered, "I believe there are." Being further questioned, "Do you know it?" he replied, "Yes; I am aware that at certain places in England there are Irish constables." Moreover, it will be in the memory of the House that when the question of Privilege arose earlier in the Session in regard to the arrest of the hon. Member for North Monaghan (Mr. Patrick O'Brien) in mistake for another Member, it came out that he was actually arrested by Sergeant M'Intyre, of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Therefore the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was absolutely ignorant of the conduct of his own officials, for which he was responsible. As to the wording of the fourth paragraph, he submitted that it must be read as part of the whole Report, and would then be governed by the distinct declaration of paragraph 2 that the act complained of was a Breach of Privilege. He (Mr. Bradlaugh) thought it was most unfortunate that the Government would not allow the Motion of the hon. Member for Bedford to pass without challenge. There was nothing in the Report of the Committee that was of a Party character; and he trusted that hon. Members opposite would maintain the dignity of the House and adopt the Report of the Committee, the majority of whom belonged to their own side of the House, and would not insult the Committee by passing to the Order of the Day, thus practically saying that they disagreed with them.

MR. WARMINGTON (Monmouth, W.)

said, that it was an error to suppose that where a Committee had reported that a Breach of Privilege had been committed, that Report had been passed by unnoticed by the House; and he held that it would be a dangerous thing to refer the question of whether there had been a Breach of Privilege to a Committee, and when they had reported that there had been a Breach of Privilege for the House to take no action upon the Report. It would be open to the observation hereafter that the House did not agree with the Committee, and that, in fact, there had been no Breach of Privilege. According to the evidence adduced before this Committee, the instructions given to the constable were that the summonses should be—he conceived with very doubtful legality—in duplicate, that there should be two summonses issued against each Member, and that one should be served at the residence of the Member in Dublin and the other be served personally on him in England. To say that the summonses were an idle form was only to add to the injury that was reported to the House. The summons was actually signed by the Resident Magistrate and sealed with the official seal. In conclusion, he repeated that it would be a dangerous thing for the House to pass by that Report when they had the finding of the Committee that a Breach of Privilege had been committed; and he thought that the Report would be appealed to hereafter with greater usefulness if a Motion like that of the hon. Member for Bedford were adopted and recorded on the Journals of the House.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 130; Noes 182: Majority 52.—(Div. List, No. 347.)

Words added.

Main Question, as amended, put. Resolved, That this House do now proceed to the Orders of the Day.