§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum not exceeding £4,478 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, 1890, for the Salaries of the Officers and Attendants of the Household of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and other Expenses.
MR. MAC NEILLI have but a few words to say in reference to this Vote, and I regret that it takes precedence of the more important Vote for the Chief Secretary. However, a vast sum of money is wasted on the frippery and nonsense of this ginger bread Court, and many items require examination. There is an entry of £829 0s. 8d. for the Private Secretary of the Lord Lieutenant—there is a certain economic ring about the 8d. What are the duties of this gentleman that he should require such a large remuneration? He has not occasion to write many letters, he has not occasion to correspond with "Dear Mr. Army-tage." Does he keep the Lord Lieutenant's racing accounts? Let the Chief Secretary consider. He could keep two Resident Magistrates for this amount! Cecil Roche and Captain Segrave could go from one end of Ireland to the other and sentence us all to six months' imprisonment for this amount. Then what do the four Aides-de-camp do for their £200 each? What are the duties of the three gentlemen in waiting who, together, receive £443? Will the Chief Secretary, the Secretary of all Secretaries, tell us what are the duties of these gentlemen? Does the Private Secretary draw up those short and foolish speeches with which from time to time Lords Lieutenant irritate the people? What are the functions of the State Steward, for which he is paid £506, or of the Comptroller with £414? Does the Gentleman Usher or the Chamberlain discharge any duty for the salaries they receive? The same question applies to the Master of the Horse and the Sergeant of the Riding Horse. Is there a riding horse in the Castle, or where does the Sergeant earn his £30 a year? Passing from these I come to the provisions made for the welfare of the soul of the Lord Lieutenant—and these amount to £789. The chaplain to Dublin Castle is allowed £335, and his reading clerk £42; organist, choristers, and chapel keeper bring up the total to £789. But I would ask do any members of the Lord Lieutenant's household attend the ministrations of the chaplain? Do they not usually attend the services at the Hibernian Military School, or St. Patrick's Cathedral, or elsewhere? Very interesting also are the items 1804 under the head of "Salaries and Allowances for the Office of Arms." First we have "Ulster King of Arms," £920. Sir Bernard Burke supplies genealogies and arms to all and sundry who require such distinction. No doubt he would, if requested, add a "battering ram" argent to the Chief Secretary's quarterings. Various other items make up the total of this sub-head to £1,091. Now that would not be an unreasonable amount for the genuine work that Sir Bernard Burke does. He is a learned antiquarian scholar, and his services as keeper of the State Papers in the Irish R cord Office are most valuable. But for the most genuine work he does in this capacity he is paid much less than for ministering to the extravaganza at Dublin Castle, and deciding questions of precedence between a "knight banneret" and a "knight bachelor," or who has the claim to take certain ladies in to dinner. Then there is the entry of £12 16s. for the "kettle drummer" to which official reference has been often made in this House, and who still survives all criticism, and then we come to the expenses for the Insignia of the Order of St. Patrick, £60, and it is curious to note that the emblazoning and repairing of arms invariably comes to the same amount every year. The insignia are never cleaned. They are dirty deal shields, and so on, in St. Patrick's Cathedral. They are never brushed from year's end to year's end, and the cobwebs are never removed from them. Yet £60 a year is charged for attending to them. It will be little short of a gross violation of trust if we vote the sum. The Committee is asked to supply money for keeping up the paraphernalia of a gingerbread Court, and for administering to the vulgar vanity of people who have emerged from shops, and are ashamed of their origin.
§ MR. BLANE (Armagh, S.)One would have thought that the Lord Lieutenant got quite enough money to pay his own servants. An examination of the list of minions who are attached to the vice-regal household shows that a number of them are in receipt of very large pensions. We are bound to believe that the pensions have been awarded to them because they are no longer of any service. Here, however, they turn up smiling, and one of them 1805 gets £150, another £250, another £240, and so on. The one who has £240 is surgeon to the Dublin Metropolitan Police Force, and everybody who is acquainted with that force knows that any farrier or blacksmith in the City could do all that is required. A great many of these appointments date back to the Lord Lieutenancy of the Duke of Abercorn, and I think that no one knows better than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bristol (Sir M. Hicks Beach) how the hungry Hamiltons in Ireland search for every office. Their maw is insatiable. They hang on to their friends in every Department, and there is no getting rid of them. These men are the boa constrictors of the State. If anyone rises in this House to protest against their proceedings, a defence is always made for them. £800 a year is spent on aide-de-camps to the Lord Lieutenant, though those who occupy the posts already draw their pay as officers in the Army. Then there is a chaplain, I suppose for the preservation of the soul of the Lord Lieutenant. I wonder whether it has never struck Lords Lieutenants with surprise that their souls should be so very expensive. I cannot imagine why the Lord Lieutenant should not pay for the servants of his household. If I had £20,000 a year from anybody I would pay my own servants. Of course we are told that the Lord Lieutenant could not keep up the necessary state unless he had this staff. I can understand that there should be a certain amount of state in the Court of the Sovereign; but surely no one expects that you should keep up splendour in the half-crown Court of Dublin. Even the Chief Secretary cannot endure to spend more than three days there at a time. The place is left to dusters and housekeepers—some of the officials have residences outside in the small suburban villas of Dublin, and they rarely put their noses into the place. To throw down £7,400 of the public money every year to be scrambled for by these people is really preposterous. As I said before, the Hamiltons, the Stewarts, the Vane Tempests, and the other families that exploit Ireland for the benefit of themselves and their followers should pay their camp-followers themselves. These camp-followers are generally a most useless and vagabond 1806 set, and would not be tolerated in any other country in the world.
§ MR. M. J. KENNY (Tyrone, Mid.)I hope the Committee will not fail to note that this Vote does not represent all that is asked for for the Lord Lieutenant, the total amount being not £7,400, but £38,600. I am disposed to think that a Vote of this kind is more or less necessary as long as the Lord Lieutenant is retained. We may, some of us, have no objection to the principle of the maintenance of the Lord Lieutenant, and I myself think it a very good thing that it should be maintained. I believe I am right in saying that the office of Lord Lieutenant is not a profitable one, inasmuch as the holders of it have always to expend more than they receive, but at the same time I must enter my protest against such a large number of minor useless offices, some of which are purely grotesque, being attached to the Department. I think that the office of Ulster King-at-Arms, held by Sir Bernard Burke, might very well be dispensed with. He is a great genealogist, and has published many books which have more circulation in England than in Ireland. The reward he has got for publishing these books is that of being practically quartered on the taxpayers of the country. He receives £750 as Ulster King-at-Arms and £500 a year more as Keeper of the Record Office. Both these offices are sinecures. As Keeper of the Records Sir Bernard Burke has an unrivalled opportunity of making himself useful in the collection and publication of documents dealing with the history of Ireland. With the exception of tracing the history of families he has done nothing whatever to earn his salt. I would respectfully suggest to the right hon Gentleman the Chief Secretary if he happens to be Chief Secretary when Sir Bernard Burke resigns or vacates his office, that he might very reasonably reduce this annual Vote by abolishing the Office of Ulster King-at-Arms. There is in the Vote an item of £40 for providing certain insignia for the Order of St. Patrick. I believe that no investiture of the Order has taken place during the last twelve months, and I do not understand what the item is for. The Vote also includes an item of £1,563 for Queen's Plates. This was originally intended for the purpose of encouraging and im- 1807 proving the breeding of horses, but in England it has been discovered by experience that the money so devoted does not produce any satisfactory results, and it has been devoted to other purposes. At present there is already an allowance of £5,000 annually made to the Royal Dublin Society for the encouragement of horse breeding, and it would be far better if this sum of £1,500 was also devoted to that society for a similar purpose. I should be sorry to ask the Committee to reject the sum, but I think the whole amount that comes under Sub-head D might be dispensed with; and for the purpose of protesting against the waste that occurs in this connection, I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £1,091 for the salaries and allowances of the Office of Arms.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item D, of £1,091, for Salaries, and Allowances of Office of Arms, be omitted from the proposed Vote."—(Mr. Matthew Kenny.)
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI think the hon. Gentleman in the attack he has made on the Ulster King-at-Arms has omitted to refer to the fact that the expenditure of £1,100 is not a charge on the Treasury. At all events, he carefully kept it out of his observations. As a matter of fact the Office of Arms is almost self-supporting, the fees received being nearly sufficient to cover the expenditure of the office. The average deficit is annually only about £220 a year. Attacks have been made on various officers of the Lord Lieutenant's household. I do not think it is worth while to enter into details, but I will content myself with saying that so long as there is a Lord Lieutenant there must be a Lord Lieutenant's household. Whether there ought to be a Lord Lieutenant at all is an open question, and one upon which the hon. Member who introduced this subject appears to have a much more decided opinion in favour of the retention of the office than I myself have. As has already been stated, however, there are certain offices which, when they become vacant, it is not intended to fill up without previous consultation with the Treasury. Among these are the offices of Ulster King-at-Arms and the drummer who is the last survivor of the Viceregal band. With regard to Queen's Plates, I confess 1808 that I am not an admirer of this mode of encouraging horse breeding, and when I was Secretary for Scotland I did what I could to alter it in Scotland. As Chief Secretary for Ireland, soon after taking office, I inquired into the subject, but a very small amount of inquiry convinced me that any attempt to interfere with the Queen's Plates would raise a storm of indignation, and this I was unwilling, in regard to this subject, to undergo. I quite admit that I do not wish to add to the many controversies which I already have on my hands with regard to Irish affairs. The hon. Member holds, perhaps rightly, that the money might be better spent in encouraging horse breeding. In that opinion, however, he needs the concurrence of many of his friends, and certainly of many people in Ireland.
§ MR. M. J. KENNYI have the support of everybody except those who are personally interested in the races.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI think the hon. Member is wrong, and that if I took the course he asks me to take a large number of gentlemen opposite would get up and denounce this new instance of alien tyranny. I hope the hon. Member will not think it necessary to press his Motion to a Division, and I hope the Committee will consent to pass the Vote, which is not for the Lord Lieutenant, but for his household, a Vote of a kind that must pass so long as Parliament determines to maintain the office.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe ecclesiastical establishment of the Lord Lieutenant comes directly under the general argument I have used. If you abolish the ecclesiastical establishment you will not effect an immediate economy, because you will have to give pensions to the present holders of offices. It has always been held that an ecclesiastical establishment is a necessary part of the Lord Lieutenant's household. In these circumstances I should no more assent to the abolition of the ecclesiastical than I should to any other part of the Viceregal state.
§ MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.)I should not have troubled the Committee but for the concluding observations of the right hon. Gentleman. It seems to be 1809 his peculiar misfortune, or else it is his deliberate intention, that whenever he intervenes in Irish Debates, whether of a set character or upon the Estimates, to raise a storm or, at all events, to set a breeze ablowing, which is altogether unnecessary. Anyone who listened to my hon. Friend will agree that he spoke in a most temperate manner, and certainly there was no idea in our minds of that "acrimony and that storm of indignation" to which the right hon. Gentleman refers in connection with the Vote for Queen's Plates. We reserve our indignation for some subject more worthy of it; we reserve it, for instance, for the consideration of the salary of the right hon. Gentleman himself.
THE CHAIRMANThe hon. Member is straying beyond the limits of the Amendment before the Committee, which is to omit the item for Ulster King-at-Arms.
§ MR. FLYNNI defer to your ruling, Sir, and will only refer to the item, and at once I take issue with my hon. Friend who has moved the reduction. This item is one of the last remnants of respectability allowed to remain from the Civil List of the ancient Irish nation. It is a touching tribute from a parsimonious Treasury to the instincts of a separate nation, and to the treatment that nation is entitled to at the hands of the people of this country. It is a survival of the time when Irishmen, whether they recognised the Lord-Lieutenant or not, were proud of a state of things in which there really is a Court, and something more than the tawdry flippery and trivial tinsel such such as we now see in Dublin. I do not agree with my hon. Friend in his Motion for reducing the Vote. But it is needless for the Chief Secretary to talk of denunciation of tyranny; there is nothing of the kind in this discussion. I express my opinion when I say that I should regret to see the item abolished, and I hope that when the present occupier of the office has ceased to hold it his successor will hold it under circumstances of greater dignity under the authority of this or of an Irish House of Commons. Differences of opinion we have on this subject, but the right hon. Gentleman altogether transcends the importance of these differences. It is one of the functions of this Committee to criticise these items, and of this amount 1810 of £7,478 for the household of the Lord Lieutenant there is much, if we were disposed to criticise with severe economy, to which we might take exception. The Vote for the Lord Lieutenant himself is withdrawn from criticism because it is payable out of the Consolidated Fund, but all the criticisms that we address to this particular Vote before us are not unconnected with the higher subject which we have in view, though technically we cannot deal with it. I hope my hon. Friend will not find it necessary to divide on his Amendment.
§ MR. COSSHAM (Bristol, E.)It is quite clear that we cannot enlist our Irish friends on the side of economy, and that whatever is to be done in that direction must be done by English Members. I would contrast with this enormous expenditure, which we are called upon to provide for the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the figures that in the same connection apply to that great people on the other side of the Atlantic.
THE CHAIRMANThe question before the Committee is the Motion on the item for the Ulster King-at-Arms.
§ MR. COSSHAMI quite understand that, because it is part of the household expenditure which I conceive to be on an extravagant scale, and of it this item of £1,091 is a considerable part. It does not appear to me that a poor country like Ireland is justified in having all this expenditure on a Court, and if a Division is taken I shall certainly support my hon. Friend. We have the assurance that some of these offices will not be filled up when vacated by the present holders. I hope this will be carried out rigorously, and that the right hon. Gentleman will retain office long enough to give effect to his undertaking.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 68; Noes 101.—(Div. List, No. 334.)
§ Original Question again proposed.
§ MR. GILL (Louth, S.)There has been an outcry in some quarters for the abolition of the office of Lord Lieutenant, and it has been stated that the office has been filled in recent years by those who certainly have not endeared it to the Irish people. For my own part, I am not prepared for the abolition of the office, for as long as Ireland occupies the position she does under the Act of Union, I look upon the office of Lord 1811 Lieutenant as one of the few symbols left of our separate nationality.
THE CHAIRMANIt is not competent for the hon. Member to discuss the question of the abolition of the Lord Lieutenant.
§ MR. GILLI was merely making a reference in passing. I was going to refer to the changes in the personality; but I pass from that. I will only say, in relation to the present holder of the office, that the Irish people have good reason to believe that they do not get full value for its retention.
THE CHAIRMANThe allowance to the Lord Lieutenant is specially charged upon the Consolidated Fund, and it is impossible to discuss the performance of the Lord Lieutenant upon this Vote.
§ MR. M. HARRIS (Galway, E.)It is a delusion and a sham to vote this money to keep up the household of the Lord Lieutenant while the homes and rooftrees of people in all parts of Ireland are being levelled to the ground by the forces under his control. Day after day we have records of these things, and certainly if I had it in my power I would sooner vote money for the support of these poor people and their homes than I would vote anything to keep up the household of the Lord Lieutenant.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Resolutions to be reported.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £26,271, 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, 1890, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Offices of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Dublin and London, and Subordinate Departments.
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREI do not rise for the purpose of raising any general discussion on the policy and administration of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, but for the purpose of raising a specific question in accordance with an undertaking which I gave some days ago, namely, as to the correspondence between the Chief Secretary for Ireland and Father Costello, the newly-appointed 1812 parish priest of Woodford, and with Bishop Healy, the coadjutor Bishop of that diocese in reference to the renewed wholesale evictions by Lord Clanricarde on that property. It is now some 18 months since I dealt with the whole of this question, and still this miserable dispute continues; from time to time fresh batches of evictions have taken place in continuance of Lord Clanricarde's avowed purpose to clear his property if the tenants did not give way and abandon to their fate those already evicted. Within the last fortnight 24 families have been evicted, 15 of them on the Portumna estate, where, owing to circumstances I will presently mention, there have been no previous evictions; nine of them on the Woodford estate, and of these nine I am informed that five are widows. Adding these to previous evictions, I find that 97 families have been evicted; and upwards of 170 persons have been sent to prison for various causes under the Coercion Act, directly or indirectly connected with this dispute. Further evictions on a large scale are threatened. Upwards of 60 tenants on the Portumna estate are in a position where they may be evicted at a moment's notice; a still greater number are in the same position on the Woodford estate, and, taking the whole property, I am told on authority I cannot doubt, that 800 tenants may be evicted if agreement is not come to. Under these circumstances, I have felt it a public duty to make a final protest before the House rises and to urge on the Chief Secretary for Ireland a course which will prevent what I believe will be a crime of unparalleled magnitude—namely, the clearance and depopulation of a whole district. Some days ago, before the recent batch of evictions, I put a question to the Chief Secretary for Ireland with reference to his correspondence on this subject and asked him to produce it. The Chief Secretary for Ireland replied to me in a tone and in terms which, if I did not wish on the present occasion to eliminate any personal controversy, I should feel it my duty to characterise in the terms it deserved. The Chief Secretary said he had no intention to gratify my curiosity by submitting to me his private correspondence. Hon. Members will probably understand by this that the parish priest of Wood- 1813 ford and Bishop Healy have written to the Chief Secretary for Ireland in a private manner, and not intending their correspondence to be made public. This, however, is not the case. I have the assurance of both those gentlemen that their letters were of a public character, on a public matter, intended to be made public. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, in reply, took the unusual course of making his letters private. In my experience, which extends over a good many years, I have never known a Minister, written to on a public matter, mark his letter in reply private. But I have consulted other and better authorities than myself on such matters, and I am told that it is a most unusual course for a Minister to answer public matters by a private letter and to refuse their publication. It can only be justified where the reply introduces fresh matter, which I understand was not the case in this instance. I have before me the letter of Father Costello, the parish priest of Woodford. This gentleman has only recently been appointed to that post in place of Father Coen, whose death was caused by the anxieties he underwent in consequence of this unfortunate dispute. [Mr. A.J. Balfour at this point returned to his place.] I am glad the Chief Secretary has returned, because although I quite appreciate the large amount of time he devotes to the business of the House, yet the matter I wish to bring forward is one which specially concerns himself. Father Costello is one of the most moderate men, though with deep sympathies for the tenants, and his first task on being appointed was to make an effort for the settlement of this question. He obtained authority from the tenants to act for them, and he then entered into communication with Lord Clanricarde. What occurred will best be explained by his letter to the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He wrote—
As parish priest recently appointed, I have, in the interests of justice and the public peace, endeavoured to effect a settlement of this unhappy dispute between Lord Clanricarde and his tenants. The latter authorised me to convey to his Lordship, as I did, that they were willing either to purchase their holdings at a fair valuation or agree to leave matters in dispute to arbitration or agree to any moderate terms. Instead of acceding to these terms Lord Clanricarde is preparing for wholesale evictions.Father Costello then entered into a 1814 narrative of recent events on the property, pointing out the number of evictions and imprisonments. He concluded by saying—In view of such facts and complications I request that the Government may send here an impartial Commission to hear both sides and present an accurate Report on the whole case; secondly, that all further action on the part of the Government be meanwhile suspended until the Report shall have been presented. Doing so will certainly avert social disorder, and afford reasonable but necessary protection to a notable section of Her Majesty's subjects against unrelenting extermination.This letter was a public one, addressed to the Chief Secretary for Ireland in his public capacity. The Chief Secretary for Ireland replied in a private letter. The letter, I am told, rejected the demand of the tenants and abandoned them to the tender mercies of Lord Clanricarde, whom the Government supported in his wholesale evictions with all the forces of the Coercion Act. I submit that we are entitled to have that reply or, at all events, the reasons for the action of the Government. I now come to the correspondence with Bishop Healy with reference to the Portumna district. Bishop Healy is the most conservative of all the Irish prelates on the land question. He holds the Plan of Campaign in holy horror, and he has done his utmost to prevent the Portumna tenants from throwing in their lot with the Woodford tenants. He has, however, the strongest possible opinion that Lord Clanricarde's conduct to his tenants has been unjust and cruel, and he has espoused the cause of the tenants with the utmost warmth. He has corresponded at length with Lord Clanricarde, but without obtaining any result. He has also corresponded with the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and I cannot doubt that it has been owing to his remonstrances and entreaties that till quite lately the Government did not support evictions on this part of the property. Time after time Lord Clanricarde has been in a position to evict on a large scale on this part of his property, and has made all his preparations; but time after time, at the last moment, on one excuse or other, the forces of the Crown have not been lent by the Government, and I believe that there is little doubt that this was due to Bishop Healy's exertions. I make no complaint on this score against the action of the 1815 Chief Secretary. On the contrary, I applaud it; but I want to know why this policy has now been reversed, or why the evictions have now been supported. I have the authority of Bishop Healy for saying that his letters were of a public character, intended for publication, and I cannot think that the Chief Secretary should shelter himself under the plea that his replies were marked private. I have not seen the letters of the Bishop: but the tenour of them may be gathered from an address which the Bishop made to the Portumna tenants some few weeks ago, when evictions were imminent, under solemn circumstances, in the Portumna Parish Church, in which he reviewed the whole position, and stated the part he had taken. I wish that I could read the whole of that address. It would convert the most stony-hearted to a view of the injustice of the proceedings of Lord Clanricarde. The Bishop said—The question is whether you are to become landless or not. It is, in fact, a question of life or death to you.The Bishop then entered into a history of the dispute. He showed how the rents had been raised in consequence of the tenants having voted contrary to the directions of Lord Clanricarde in the celebrated Galway election. He showed how, at the commencement of the dispute in 1885, he had personally urged on Lord Clanricarde's agent an abatement of rent on the ground that the tenants could not pay full rent. He showed that the agent had suggested a memorial to Lord Clanricarde; and that the memorial, signed by himself and by the Protectant rector, asked for an abatement of 25 per cent. He showed also that no answer was ever sent to this memorial, and that Mr. Joyce, the agent, was dismissed for advising abatements, and that evictions were then carried out. The Bishop then proceeds—Just 12 months later, in October, 1886, Messrs. O'Brien and Dillon came down and launched against Lord Clanricarde the Plan of Campaign. I had no great reason to like Lord Clanricarde. He treated me as no gentleman ever treated a Bishop. But, on the other hand, you know, for reasors it is unnecessary now to explain, I kept aloof from the Plan, and, to put it in the mildest form, I did not like it. Besides, I denounced the excesses of boycotting on more than one occasion, and every official of the Government knows well that I earnestly 1816 and constantly counselled you against outrage and exhorted you to patience and charity.… Then when last year Mr. Shaw Lefevre went to Loughrea I advised you to follow his counsel as that of one of our own friends, to follow his counsel, and to meet Lord Clanricarde, so to speak, half-way, and secure you the sympathy of all honest men.He then detailed the course of negotiations with Lord Clanricarde, and that with the consent of the tenants he had made a most reasonable offer, and that after three months' silence Lord Clanricarde replied with an alternative which could not be entertained. The Bishop concluded by urging the tenants to—Go out if you are so minded; but go out without violence to the officers of the law.Owing, I believe, to the exertions of the Bishop with the Chief Secretary the evictions were further postponed; but lately Lord Clanricarde has again found himself in a position to resume them. Just before the evil day another exertion was made to avoid them. Father Pelly, the administrator of the parish, by the desire of the Bishop, called the Portumna tenants together, and they made another offer to Lord Clanricarde. They would pay at once a year's rent with the abatement of 20 per cent, and would pay the arrears, subject to some abatement, if time were given, and if the tenants already evicted were reinstated and costs foregone. This offer was peremptorily rejected by Mr. Tener, and the evictions already described were carried out a few days ago. The tenants followed the advice of the Bishop. They offered only a passive resistance; they opposed no force to the Sheriff; they submitted to eviction quietly; and they have joined the ever-increasing band of evicted men. Now, I submit upon this statement that the tenants have made every exertion for a reasonable settlement of the case. The question is, which of the parties was in the wrong when the dispute arose? It is now certain that if Lord Clanricarde had made a reasonable abatement at the commencement such as has now at length been wrung from him, there would have been no dispute, no evictions, and no convictions and imprisonments. It is equally certain that for two years after the commencement of the dispute Lord Clanricarde made no offer which could be expected to be accepted by the tenants. I think it is equally clear that Lord Clan- 1817 ricarde is unwilling now to effect a settlement, through a vindictive feeling and a desire to punish his tenants for their present and past action to him. Bishop Healy, in one of his letters on the subject, stated that Lord Clanricarde had publicly, in writing, stated that he had inherited from his father a vindictive feeling against his tenants. Lord Clanricarde wrote to the Times denying, in the most absolute terms, the statement of Bishop Healy, and saying that he had never written any such letter. With some trouble I have been able to find the letter referred to by Bishop Healy, which I think hon. Members will say is one of the most extraordinary ever written by a landlord—one which sheds a most lurid light upon all Lord Clanricarde's proceedings, and fully justifies Bishop Healy's remarks. Some tenants from Woodford had written to the Freeman's Journal in 1879—that year of terrible agricultural distress to every lessee of Lord Clanricarde—for not making abatements of rent, and making a comparison between his conduct and that of his father. Lord Clanricarde replied in these terms—a letter, it will be recollected, written eight years after he had come into possession of the estate—Sir,—I have been informed that within the last week you have published a letter dated Loughrea, in which the writer, with indifferent success, attempts the easy task of drawing a comparison between my conduct and that of the late Lord Clanricarde towards the people of my Irish property. It is perfectly true my father devoted many years of his life to the interests of those on his property in Gralway, but he was so deeply wounded by their ingratitude that in one of his last letters he not only strongly expressed his bitter disappointment and mortification, but even begged that I would remember it against them, the only instance of vindictive-ness on his part I can remember; and I further gathered his opinion (which I share in) to have been that the people in question are incapable of gratitude and impossible to satisfy. Is it reasonable to expect that I, discouraged by the evil for good my father met with from his tenants, should care to tread in his footsteps.Your obedient Servant,CLANRICARDE.The ingratitude complained of was, I believe, that the tenants of this property refused to vote at Lord Clanricarde's dictation in the Election of 1871, when Colonel Nolan was returned. This letter, I believe, gives the clue to the present Lord's action. He is not in- 1818 fluenced by the ordinary feelings between landlords and tenants, nor even by the enlightened view of his own interests; he has all along been actuated by vindictive feelings, which he admits he inherits from his father; and having the tenants in his power, and supported by the Coercion Act, he is prepared to clear the estate and to depopulate the district unless the tenants will bend to him and abandon those who have already been unjustly evicted. Now I ask the Chief Secretary, under all the circumstances I have detailed, is he prepared to support this man in his vindictive action in clearing his estate? I cannot believe it. No greater crime, in my opinion, could be committed. What, then, is to be done? I could suggest many courses if there be a desire; but for the moment I believe the best and wisest course would be to follow the moderate and prudent suggestion of Father Costello, to appoint an impartial Commission to investigate the causes of the dispute, and meanwhile to suspend lending the forces of the Crown to evict. Before such a Commission I will undertake to prove every word that I have written and said on this case; and I shall be very much surprised if the appointment of it will not be an inducement to Lord Clanricarde to come to terms. I have, in conclusion, to apologise to the House for having detained them with this story at this period. I have returned to the House at great personal inconvenience, and in spite of the fact that I am paired for the remainder of the Session and cannot vote. I have done so because I have felt it a public duty to make an effort—it may be a last effort—on behalf of a people whom I believe to be cruelly used, and against a policy of extermination which Lord Clanricarde, supported by the forces of the Crown, appears to be bent on.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURIt is due to the right hon. Gentleman that I should at once reply to him, though I confess it taxes my ingenuity to find out what connection there is between the indictment of the right hon. Gentleman and the Vote for the Salaries and Expenses of the Offices of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman has attacked the action of the Government with respect to the enforcement of certain debts which he regards as being harshly 1819 exacted by the creditor. What would be the condition of this House if the Home Secretary in reference to England had to answer, not merely for the legal justification of any action of the forces of the Crown in enforcing debts, but for the moral character of the creditor and the general conditions under which that debt was enforced?
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREPerhaps the right hon. Gentleman may not have heard my opening sentences. If he had he would have seen the connection. I referred to the correspondence between Father Costello and Bishop Healy and the right hon. Gentleman. On this subject I, on a previous occasion, asked the right hon. Gentleman some questions.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI heard that reference, but I ask the Committee what difference does it make? Suppose, in the case I am putting, a friend of the debtor wrote a letter to the Home Secretary, would that bring the matter under the purview of the House of Commons? Lord Clanricarde may be as wicked as the right hon. Gentleman has painted him; but if Lord Clanricarde's conscience were loaded with every sin which the imagination of casuists has been able to conceive, is that a reason for not voting the salary of the Chief Secretary? I confess my utter inability to perceive the connection between Lord Clanricarde's moral guilt and the right the holder of the office I occupy has to receive the remuneration attached to the post. It is not my business to defend Lord Clanricarde, and I do not mean to defend him—it is quite outside my business; but granted he managed his estate not merely badly but unjustly, I do not see why I am expected to give any answer on the subject at all. The right hon. Gentleman thinks he has connected his indictment with the Vote because he has been able to state that the Rev. Father Costello and the Bishop Coadjutor had correspondence with me on the subject. It appears to be thought that, because these two rev. gentlemen have written to me, therefore my reply ought to be made public; but that is an unreasonable contention. If I had supposed that view would have been taken I should merely have sent them an official acknowledgment of the receipt of their letters, according to the well-understood rule, 1820 and there would have been an end of the matter. But I have great regard for both those rev. gentlemen to whom the right hon. Gentleman has referred. I believe that both have at heart the good of the tenantry among whom they are placed, and that they were animated by a sincere desire to end this unhappy quarrel, and therefore I was most unwilling to send them a dry official acknowledgment, which the right hon. Gentleman thinks is the sort of answer I ought to have given. I sent them, both private letters——
§ MR. SEXTON (Belfast, W.)The-reason why the correspondence is asked for is that the evictions were delayed for a considerable time, and it is believed the correspondence will disclose the reasons why the evictions were delayed, and why those reasons ceased to operate.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUROh, Sir, if that is the reason, I can afford the right hon. Gentleman immediate comfort, because on that particular point the correspondence would not afford any information. It was suggested in the letter from Father Costello, which I have not by me at the moment to quote from, that a Commission should be sent down to inquire into the relations between the landlord and the tenants on the Clanricarde estate, and that until that Commission had reported the Crown should refuse the aid of its forces in protecting the sheriff's officer. There is one objection to that course which is conclusive, and that is that it would be absolutely illegal. A Commission, unless appointed by an Act of Parliament, cannot take evidence on oath compulsorily, and it would have no more machinery for arriving at the truth than any policeman who might happen to be on the spot. Could we delay the ordinary legal process until the Commission reported? The right hon. Gentleman must be aware that we should be going far beyond our duties if we were to take any such course. Conceive the Home Secretary in England arriving at the conclusion that any particular creditor was acting, not illegally, but harshly in the exaction of a particular debt; conceive him announcing that he proposed to appoint a Commission to inquire into the conditions, under which the debt was contracted and the payment of it was asked; con- 1821 ceive him adding that until he was satisfied by the Report of the Commission that the debt was a just one, on the broad principle of equity, that he would absolutely decline to allow the forces of the Crown to be used in order to obtain for the creditor his legal right——
§ MR. SHAW LEFEVREA main part of ray case was that for four years the right hon. Gentleman had practically suspended evictions, and denied the use of the forces of the Crown on the Portumna estate.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURIt appears to be becoming a rule that I am to be interrupted more than any other Member. Could not the right hon. Gentleman wait until I had finished my argument? His interruption is absolutely irrelevant—foolishly irrelevant. I have stated an English parallel to the course I was asked to take; and the mere statement of it ought to convince every Member of the Committee that the course suggested, with the best of motives on the part of Father Costello, was a course the Government could not adopt. I believe there are not two members of the Irish clergy more anxious than are Bishop Healy and Father Costello to see, not only the law maintained, but these unhappy disputes settled; I believe they have done a great deal of good where they could exercise their influence, and I only wish they had imitators in every part of Ireland; and if these two gentlemen took, as I think they did, too favourable a view of the action of the tenants I would be the last to blame them for it. They rightly regard it as their business to do everything they can for their flock. Although I think that, if the Commission desired by the right hon. Gentleman reported on all the facts of the case, the result would be that blame would be thrown, not entirely on Lord Clanricarde, but that some share of it would fall upon the tenants, still I am not prepared to criticise these rev. gentlemen because they threw in their lot chiefly with the tenants. It is stated that for four years, by one expedient or another, I have prevented the forces of the Crown sometimes from being used to enforce evictions. Personally, I have not been in my present office for four years; and, speaking for my own tenure of office alone, I entirely deny that the Government have refused to sheriffs' officers the support which they have a right to demand in 1822 the Portumna district. Of course, in cases in which disturbances are anticipated, time must be allowed for inquiry and for concentrating the forces of the Crown. In cases in which sufficient notice has not been given and in which hardship would be inflicted on the troops and the police by concentrating them hastily, the Government have the right to tell the persons locally concerned that protection could not be given at the particular moment it was desired. Some discretion has always been left to the Executive Government in these cases. The right hon. Gentleman is entirely in error if he supposes that the Government have acted upon or have laid down any such indefensible proposition as that they have the right, if they happen to think any particular creditor, be he a landlord or any one else, is exacting a debt in a harsh manner, to prevent him exacting it, if it is a legal one, by refusing him or the sheriffs' officers who are carrying out the duties imposed upon them by a Court of Law the protection they have a right to require. I have said it is not my business to defend Lord Clanricarde or any other creditor in this country. I do not believe Lord Clanricarde is worse than many a creditor in this country. No doubt a man in Lord Clanricarde's position, the head of a great family in the county in which his property is situated, has duties that are not enforceable by law, but duties which would naturally be discharged by any man who fully accepted the responsibilities of his position, and which cannot be expected of every creditor in this country or in Ireland; that I will grant. Supposing Lord Clanricarde has not acted in a manner in which we had a right to hope he would act, is that a reason for not enforcing the law? Supposing Lord Clanricarde has acted as hundreds and thousands of creditors in London act every day of the week, is that a reason for refusing to him the protection that is given every day in London? It may or may not be a sufficient justification for visiting Lord Clanricarde with punishment by the pressure which I hope public opinion will always exercise through public-spirited members of the community; but it is not my business, it cannot be the business of any man 1823 connected with the responsible government of either England or Ireland, to enforce, by a violation of the actual law, his particular view, not of the legal, but of the higher moral obligation of individuals; and until it can be shown that the Government should undertake in Ireland a new and modern duty which no Executive has ever undertaken, either in England or in any civilised country, I maintain that no legitimate criticism can be passed upon the action of the Government with regard to the Clanricarde estates.
§ MR. H. J. WILSON (York, W.R., Holmfirth)I do not rise for the purpose of following the Chief Secretary in the remarks he has just addressed to the House; no doubt they will be dealt with by those competent to deal with the matter. But, in reference to his English parallel, I cannot refrain from saying that when England is covered by a centralised police employed in extracting unjust rents for cruel landlords under the direction of Resident Magistrates in direct communication with the Home Office, then it will be time to discuss the parallel the right hon. Gentleman has suggested between England and Ireland. One of the principal duties of the Chief Secretary is to answer the complaints of the Irish Members, too often well founded, with regard to what, in many instances, appear to us on this side of the House to be harsh and illegal conduct on the part of the Irish police. Why should we not know the code of regulations which govern the conduct of the Irish police? If there is nothing illegal in the code, what object can there be in concealing the instructions? If it contains anything that is illegal, it is all the more necessary that the House should be in possession of the facts. If we had this knowledge, I certainly think it might tend to prevent many of those questions now addressed to the Chief Secretary, and we could ascertain for ourselves whether in any given instance the police acted according to rule, or whether they acted according to their own ideas. So far as I can ascertain, this secrecy about regulations does not exist elsewhere. In regard to the Naval and Military Services, the regulations are most voluminously laid down in the Queen's Regulations and other documents that govern the Services and are 1824 open to all. With the exception of the case of the Metropolitan Police, which is also a centralised body, there is practically no secrecy kept up in connection with police regulations in this country, and I have the testimony of Chief Constables in many parts of England that there is no secrecy about the Police regulations. In many cases the actual rules and Code have been forwarded in response to my inquiry. From the ex-chairman of the Birmingham Watch Committee I have the information that there is nothing secret about the rules for the Birmingham Police, and he says he does not see how there can be any advantage in secrecy; and from Oxford, Scarborough, and other places, I have similar answers to my inquiries. At Scarborough even the Minute Book of the Watch Committee can be inspected by the public. The Chief Constable at Liverpool informs me that there is no secrecy about the Liverpool Police Code, and that any citizen can obtain a copy of it. This gentleman tells me he was formerly in the Royal Irish Constabulary, and he says he could never understand why there should be any secrecy about the Irish Code. He mentions, also, that on one occasion a friend of his wanted a copy of the Code for guidance in reference to a Police Force at the Cape, but he was informed, in reply to his request for a copy, that he must make his application through the Cape Government. Before this formal action could be taken the need for the Code had passed away. What can be the reason for all this pretended secrecy? I say pretended because, as a matter of fact, it is always possible to get a copy of the Code if you will only take the trouble. I am sorry the Chief Secretary has gone away; there is another question I have to ask him in reference to the now famous battering ram. I take an interest in the machine, for I believe I was the first to make its acquaintance. I came across it by chance at Letterkenny Railway Station, and by inquiry obtained many particulars about it. We were also able to obtain some information about it by questions here in the House.
THE CHAIRMANThe question cannot be raised under this Vote. If it is an instrument used by the police, then it should be discussed under the Police Vote.
§ MR. H. J. WILSONI bow to your ruling, Sir, my reference was only to answers I was about to quote, given by the Chief Secretary on this subject in answer to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle.
THE CHAIRMANThat in no way alters the view I take, that the subject cannot be discussed under this Vote.
§ MR. H. J. WILSONThen I pass from that subject to ask the right hon. Gentleman who is now in his place some questions in relation to the system adopted in Ireland of watching the movements of English Members of Parliament who visit that country. At various times, in answer to questions, the right hon. Gentleman has given various rulings on this subject, and I should like to know the rules under which the police act, for we have heard sometimes that Members have been followed because they were known sympathisers with the Nationalist Party, and at other times we have been told that Members were viewed with suspicion because they were not known to the police. We have also good cause to complain of the inaccuracy of the information which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary gives us in this House. The right hon. Gentleman seems to believe in the infallibility of his informants; he may hear the statements of hon. Members on this side of the House, but if these statements are contradicted by any of his subordinates the right hon. Gentleman at once accepts those contradictions as correct.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI shall be always ready to accept proof of any error.
§ MR. H. J. WILSONThis false information must be supplied by somebody. I do not attribute his replies to his imagination. The right hon. Gentleman ought to afford us means of tracing to its source the grossly inaccurate information which he offers to the House. In the case of Mitchelstown the Chief Secretary has been obliged to admit his error; but he has not informed the country of the source of that error. Yet the right hon. Gentleman will not afford opportunity for checking his statements.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI said I should be delighted to receive any proof that the statements made were erroneous.
§ MR. H. J. WILSONI do not know that the right hon. Gentleman has made the matter much clearer. In conclusion, I desire to protest against the abominable system by which Ireland is governed, and which necessitates the perpetration of all kinds of iniquity by the subordinates of the right hon. Gentleman.
MR. MAC NEILLI must say I could not see the analogy the right hon. Gentleman attempted to draw between his own position and that of the Home Secretary in England. The Home Secretary governs on Constitutional principles and is amenable to public opinion. The right hon. Gentleman governs Ireland in defiance of the wishes of its representatives and in defiance of every Constitutional principle. The Chief Secretary is simply the governor of Ireland and the real head of all Departments, though of some he is not the nominal head. The Irish Secretary is as despotic in Ireland as the Czar in Russia. To-night the right hon. Gentleman assumed something of his earlier manner, of the acidulated virtuous manner when he said that he would not interfere with the course of justice. The present Secretary shows a very different spirit from his predecessor, the President of the Board of Trade, who displayed a more benevolent and humane spirit than the present Chief Secretary with respect to the Clanricarde estate. I bring this charge against the present Administration, that the Crimes Act is being administered by agents of the right hon. Gentleman, not for the purpose of prosecuting crime, but as a means of destroying political opponents for partisan, selfish, and personal ends. I will divide the administration of that Act under three heads.
MR. MAC NEILLAs it is under the direction of the right hon. Gentleman that prosecutions have been instituted, may I not refer to the circumstances?
MR. MAC NEILLThe position of the right hon. Gentleman is so complex that I feel some difficulty in keeping within the limits of a Vote. But I think I may be allowed to say that I have always thought it an axiom of 1827 criminal justice that the punishment should quickly follow the crime. But that is not the rule followed by the right hon. Gentleman. The punishment under the Crimes Act is sometimes suspended for four or five months, and it was so in the case of my hon. Friend the Member for N. E. Cork. My hon. Friend delivered a speech at Ballyneale on September 30; but not until four months afterwards was he prosecuted for that speech. He was not prosecuted until late in January, and meantime he had given evidence before the Special Commission.
THE CHAIRMANThe hon. Member does not appear to appreciate what I have said. Prosecutions under the Crimes Act no doubt constitute a branch of Irish Administration. No doubt many branches of Administration are under the Chief Secretary, but there are certain Departments charged with certain duties, and the performance of those duties ought to be discussed on the Votes for those Departments.
§ MR. MACNEILLIt is difficult to obey your ruling, Sir. The matter is very complicated, and the Departments of the Irish Government are very closely interlocked with each other. The Chief Secretary is really the ruler of them all.
THE CHAIRMANAlthough the Chancellor of the Exchequer might be the head of the Customs Department and the Post Office, it would not be open to an hon. Member to discuss the Customs or Post Office on the Vote for the Salary of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
MR. MAC NEILLThen, Sir, I will pass away from that question. My speech has been very much cut down by your ruling, and I suppose I must only take the Chief Secretary in his general aspect. I may say that I believe him to be a very high minded Minister; but at the same time he has the unfortunate knack of attracting to himself the most low-minded agents; and month after month he is answering questions simply as the conduit pipe of his informers at Dublin Castle. He states things which he believes to be true, and his faith is great; but we know them to be false. When there is a distinct contradiction between his statements and those of the Irish Members we ought to know the sources of his official information, so that we may be able to trace the persons 1828 from whom he derives his tainted knowledge. I must say this—that the most obnoxious of the Irish Magistrates are those whom the right hon. Gentleman seems most readily to single out for advancement. The right, hon. Gentleman at first said that Donegal was in a state of revolution, but he afterwards stated that the revolution was confined to a single barony; but, at any rate, whatever Donegal is now, it was quiet before the right hon. Gentleman came into office, and its disturbed condition, since then, may be regarded as a curious coincidence. But if the police had to be in occupation of that district, how does it happen that the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) can go from one end of Donegal to the other without police protection? The people of Donegal are not fools. They know who the hon. Gentleman is; he could not disguise himself there, and they well know what he is doing. This fact proves how utterly fallacious is the information of the right hon. Gentleman, at any rate, with regard to the state of Donegal. In conclusion, I have only to say I am, sorry I have been obliged to curtail my speech, but it may be that I shall hereafter come out with a new and revised edition of it.
§ MR. GILLI suppose that, under this Vote, I shall be entitled to refer to the general administration of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary in Ireland and his conduct in this House. We have now had the benefit of the right hon. Gentleman's supervision of Irish affairs for nearly three years. He began those three years by setting before himself several very portentous tasks, and at the close of that period we find that he has not succeeded in accomplishing a single one. He set out armed with the Coercion Act—the most formidable Act ever passed by the British Parliament for the oppression of the Irish people. He set out intending to crush the organisation which the Irish people had formed for their protection against rack rents and unjust landlords, and against the policy of extermination which the landlords had been pursuing, and having sought, by imprisoning the Irish Members, to degrade them to the position of criminals in the eyes of the British people, he has, nevertheless, 1829 failed to carry out his original intention. He also set out to crush the Plan of Campaign, but in this, as in every one of his projects, the right hon. Gentleman has miserably failed. He says, on English platforms, that he has restored to Ireland peace, liberty, and prosperity; but what is the fact? Throughout the greater part of Ireland at this moment the right hon. Gentleman dare not allow a public meeting to be held at which his policy would be criticised. He stifles the voice of the Irish people by his battalions of soldiers and police. If he has restored peace and order in Ireland, why is it that if we wish to address our constituents we are obliged to employ strategy? As it is, none of us can go to any part of the South of Ireland to address a meeting without risking the lives of the people to whom we desire to speak. All the elements which constitute a healthy public life are suspended in Ireland. If you go to any typical town like Tralee, Cork, or Killarney, you will find a state of things which can only be paralleled in those places that are under the rule of the Czar of Russia or the Sultan of Turkey. We cannot call a meeting but the police rush forth with their bayonets and batons and smash the heads of the people, whom they disperse in all directions, afterwards preparing prosecutions against any public man who happens to have made a speech. No one who has anything to do with public affairs can travel about the country without being followed by policemen, who mount guard over every house he enters, and no newspaper can publish reports of public meetings without the publisher being subjected to prosecution, several Members of this House having been imprisoned simply for reporting in their papers speeches delivered at public meetings. The right hon. Gentleman has only succeeded in holding down the great bulk of the Irish people under the grip of an iron coercion by means of a police force and a military force more numerous and more powerful than that which is required in any other portion of the British dominions, and the moment the right hon. Gentleman relaxes that iron grip, all the elements which the boasts he has suppressed will spring up again in full strength. The truth is that the right hon. Gentleman's administration of the affairs of Ireland has 1830 been a miserable and a contemptible failure from beginning to the end. With regard to the Vandeleur estate the hon. Member for South Tyrone wrote a letter to the Times, in which he practically said that Captain Vandeleur was a fool for submitting to the demands of the tenants, and yet he has had the face to get up in this House, trusting to their forgetfulness of the facts of the case, and pretending that he did his best to induce the parties to bring about the settlement. That settlement was arrived at in spite of the hon. Gentleman, and in spite of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and all the forces at the back of the Executive. The audacity of the hon. Gentleman is only paralleled——
§ MR. GILLThe Chief Secretary for Ireland has done his best to prevent the settlement on the Vandeleur estate. Private individuals, however, have managed to bring the dispute to a satisfactory close. The Very Rev. Dr. Dinan and several priests helped to bring about the settlement, and they were described in a letter by the right hon. Gentleman's chief agent (Colonel Turner) as "Old Dinan and his villainous priests." The Chief Secretary for Ireland has not dared to repudiate that language.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI knew nothing about the letter.
§ MR. GILLThe fact that the right hon. Gentleman has not heard of the letter makes his own attack on the priests of Clare more wanton and uncalled for. I brought Colonel Turner's letter to the notice of the Chief Secretary for Ireland a night or two ago, and the right hon. Gentleman did not repudiate the language it contained, nor did he say it was reprehensible. On the contrary, he adopted the spirit of the language by saying that there were priests in Clare who were unworthy of their cloth. I say that to plain men this means that he justifies and adopts the language of Colonel Turner. The conduct of the right hon. Gentleman in this matter is certainly not wise, looking at the way in which the Irish people venerate the clergy of their Church; and it is conduct of which he has every reason to be ashamed, and for which, if he has the spirit of a man, he would get up and apologise. Advan- 1831 tage ought not to be taken of a seat in this House for the purpose of levelling gratuitous insults at anybody. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman in justice to these gentlemen whom he has traduced, and in justice to this House, which ought not to be made the vehicle for gratuitous insults—I challenge him to name the priests to whom he intended to refer. Hon. Gentlemen opposite cheered when I said that this House should not be made the vehicle for gratuitous insults. I beg to inform them that I do not use language against any man in this House which I would not use outside, and I venture to assert that unless the right hon. Gentleman names these priests he is guilty of conduct which I do not care to describe. I ask him not to despise or sneer at these imputations against him in regard to the manner in which he discharges his duties as Chief Secretary, and as the representative of the Government of a great empire. He has described some of the priests of Clare as men unworthy of the cloth they wear; and I again appeal to him not to lightly pass over this matter, for if he does I am sure that this assembly, which still possesses the instincts of honour which has been one of its noblest traditions, will view his conduct in the light which it deserves. The right hon. Gentleman has thrown himself against the Plan of Campaign, but he has failed to break it down. He has interfered to prevent settlements, yet private individuals have carried out settlements between landlord and tenant, despite his efforts. I should like for a few minutes to refer to the case of Lord Clanricarde, which has been so ably dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford this evening. The whole gist of the answer of the Chief Secretary to the right hon. Gentleman's charge was that he had had nothing to do with this case; that it was simply a matter between a creditor and his debtors, and that, consequently, he did not concern himself with it. But may I point out that that is not the view which his predecessor in the Irish Administration—the right hon. Baronet the Member for Bristol—took. When the right hon. Baronet was in office he also had to deal with Lord Clanricarde, and in what manner did he deal with this very difficult question? He found that 1832 Lord Clanricarde was described by the highest Court in Ireland as a person whose name had become notoriously disgraceful throughout the Empire, and whose conduct towards his tenants could not be justified under any circumstances. He found, in fact, that justice was on the side of the tenant, and that injustice, cruelty, and oppression were ranged on the side of Lord Clanricarde. Lord Clanricarde, at that time, appealed to the Government for help in carrying out his policy of extermination and vengeance, and the right hon. Baronet, who was then Chief Secretary, did not hesitate to enter into a correspondence which was made public, and which in fact came out in the course of the trial of the libel action brought by Mr. Joyce (Lord Clanricarde's agent) against Lord Clanricarde. From that correspondence we find that the right hon. Baronet summoned Mr. Joyce to his presence, and informed him that he could not lend him the forces of the Crown to assist in the evictions, unless the claims of the tenants got a better hearing at the hands of Lord Clanricarde. Lord Clanricarde thereupon wrote to the right hon. Baronet in his usual style, abusing him for the attitude which he, as a member of the Executive, had taken up, and the right hon. Baronet, in reply, justified his action, and again refused to lend Lord Clanricarde the forces of the Crown, or in any way to facilitate the carrying out the process of the law against the tenants under the circumstances which then existed. Therefore it will be seen that the right hon. Baronet did not plead that he had no concern in this matter as the present Chief Secretary has asserted. The right hon. Baronet found it was essential, in the interests of peace and order, that Lord Clanricarde should not be backed up by the Government in his proceedings against his tenants, and consequently in an hour of mistaken zeal he did his best to exercise what he himself described as "pressure within the law." The attempt, unfortunately, proved a miserable failure. Indeed, it was one of many miserable failures which have characterised the present Irish Administration. The right hon. Baronet having failed in his exercise of "pressure within the law," the tenants were compelled to meet the exigencies of the case by establishing an organisation of their own, 1833 and this organisation, which I contend was absolutely necessary and laudable under the circumstances, the right hon. Gentleman the present Chief Secretary has done his best to crush. I declare that the Administration of the right hon. Gentleman has been a failure from first to last. I declare that in his administration of the prisons, and in his action towards public meetings, as well as in his attitude towards the Plan of Campaign, and the position which he has taken up in regard to recalcitrant landlords he has failed in every respect, and he has simply led the Government on from one disgraceful failure to another. At the present moment after all his efforts to break down and crush the Irish people, we know that combinations against the landlords have succeeded. Over and over again in this House attention has been called to the action of the right hon. Gentleman in connection with the proceedings of the hon. Member for Huntingdonshire and his syndicate in the South of Ireland. I do not think it is necessary to refresh the memories of the Committee on this subject. We have too recently seen the right hon. Gentleman using the forces of the Crown as well as the eloquence which he undoubtedly possesses in upholding the action of that syndicate against the unfortunate tenantry on the Ponsonby Estate, simply because they had succeeded with the assistance of the Plan of Campaign in holding out against the injustice which was to be perpetrated upon them. We have seen the right hon. Gentleman proceeding against these tenants as an act of vengeance and tyranny, and we have seen him helping this miserable gang of landlords, who have leagued themselves together with objects of vengeance. Can he point to a single feature of his Government which can be described as a genuine success? When he first came into power there did exist in Ireland some measure of public liberty. Members of Parliament, at any rate, were able to visit their constituencies without running the risk of getting the heads of those constituents broken by police batons, or of themselves being arrested and prosecuted. We cannot forget how the Member for North Monaghan was brutally treated by the police on a recent occasion, and yet we know that no steps have been taken to punish the assailants 1834 of that hon. Gentleman. Not only have public meetings been suppressed, not only have the people been batoned, but Irishmen have been sent to prison wholesale; and scarcely a week passes but that a Representative from Ireland is either sent to prison or is released from gaol after serving his punishment. Indeed, throughout the length and breadth of Ireland there reigns simply brute tyranny, oppression, and coercion; a condition of things which constitutes the greatest mockery of the name of British liberty.
§ MR. H. H. FOWLER (Wolverhampton)I very much regret that the consideration of the Irish Estimates should have been delayed till this advanced period of the Session. I do not know who is to blame for it, but I know that it is very much to be deplored that only in the middle of August should we have an opportunity of examining the Irish administration as a whole. Now I am not going to inflict a speech upon this House, but I do wish to enter one or two protests on the subject of Irish administration, not with reference to the right hon. Gentleman personally, but with reference to the policy which he is carrying out and for which he is responsible. The right hon. Gentleman is often attacked with great severity for what is really not his policy but the policy of Parliament. Parliament has resolved that a certain policy shall be carried out in the administration of Ireland, and Parliament has no right, therefore, to find fault with a Minister who is honestly, capably, and courageously carrying out its policy. It is only fair and just to the right hon. Gentleman that I should say that. I may remind hon. Gentlemen of the celebrated repartee of Lord Beaconsfield when a right hon. Gentleman was attacking him on the ground of the illogical nature of the policy of his Government. Lord Beaconsfield told the right hon. Gentleman who complained that he forgot that this country was not governed by logic; it was governed by Parliament. The Chief Secretary does not, however, follow Lord Beaconsfield's precedent; he governs by logic, but he does not govern by Parliament. I have often admired the astuteness with which the Chief Secretary logically defends his position; indeed, he has a logical answer on every point on which he is attacked. 1835 Of course, if human beings were factors in a mathematical problem it would be all very well; but they are not; they are possessed with infirmities and weaknesses, aye, and excellences, which statesmanship must deal with, and, therefore, you cannot govern a great nation logically, as the right hon. Gentleman is now trying to do. The attempt to govern Ireland logically will consequently be a failure. Now, what I want to call the attention of the Chief Secretary to is this—there are three classes of feeling existing at the present time in Ireland for which the Chief Secretary is responsible, and which are among the most deplorable facts of the present situation. The first, which I do not think will be disputed, is that there exists in Ireland a widespread dissatisfaction with the administration of justice. We are so familiar with the fact in this House that familiarity breeds not only contempt, but almost indifference; but outside the House it is plain that we have in Ireland that which exists in no other part of Her Majesty's Empire or indeed in any part of the world. The overwhelming majority of the Irish people and their 86 representatives in the House of Commons, rightly or wrongly, do not believe that justice is fairly and impartially administered. That feeling arises to a great extent from the conduct of the Executive Government. Now, an Executive Government can do many things, it can deprive the people of their political rights, dissociate them from the government of their own affairs, and oppress them with taxation; but in the long run it cannot deprive the people of justice. A man's sense of injustice is his keenest feeling, and this fact will have to be dealt with sooner or later. It will be impossible to go on governing Ireland with four-fifths of the people believing that justice is not fairly administered, and with the Executive Government, under the superintendence of the right hon. Gentleman, sanctioning, supporting, and defending the administration of justice of which the people so keenly and constantly complain. The next sentiment for which the Chief Secretary is responsible is the patent hostility to the administration of the law in every part of Ireland. This antagonism to the administration of the law does not exist in England, because the people are in sympathy with 1836 the law, and a different feeling would prevail in Ireland if the Executive Government regarded the people as much as the administrators of the law. It may be asked, how is the Chief Secretary responsible for this? Well, the Chief Secretary is responsible for the antagonistic feeling in Ireland, because he chivalrously regarded it as part of his duty to defend every man who is engaged in the administration of thelaw. [Cheers.] Hon. Members opposite cheer that; but they would not let a Home Secretary act in the same way. They do not look upon him as a Minister to defend the administration of the law, but to protect the liberties of the people and to hold an equal balance. The Chief Secretary ought not to take it for granted that out of 12,000 or 14,000 men engaged in the administration of the law every one is perfectly trustworthy, perfectly wise, and blameless of any irregularity—that they are invariably right and the public are invariably wrong. During the last two years in the House I do not think that I have once heard the Chief Secretary admit that the police are wrong, yet they must be wrong sometimes. Even a Queen's County Grand Jury of Tory landlords at the last Assizes proposed a Presentment censuring the police for their foolish conduct at the time of Father M'Fadden's arrest. I am not taking the events connected with that arrest and with the unfortunate murder which followed otherwise than as an illustration of how a feeling may be created in the minds of the people that whatever is said or done by the police, by the Resident Magistrates, or by the Prisons Board, it will be defended in the House of Commons. I arraign and challenge the policy which the Chief Secretary honourably, courageously, and chivalrously pursues. Every man in this large army engaged in the administration of justice is turned into a combatant in the civil war now going on in Ireland with the people on one side and the police and Executive on the other. The other point for which the Chief Secretary is responsible is that the right hon. Gentleman has sanctioned, and, I fear, upheld, a great amount of official disrespect for Parliamentary government and for the Members of this House. The men who are in command of the 1837 Constabulary and who have the administration of justice in their hands have, I am sorry to say, with the sanction of their official superiors, fallen into the belief that the correct thing for them to do is to show contempt for the House of Commons. If anyone is to be dealt with in Ireland with more contempt than another that man is a Member of Parliament. We are sometimes irritated and annoyed in this House with oppositions and proceedings which we do not like, and there is, perhaps, a great deal to justify our irritation; but it is a great blunder to weaken the respect for Parliamentary institutions in this country, even when it is done by Parliament itself. It is a serious thing when any Department of the Public Service is allowed to do this. Such is not the rule in the English Service—either in the Military or the Naval Service or in the English Constabulary. The rule is for every head of an Administrative Department to insist upon the officers under his control treating the decisions of the House, and the proceedings of the House, and the Members of the House with that respect—official respect, at all events—to which they are entitled, having regard to the place they fill in the Constitution of the Empire. It is dangerous to encourage a want of respect for Parliament and its Members—there is a menace in all these things. In England and Scotland we have been safe, members of the Civil Service caring not who comes or goes. They know that they have done their duty to the Crown and Government, and they say: "We have never mixed ourselves up with political Parties—our destinies will be as safe with one side as with the other." But do you think that if these men became political partisans, that will be their state of mind; and do you think there is no danger of introducing the American system into this country? That, to my mind, is one of the rocks ahead in the administration of Ireland. I would point that out to the Irish Government and to those Civil servants who do not seem to look many days ahead. The Civil servants pursue an unwise policy in bringing themselves into collision with one of the great Parties of this House. I do not wish to protract this Debate, or to introduce anything of a personal element into it, or anything which the right 1838 hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary could regard as reflecting upon himself, but I feel it to be my duty, conscientiously holding the opinions I do, to say that whether you are to have Home Rule there or not, if you are to have contentment and peace and prosperity in Ireland, the people of Ireland must be satisfied that justice is fairly administered. You must have the Irish people satisfied with the administration of the law and supporting it, and not in hostility to it, arid you must not allow one branch of the Public Service in Ireland to take part in the great political conflict which is now raging, and to show antagonism to one of the Parties in the State by trenching upon what has been the well-understood rule of the Public Service up to the present time. No doubt the policy of the right hon. Gentleman is sanctioned by the Votes of this House, and represents the views of the constituencies at the last Election; but granting all that, I must say that, armed with this power and with all that moral force at his back, it would have been wiser for himself and better for Ireland if he had taken the policy of that great Irish Secretary, Sir Thomas Drummond, as his model, and regarded every individual citizen and peasant in Ireland as being as much entitled to equal and impartial treatment before the law as any policeman or Resident Magistrate in the country.
§ * MR. W. A. MACDONALD (Queen's County, Ossory)I cannot help differing from the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down in the statement he has made that the policy of the Government was authorised at the General Election. Hon. Members opposite, when before the constituencies, declared against coercion; but no sooner had they obtained their majority than they departed from their pledges, and substituted for the policy they had declared one of violence and coercion. But my object in rising is to say a word on behalf of peace and order in Ireland. I desire to ask the Chief Secretary whether on the 23rd of next November, when the celebration of the memory of Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien takes place, he will reverse the policy he has hitherto pursued, and allow the people of Ireland fairly to express their sentiments towards these men. The people of Ireland believe that the men who suffered at Man- 1839 cheater in 1867 were brave men, who tried to do their duty to their country; that they were unjustly convicted and unfairly punished. The memory of these men has been cherished with affection, and will continue to be so cherished as long as Irish hearts can beat. For 20 years the memory of these men was celebrated without opposition on the part of the authorities; but the present Chief Secretary, on entering office, changed all that. Although these meetings had been of a peaceful character, he issued proclamations against them. He did so in 1887, in the case of Limerick, where great irritation was caused, and the police exhibited a violence which was denounced even by the correspondent of the Irish Times. Last year meetings were proclaimed at New Ross, in the County of Wexford, and at Kilkenny, where, had it not been for the action of the Mayor, bloodshed would have occurred in the streets. A proclamation was also issued at Waterford, and the priests and leading inhabitants of the town assembled in the Town Hall, and advised the people not to give the police an opportunity for another Mitchelstown. A similar proclamation was issued at Cahir, and another in the town of Tralee. In the last-named town Mr. Cecil Roche published a proclamation, every word of which was a stab to the feelings of the people over whom he ruled, because he described Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien as convicts who, in due course of law, had been executed at Manchester for the murder of Sergeant Brett. Now, what I want the Committee to apprehend is that while these meetings I have mentioned were proclaimed, nothing was done to prevent meetings in Dublin, in Thomastown, and in Athlone, and it is, therefore, obvious that the policy of the Executive was not uniform. But there is something still more extraordinary behind. In all these towns where the meetings were prohibited, the people were of one mind; consequently, there would have been no breach of the law; but in the town of Dungannon, in loyal Ulster, where there is a large Orange population, the meetings were permitted, and a torchlight procession actually took place. Why was the meeting permitted there? What was the object of the Chief Se- 1840 cretary in permitting the torchlight procession to take place at Dungannon? Was it to provoke a breach of the peace? I cannot believe that that was the right hon. Gentleman's intention, and I should like him to explain to this House why he allowed that meeting to take place in Dungannon, where disturbances might have arisen, owing to the antagonism which prevails between Nationalists and Orangemen, when he prohibited meetings in the South of Ireland, where no such hostile feeling does exist. I do not want to appeal to the humanity of the right hon. Gentleman, I think it would be a waste of words to do that after all he has done in Ireland, and after the small amount of sympathy which he has shown for my hon. Friend (Mr. Patrick O'Brien), who was most cruelly batoned by the police the other day. I repeat that I do not appeal to the humanity of the right hon. Gentleman, but I do appeal to his feelings and ideas as a philosopher. Before the right hon. Gentleman became a distinguished statesman he was not undistinguished as a thinker and as a writer, and there is one doctrine which he has laid down in this House which seems to speak of his better days, and to point to the time when he considered carefully what were the rights of his fellow-men. The doctrine to which I refer was his declaration in this House that there was no man in the House of Commons who more carefully regarded or more respected the expression of the opinion of others than he did. Now, Sir, I say that the action of the Irish people in celebrating the death of these men by processions, and by holding meetings, is simply an expression of opinion, and there is no excuse whatever for interference on the part of the Crown. Twenty years have elapsed since these men were executed at Manchester. In that period a great change of public opinion has occurred; therefore, if the Chief Secretary really cares for freedom of speech, and for freedom of opinion in Ireland, he will allow these peaceable processions and peaceable meetings to take place in November next. He will know that they are merely an expression of opinion on the part of thelrish people. Does he suppose that by suppressing these gatherings he will change the belief of the people that the men executed were martyrs into the directly opposite belief that they 1841 were convicts deserving the punishment that they received? If he thinks that, he must be strangely ignorant of the feelings of Irishmen. Now, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to say plainly does he intend to proclaim these meetings next November, and does he desire to exasperate the people by preventing their taking place? There are a large number of Englishmen who have come to look upon these executions in a very different way from that in which they regarded them during a time of panic; and I have no doubt whatever that the time will come when the historians of the future, whether they be English or Irish, will see that it was a generous and self-sacrificing act on the part of these men which led them to their fate. And the right hon. Gentleman might as well try to turn the sun from its course as seek to reverse the verdict of history which is being formed before his eyes.
§ MR. ARTHUE O'CONNOR (Donegal, E.)I think we may be content to leave all considerations as to the general effect of the right hon. Gentleman's administration in Ireland to the calm, authoritative, and unanswered speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton. Everything ha said was unquestionably true, and very little, indeed, can be added to it. I am not surprised that the right hon. Gentleman thought it judicious not to attempt an answer. I desire now to pass away from questions of general policy and to ask a practical question with regard to a particular Department in the office of the Chief Secretary, and with respect to a subject which peculiarly affects some of my own constituents. In the year before last an Act of Parliament was passed, entitled "An Act to amend the Fishery Acts of Ireland," and it provided that where a certain proportion of the fishermen of any particular district petitioned the Inspectors of Fisheries for the prevention of trawling, the Inspectors should be empowered to make bye-laws prohibiting trawling within the limits referred to in the petition, and if they did not grant the prayer of the petitioners within two months, then they were to forward the petition to the Lord Lieutenant stating their reasons for the refusal. The Act further provides that the Lord Lieutenant in Council 1842 should have power, on receiving the petition, to direct the prayer of the petitioners to be heard. Now, Sir, under that Act two petitions were presented; one from Galway Bay, and the other from Lough Swilly. The fishermen of Lough Swilly, in their petition, represented that their industry was being ruined by the operation of a very small number of trawlers, and that petition, as well as the petition from Galway Bay, was rejected by the Inspectors of Fisheries. There has for 70 years been free fishing in Lough Swilly. Between 1844 and 1869 trawling in Lough Swilly was prohibited, and during that period the condition of the fishermen there was satisfactory. But since 1869 trawling has been again allowed, and the fishing industry has been seriously injured. Indeed, the injury is so extensive that whereas before trawling was allowed 500 families lived there in comparative comfort now only 300 men are engaged in the industry, and they gain but a very precarious livelihood, while the mischief is done by four trawlers employing only 14 men. The Fishery Commissioners having rejected the petition, it was, in accordance with the Act, sent to the Lord Lieutenant, under whose directions an inquiry was held, and without any assignable reason the petition was rejected by the Privy Council. The unfortunate fishermen taxed themselves to the uttermost to send up members of their body to Dublin to give evidence, and they also went to the expense of feeing counsel. But their counsel was scarcely heard before the Council. Not one of their body was called as a witness, and within four or five minutes the case was disposed of.
§ It being Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
§ Resolutions to be reported to-morrow.
§ Committee also report Progress.