HC Deb 24 August 1889 vol 340 cc376-423

Resolutions [23rd August] (see pages 266–361) reported.

First two Resolutions agreed to.

On the Third Resolution,

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

MR. MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)

At this moment I see that there are eight right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench who have seats in the Cabinet, but I fail to see the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who is the Minister who ought to feel the greatest amount of interest in these Votes. Why is it that the right hon. Gentleman, who has charge of the Administration of Ireland, is so scrupulously absent from his post when Irish questions are brought forward? I feel called upon to avail myself of the opportunity, now that the Session is about to close, of calling attention to the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman has so frequently absented himself from the House when he ought to have been here. [Mr. A. J. Balfour here entered the House and took his seat on the Treasury Bench.] I see that the few observations I have felt it my duty to make have had even more influence than I expected, and that they have succeeded in "drawing" the right hon. Gentleman. I am very glad to see him here, and I am sure he knows that I would say nothing behind his back which I would not say to his face. Last night my hon. Friend made an exposure of Irish prison administration which will shock the public mind. A more horrible description of mean, deliberate, calculating, and overwhelming cruelty it is impossible to conceive. We have seen on other occasions how the right hon. Gentleman succeeds in getting his political opponents into prison. It would be out of order to discuss that matter on the present Vote; but I think I shall be in order if I proceed to point out what he does with his political opponents when he has put them in prison. Even the Corporation of Dublin, singular as it may appear, have felt it their duty to take some account of the systematic cruelty pursued in the Irish prisons, and to represent to the Prisons Board that there ought to be a complete and radical reform of the administration of Irish business in Parliament. Before the Prisons Act of 1887 the Dublin Corporation had a voice in the control of the Dublin prisons, and had a special means of knowing what was the ordinary treatment meted out to prisoners. It was proposed, some time ago, that a deputation composed of Members of the Corporation and men of position should wait upon the Prisons Board, but the Prisons Board refused to receive any deputation of the kind. The time selected for waiting upon the Board was just after the banquet to the Chief Secretary in the ancient concert room, where were gathered together all the basest and most contemptible members of Irish society—men who were unwilling to allow their names to appear in the newspapers, but quite ready to laugh at the jocular remarks of the right hon. Gentleman when he derided the sufferings of the hon. Member for North-East Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien). That was the moment selected by the Prisons Board for refusing to receive a deputation from the Chief Municipal Authority in Ireland. I propose to enter now into some of the circumstances connected with Derry Gaol, and I believe I shall be able to show that in that gaol there has been a deliberate system of cruelty practised towards all political prisoners. On the 4th of March last I was present in Derry, and I saw one of the most pitiable sights I ever saw in my life. I saw a number of political prisoners marched through the streets of Derry on a frosty day, with the snow on the ground. Two of them were women who were very scantily clad, and the bitter north-east wind was evidently piercing through the folds of their light covering. A few days afterwards some benevolent persons sent these poor creatures gowns and hats; but the Governor of Derry Gaol, whom I shall prove, before I sit down, to have been a very monster of cruelty, refused to allow them to have the warm clothing that was offered to them. The matter was brought before this House, and either the Chief Secretary or the Solicitor General stated that the refusal of the Governor was an error of judgment. Upon that the Governor gave the women the gowns, but refused to give them the hats, and in that way they were taken 25 miles to Letterkenny to be tried. Let me contrast this with the course pursued in the case of the Belfast swindlers. It is true they were leading Liberal Unionists—one of them the Secretary of the Liberal Union Com- mittee who received the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) on his visit to Belfast. Having committed a most abominable fraud they were arrested and put in Belfast Gaol, from which they were subsequently removed to the gaol at Derry. As the weather was cold, the Governor gave the prisoners one of his own overcoats, while in the case of these poor women, who were arrested without a shadow of evidence against them, they were not permitted to wear the warm clothing given to them by benevolent friends. It is absurd, then, to tell me that there is no difference in the treatment of prisoners. These fellows take their cue from the policy of Dublin Castle. They understand the significance of a nod, or a smile, or a wink. They are altogether at the beck of the Government, and they have their eyes fixed on the Treasury Bench. We find Mr. Conybeare refused permission to write an article to a scientific journal, whereas one of the Belfast swindlers is able from the centre of Derry Gaol to give a certificate of character to the Chief Secretary—or "sagacious Mr. Balfour," as he describes the right hon. Gentleman. How is it that that letter was allowed to leave the gaol, while that of Mr. Conybeare was refused the same permission? Two of the Coercion prisoners in Derry Gaol were Father Stephens and Mr. Kelly. Father Stephens was arrested because he endeavoured to give help, comfort, and consolation to his starving flock, and he and Mr. Kelly were deprived of exercise for a whole week and confined to their cells because they refused to associate with the Belfast swindlers—pets of the Chief Secretary, strolling about in silk hats. Two of the Members for Tipperary in Tullamore Gaol recently, were—possibly from some oversight—allowed to exercise together in the prison yard until the enormity was discovered, and direct and specific orders were sent down from Dublin Castle to put a stop to the indulgence. Is this kind of treatment fair or reasonable? Does it not prove overwhelmingly that the right hon. Gentleman has one rule for the administration of justice to his political enemies and another for swindlers and forgers who are his friends? I have very little doubt that the man who spoke of the right hon. Gentleman as "sagacious Mr. Balfour" will not have his prison indulgences interfered with, and that he will be allowed not only to read but to write to the newspapers. Mr. Charles Bourke, the President of the Prisons Board, was appointed, I believe, when the late Lord Mayo was Secretary for Ireland. I wonder whether he remembers a passage in a speech of Lord Mayo, in which that noble Lord said that it was a degradation for political prisoners to associate with felons. The words of the noble Lord were, "I can conceive nothing more repugnant to the feelings of such prisoners than that they should be compelled to associate with criminals in a goal." It was Richard Pigott who was not to be allowed to associate with criminals. Pigott was permitted to conduct his newspaper while he was a prisoner in 1868, and yet Mr. Conybeare is refused permission to write a letter to a scientific journal. The hon. Member for North Kildare (Mr. Carew) was imprisoned for a speech delivered four months before the date of his prosecution. He was imprisoned at Kilkenny, and when a civil action was brought against him by one of the Chief Secretary's Removables, a reasonable request was made that he might be removed to some prison nearer Dublin in order that his solicitor might have a better opportunity of consulting with him. What occurred in that case? All the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General did was to make this probably clever but very unsympathetic reply, "I never heard of a gaol being brought nearer to the house of a prisoner." Although the Government refused the request of Mr. Carew's solicitor, they pursued a very different course in the cases of Delaney, McNally Tracey, and other gaol birds, at the instance of the Times, and allowed Shannon, the Times agent, to visit them at his pleasure. He was even allowed to go with a Bible in his hand and tell a deliberate lie, representing himself as a Crown official. As a matter of fact, he was allowed to enter Delaney's condemned cell, while the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) was refused permission to see Mr. William O'Brien when he entered Clonmel Gaol, although the hon. and learned Member was acting as Mr. O'Brien's legal adviser, and was endeavouring to shield him against an action which had been brought against him by the Chief Secretary's friends. When the hon. Member for North Kildare was being conveyed from one gaol to another I heard personally that he was in a railway carriage at one of the stations. I went to see him, and got into the carriage, where I found him surrounded by armed policemen. The sergeant threatened to have me thrust out, but I defied him to do so, and I had the satisfaction of informing Mr. Carew that he was receiving the sympathy of the people, not only of Ireland, but of England. I did not tell Mr. Carew what I thought of the condition in which I found him, but I believed him at the time to be a dying man, and dying from want of food. A more awful indictment has never been made against a British statesman since the indictment of Warren Hastings. I come now to the Prisons Board discipline under the new régime of the Chief Secretary. I am glad that the Home Secretary is in his place, because although he is an opponent he is always fair. I would ask him to contrast the prison discipline in Ireland with that enforced in England. Is it not the fact that in this country the chaplain and the prison doctor are the protectors, comforters, and advisers of the prisoner? Both are allowed to visit the cell without an order, and are supplied with keys, which they can use at any hour of the day or night. That was the case in Ireland until the advent of the present Chief Secretary. Under the régime of the right hon. Gentleman, the doctor, instead of being the counsellor of the prisoner, is employed as a detective to find out how much suffering prisoners may be able to bear, provided always they do not die. Formerly, if a prison chaplain found anything wrong in the condition of a prisoner, it was his custom to communicate direct to the Prisons Board, his position being a perfectly independent one. Now, however, they are compelled to send complaints through the Governor of the gaol to the Prisons Board; or, in other words, complain to the very persons accused. I view with horror at this late period of the Session the position of men confined in prison under the Coercion Act, deprived of the consolation of a chaplain to minister to them in their long hours of exile and loneliness, and subjected to the tender mercies of Irish officials, without the nature of their offences and treatment being exposed to public opinion. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary may be perfectly justified in putting his political opponents in prison; but he has no right to make their doctor their torturer instead of their protector, and to have them confined in places where their sight is destroyed and their mind enfeebled. What has occurred in the Irish prisons to the doctors under the régime of the right hon. Gentleman since the passing of the Coercion Act? Immediately after that Act became law the prison doctors were required henceforth to make weekly returns showing if improved diet or other indulgences has been granted to prisoners, doctors, too, have been reprimanded for giving indulgences to prisoners. What did Dr. Ridley say to the hon. Member for North-East Cork in Tullamore Gaol? He said— It is monstrous and unnatural to treat you like this; but what can I do? I have a wife and children, and have to save a few halfpence. To Mr. Lane the same doctor said— If you do not go into hospital they will starve you to death. Mr. Ridley also told him that he got a terrible reprimand, and further that he had orders to certify that Mr. O'Brien was fit for prison treatment. Orders from whom? From Dr. Barr no doubt. The highest medical authority in Ireland, in the spring of last year, wrote an article directing attention to the treatment to which prison doctors were being subjected and described it as disgraceful. I will not go further into Dr. Ridley's case; it is too painful. I am sorry the Home Secretary is not in his place, because I should have liked to have drawn a contrast between Irish and English prison treatment. Let me give only one instance illustrating the difference. On the 9th May, this year, Dr. Barr wrote a celebrated letter to the Times with reference to prison administration. The Home Secretary on being questioned said it was sufficient to disqualify Dr. Barr from serving in an Irish prison. But we know that that letter was revised by the Chief Secretary himself and forwarded by him to the Times. What a commentary on the difference in the two systems. The eyesight of prisoners in the Irish prisons is injured. I have almost humiliated myself before the Chief Secretary in seeking to protect his prisoners against this. We have had Mr. Conybeare thus suffering. Then there has been the case of Mr. Powell, who has lost the sight of one eye, and is in danger of losing the other through sympathy. Mr. Cox, the Member for East Clare, went into the prison a bright young man, he emerged feeble and scarcely able to see. Mr. Wilfrid Blunt and Alderman; Hooper can also speak to the injury to eyesight from personal experience. Among the deaths in Derry Gaol the Chief Secretary has mentioned the death of a man from sunstroke. That man's death was due to the absence of any protection from the sun in the exercise yard. Over and over again I urged upon the right hon. Gentleman to erect a shed for the use of the prisoners, but in vain. He persistently refuses to give this shelter. I have now done. The subject is a most painful one to me. The right hon. Gentleman has many times—no doubt unintentionally—hurt me; but if I had the power he possesses—if I could treat him even as he has treated his political opponents—I would protect him from, rather than subject him to, these prison tortures. The right hon. Gentleman has these prisoners in charge, and he has no right to wear away their health and enfeeble their minds. He has no right to place them, as Mr. Conybeare has been placed, in unhealthy dens. The sufferings of the prisoners are now acknowledged to be of extreme gravity, and I can only sympathise with them under a régime of cruelty, which shows no regard for the decencies of civilisaion.

SIR C LEWIS (Antrim, N.)

I should be ashamed of myself if, after my long connection with the City of Derry—now approaching 20 years—during which period I have been personally acquainted, individually and politically, with Sir William Miller, the Medical Officer of the prison and now the Mayor of the city, I were not to say a word or two on this controversy. Sir William's name, I venture to say, cannot be mentioned in any society in Derry without eliciting tokens of the most profound respect and sympathy. He has spent a lifetime in the city; he has the largest practice of any medical man there, his patients are to be found equally amongst Roman Catholics and the Protestants, and I certainly cannot allow epithets of a most unfounded and extraordinary character to be cast upon him without challenging hon. Members opposite, especially the two who belong to Derry City, to specifically contradict what I now say—that Dr. Miller is a man highly respected among all classes and all creeds, and that no one in the city of Derry would believe him capable of being party to cruelty or inhuman conduct of any description.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE (Bradford, Central)

I do not want to detain the House at this period of the Session, but there are one or two points to which I feel it my duty to refer before the House breaks up, and one is the increasing number of cases in which the Resident Magistrates have lately called on persons to give bail under the Act of Edward III. for their good behaviour. That seems to me to be a most remarkable departure.

MR. SPEAKER

Order, order! That does not relate to the Prisons Vote.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

These men are all in prison.

MR. SPEAKER

That has nothing to do with the conduct of the prisons or with the treatment of the prisoners.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

I am asking for a Return of the number of people who are in the prisons at this moment under the Statute of Edward III.

MR. SPEAKER

The right hon. Gentleman is complaining of the use made of the Statute of Edward III., but that has nothing to do with the treatment of prisoners in prison.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

Then I shall bring it on on the Appropriation Bill.

MR. E. LEAMY (Sligo, S.)

I am sorry the Solicitor General for Ireland is not in his place prepared to answer my inquiry why, in the case of a coroner's investigation into the death of a man immediately after his discharge from the gaol in which for several months he had been suffering from severe illness, the Crown have refused to produce before the coroner the prison books showing the treatment to which the man was subjected in the gaol. I now wish to know whether the Government will take steps to order the pro- duction of these books. We alleged that the man M'Gee should have been discharged from gaol at an earlier period. The Chief Secretary admits that M'Gee was unfit to travel on the day on which he was discharged, but he had then been five months in gaol; he had, no doubt, been seen by the doctor nearly every day. The hon. Baronet the Member for North Antrim has today defended the conduct of Sir William Miller; he has spoken of him as possessing the largest practice in the City of Derry. Then he must have been competent to deal with this man's case. Now I put it to the hon. Member whether Sir W. Miller knew of this dangerous illness of M'Gee for days and weeks before the man was discharged, or did it come on suddenly in a day? If he knew of that, the prisoner ought to have been discharged, as a prisoner in the same gaol under a sentence for rape was discharged because his health broke down. Sir W. Miller must have seen M'Gee, whose offence was defending a neighbour's house against the Sheriff, getting worse and worse, and why did he not discharge him while he had yet some strength? I put it to the hon. Member for Antrim to say what possible defence can be offered for Sir W. Miller's conduct. I also want to know why the prison books have not been produced at the inquest on M'Gee? And now I come to the case of the man Diver, who, according to a telegram we have received, is still in a critical state, and whom the District Medical Officer pronounces to have been suffering from typhoid fever. Diver also declares himself to have been badly treated from the day of his arrest. It is stated that on the night of his arrest he and some comrades were conveyed on the deck of a vessel a long journey exposed to bitter weather. Who is responsible for that inhumanity? I think we are entitled to some explanation on that point. The man further complains that on the first Sunday after his admission into Derry Prison he was struck between the shoulders by a warder with a heavy bunch of keys; that he was driven against a wall and sorely bruised; and that his sufferings prevented him resting. These are grave and serious charges, and for my part I confess I cannot understand why, if they can be disproved, the Government do not dis- prove them. Now, I ask are the allegations made by Diver true or not? During the five months he was in prison he was constantly alternating between his cell and the prison hospital; and then, again, how about the sanitary condition of Derry Prison? The hon. Member for South Tyrone seems very anxious to prove that the intercepting shafts effectually prevent the sewer gas being forced into the gaol, but any man of common-sense knows that a perfect trap has not yet been invented. I desire to ask what objection there can be to the institution of a thoroughly satisfactory inquiry by a competent engineer into the sanitary conditions of gaols. I also desire to say that the case of Mr. Powell, the journalist, who is undergoing his third term of imprisonment and who has grievously suffered in his eyesight, calls for the consideration of the Chief Secretary. Why are you keeping Mr. Powell in prison? You know he will not give bail because he believes he is fighting a matter of principle; but you want to break his pride; you mean to break his spirit. Is it true or false that Mr. Powell has already lost the sight of one eye? Is it true that he is being treated for the other, the sight of which is impaired? Is it true that he is suffering from congestion of the lungs? Is it true that he is spitting blood? Are these things true or are they false? The Chief Secretary last night spoke of the humane treatment of these men; surely more humanity would have been shown if, for instance, M'Gee had been discharged before the disease had taken a fatal grip of him. The right hon. Gentleman has defended the conduct of Sir William Miller; let him justify that defence by producing at the Coroner's inquest on M'Gee the hospital books showing what was the treatment meted out to this unfortunate man.

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

Before the Chief Secretary replies, I wish to call attention to a statement made by the right hon. Gentleman to the effect that never for years past has any person been allowed to write from prison letters to the newspapers, unless it is in the exercising of the calling of journalist. I wish to know when that rule was made? Mr. Conybeare desired to write a letter to a mining journal, and the Chief Secretary has declared that the prison rules provided for no such case. But I myself, when in Richmond Gaol, was allowed to write letters, and Mr. Davitt was allowed to write from the same gaol to the Glasgow newspapers letters condemnatory of the dynamite policy, and these letters have been used by the Attorney General before the Parnell Commission. That was in 1883, when Lord Spencer was in Office. Why, then, is Mr. Conybeare now prevented from writing to a mining journal? In 1883, when I was in prison, the Pope issued a Circular against the collection of subscriptions to the Parnell testimonial. That letter naturally excited great indignation amongst the Irish Catholics. It was known Sir George Errington had been sent out as the Emissary of Her Majesty's Government to secure the issue of this Circular by the Pope, and I considered it desirable without a moment's delay that a person in the position which I hold should make known his views. I decided to send a subscription to the testimonial at once, and I wrote a reply and sent it with a subscription to the Freeman's Journal. The reply was submitted to the Prisons Board, and the present right hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division, who was then Chief Secretary, in order to avoid delay, had the letter posted by his own secretary. If a letter traversing the policy of the Government could be thus passed by the Prisons Board, surely Mr. Conybeare could be allowed to write a technical letter on metallurgy to the Mining Journal. If the rule is that first-class misdemeanants can follow their ordinary occupations, why was the late Lord Mayor of Dublin not only not allowed to write for his paper, but not allowed even to see it? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary then, in reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Bradford, said he could not define a political prisoner. Well, nobody knows what that is. It is like a problem in Euclid; you cannot actually describe the gentleman, but when you see him you know him. As Home Tooke said, the only way to define a poker is to take up a poker and say "that is a poker." It is not enough to call it a rod of iron; that is only an alternative name for it. In the same way, I quite agree that you cannot define a political prisoner. The fact is, a political prisoner is a man whom we feel to be a political prisoner. When Richard Pigott wrote articles which the Attorney General of the day described as abominable, what did Lord Mayo do? He treated him as a political prisoner. In 1848 Lord Clarendon treated Mr. John Mitchel as one; and when John Mitchel was taken out to Bermuda, in the Scourge, he messed with the officers and had a secretary placed at his disposal. The Tories got up a great row about it; but the Liberal Government sustained the conduct of Captain Lingrove. Daniel O'Connell, who got two years' imprisonment for what the present Chief Secretary would describe as inciting to violence, was treated as a political prisoner. On one occasion, when a friend of mine was being received in gaol, I remarked to a prison official, "I suppose you will treat him handsomely," and the official replied, "You must remember Mr. Balfour is in office now, and not Lord Spencer and Mr. (now Sir G.) Trevelyan." This shows how the officials feel what the policy of the Government is. The Chief Secretary was unhappy in defending the condition of Derry Gaol by a comparison with the House of Commons, because we all suffered from the drainage of the House in spite of all experts could do until a Member of the House went into the sewers, when, at last, things were supposed to be put right. Our own experience, therefore, shows that the ventilation of sewers is one of the most difficult problems with which sanitarians have to deal. What has occurred in regard to bail prisoners? The Courts have laid down over and over again that this is not a case for punishment. What right, then, has the right hon. Gentleman to treat bail prisoners in the way he has? If a man is imprisoned simply because he refuses to give bail for his good behaviour he should not be subjected to more rigorous discipline than is compatible with keeping him in security. When I was in prison I did not regard the treatment I received as a hardship. I was able to take all the exercise I wanted in the middle of the day. I maintain that imprisonment for refusing to give bail is not intended as a punishment, and yet it is inflicted as a punishment on the top of a sentence under the Coercion Act. I give this fact as a strong argument in favour of the position I assume. Let me recall to the recollection of the House the case of Michael Walsh. It appears that this man was standing in the street when a policeman went up to him, seized him by the collar, and asked him for his name. The constable says that Walsh swore at him; but the evidence of the policeman was altogether uncorroborated. Walsh himself called three witnesses, who swore that he did nothing of the kind; but, nevertheless, Colonel Longbourne sent him to prison for three months in default of bail. That in itself was a monstrous sentence; but when Walsh went to gaol how was he treated? He was clearly entitled to wear his own clothes and his hair and moustache; but the moment he entered the prison he was set upon by a warder in the prison uniform, who deprived him of his clothes and cut off his hair and moustache. The reply of the Government is that no doubt this was all wrong; but the man himself submitted to it. What was he to do? Should he have knocked down the warder? He knew nothing of the prison rules; he did not know that he was going to be brought under them; and he had, therefore, never studied them. The people of Ireland are likely to become pretty well acquainted with them by-and-by. When Mr. William O'Brien resisted the attempt of the prison officials to deprive him of his clothes, we were told that he was guilty of an irregularity and insubordination, and now we are practically told that if this kind of thing occurs in the future the best thing for prisoners to do is to give the warder "one in the eye." At the same time, we are informed that when a prisoner's beard is wrongfully cut off in a gaol it is only for the purpose of trimming. I would like to see the process applied to right hon. Gentlemen opposite and see how they would like it. If they found themselves in gaol they would probably regard it as a very nice thing to be told by the prison officials that their beards wanted trimming. I say that these things are treated by the right hon. Gentleman with a lightness and a levity altogether unbecoming the gravity of his Office. In the case I have mentioned I think he ought to make an apology to Mr. Walsh, and at any rate dismiss the warder. He tells us that Walsh can go to law. The doctrine of the right hon. Gentleman is that everything in Ireland is either legal or illegal. If it is legal it is all right, and if it is illegal the advice is "go to law." But what is the use of going to law with a man who has 15s. a week? It is a monstrous doctrine to lay down that a man, in a case like this, is to have no remedy except an action at law. I respectfully submit that when a man has been wronged, as Walsh has been, the Government ought to be glad to release him, and ought to think him well off their hands. Another case which occurred in the Cork Gaol was the refusal of the Deputy Governor to allow the Visiting Justices to see a prisoner alone. The Visiting Justices called to see a prisoner who requested a private interview, but the Deputy Governor declined to allow them to see him alone. It is not to be tolerated that such acts as this are to pass unnoticed. If there is a remedy the Government refuse to apply it, and time after time they back up every act of official insolence and irregularity until it has become absolutely impossible to obtain justice. Only last night, at the very time that the Chief Secretary was working himself into a state of great indignation at the notion that the doctor of Derry Gaol had been accused of inhumanity, Sir W. Miller was refusing to give the Crown Prosecutor for Donegal the prison records so far as they affect the death of the man M'Gee. These records would show all the surrounding circumstances leading up to the death of M'Gee, and are hon. Members to be told that the entries in the books are not evidence on the question of how M'Gee met his death? The course pursued by Sir W. Miller and the Prison Authorities is the strongest commentary upon the speech of the right hon. Gentleman last night. The best defence of Sir W. Miller against the charge of inhumanity would be the production of the prison books. Sir W. Miller has entered in the hospital books a record of his treatment of John M'Gee, and he knows that it must tell either in his favour or against him. If a man is suspected of having been poisoned, and the suspected poisoner is believed to have purchased poisons day after day, would not the chemist's books be the best evidence to show what the purchases were? Would it not be most important evidence in regard to the death? I happen to know something of Sir W. Miller. He is the leader of the 'Prentice boys of Derry, and was an active supporter of the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir C. Lewis) at the election which led to his seat in this House for Derry being disallowed on the ground of corruption. He is the gentleman who got on top of the Town Hall at Derry, superintending the arrangements when Lord Mayor Dawson went down to that city to deliver a lecture, and a man named O'Doherty was charged with delivering a fusillade, from which a shot found a lodgment in the eye of a boy who was looking on. O'Doherty was taken into custody, but was at once relegated to the superintendence of the doctor in the hospital. He did not die in Derry Gaol, but under the kindly treatment of Sir William Miller came out well and strong. The men who die in Derry Gaol are the suspects and convicts arrested by the right hon. Gentleman. Nobody else dies there; and now we have the damning fact that in regard to a recent death Sir William Miller is afraid to produce the hospital books. There can be no doubt that the books are purposely kept back in order to screen the Government. They would not be kept back except at the instance of Sir William Miller and the General Prisons Board, and I challenge the Chief Secretary to say whether he approves of this attempt to keep back evidence, or whether, having regard to the indignation which has been aroused in the public mind, he will not at once order the records to be produced. We know something of prison records. We know that when the Report of Dr. O'Farrell in regard to Derry Gaol was sent to the right hon. Gentleman he refused to produce it, but promised to give a revised or second edition of it, so to speak. Accordingly, the Report was sent back to Dr. O'Farrell to have the frills ironed out of it and the patches smoothed over. At any rate, we have not been allowed to see the original confidential document. We accuse the Government of keeping back information from improper motives, and we demand the fullest publicity. We ask for the full light of public opinion to be turned upon these proceedings, and we will not rest satisfied with the second edition of a cooked Report. We also demand the production of the prison records which have been kept back from the Coroner's Jury. Is this a specimen of the way in which we should be treated if we resolved to go to law? A great fuss was made because some of the Land League books were not produced at the Special Commission, although every bank book and cheque was laid before the Commission, and every tailor's bill any member of the League had ever paid was gone into. I wish Sir James Hannen much joy from the perusal of them. It is this system of keeping back deeds and acts, and resorting to quips and quibbles while men are being sent to their doom, that makes the administration of the right hon. Gentleman so odious to the Irish people. Why does he not come forward in a frank and open way, and, expressing regret for his past action, show the Irish people that, while he is going to govern them with chains and batons, he will rigorously give them the length and breadth of the law? Unfortunately, that is not his policy. His whole policy is one of screening and covering over with verbiage every high-handed act of official tyranny and despotism.

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

I think, perhaps, it will be convenient, although the audience is not very large, that I should, without further delay, deal with matters hon. Members have brought before our attention. I understand the hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. Mac Neill), who opened this Debate, complained of my absence from the House. I regret that I should not have been present to hear his opening remarks, but I observe that he thinks it more important that I should listen to him than that he should listen to me, and if my absence was remarkable at the beginning of the sitting, his absence is not less remarkable now. Deferring for the present my observations upon the speech of the hon. Member for Donegal, I turn to the speech of the hon. Member for Longford.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

proceeded: The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Longford was very indignant at an incident that is reported in this morning's newspapers, that the Crown Solicitor has objected to the production of the hospital book in the inquest upon the unfortunate man M'Gee. Of course, I have no information to give to the House on the subject. It had not been brought to my notice until I heard of it across the floor of the House; but my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General for Ireland has given a promise, which he has since carried out, to telegraph over to Derry the general view of the Government that everything should be done in this and every other inquiry to bring out the facts of the case. The next point referred to by the hon. and learned Gentleman relates to the clipping of a bail prisoner in Cork Gaol. That is a very regrettable mistake, and as far as I am concerned it shall not recur; but if every lapse on the part of any official is to be met with dismissal, I think the hon. and learned Gentleman will see we should be really guilty of the harshness of which we are accused. The hon. and learned Gentleman, and I think previous speakers also, have denounced me for having refused a sanitary inspection of Derry Gaol, but I think these denunciations must have been made under some misapprehension. Two days ago the hon. Member for South Tyrone suggested it would not be inexpedient to have some special advice as to the condition of the prison. In my opinion, there is no ground for believing the prison is unhealthy; therefore there is no ground for inspection, but neither is there any objection to it, and, to allay all apprehension, two days ago I communicated with the Prisons Board saying that it would be well to have an examination by an expert.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Has that been stated before?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I do not know whether it was stated in the House, but, at all events, I did two days ago communicate with the Prisons Board to that effect. Then the hon. and learned Gentleman criticised my statement as to the rules governing the treatment of first-class misdemeanants. I informed the House last night what I believe to be the fact, that a first-class misdemeanant is not allowed to communicate with a newspaper unless it so happens that his avocation is that of a newspaper editor. The hon. and learned Gentleman quoted his own experience, but I am not aware of the circumstances under which he was in prison.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I was committed for six months by the Queen's Bench in default of finding bail for good behaviour.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I rather gathered from a subsequent portion of his speech that the hon. and learned Member was a bail prisoner. I am not perfectly sure, but I imagine that bail prisoners are not necessarily confined under the same rules as first-class misdemeanants. I express no confident opinion. But it is not my business to justify or explain the action taken by the Prisons Board of 1883. Nor did I take any initiative in the action towards the hon. Member for Camborne in relation to communications to the Press. I stated yesterday that the Governor and the Prisons Board dealt with the hon. Member for Camborne according to the ordinary Irish practice, which I understand from the Home Secretary is also the ordinary English practice in these matters. The hon. and learned Member also mentioned the case of Mr. Stead. I dealt with that last night, but perhaps the hon. and learned Member was not then in the House? I pointed out that Mr. Stead, being the editor of a journal, was allowed under the ordinary English and Irish rules to carry on his work in prison.

MR. T. M. HEALY

I referred to the treatment of the late Lord Mayor of Dublin.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I am obliged to the hon. and learned Gentleman; that had almost escaped my memory. In reference to this case the hon. and learned Member omitted to mention some material facts. If my recollection serves me aright the ex-Lord Mayor of Dublin was allowed to edit his newspaper during the earlier part of his period of detention, but not during the latter part. This was on a very obvious and equitable principle. The hon. Member was imprisoned for the illegal publication of the reports of suppressed branches, and when the hon. Member was in prison he attempted to repeat the offence for which he had been convicted, and, consequently, the privilege of editing his paper which he thus improperly exercised was withdrawn. It would have been an abuse of the privileges ordinarily given to newspaper editors if, under the circumstances, the hon. Member had been allowed to continue his conduct.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Surely the right hon. gentleman does not mean to say that my hon. Friend prepared reports of the meetings of suppressed branches of the League in his cell! The League does not meet in gaol.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I understand that the ex-Lord Mayor was allowed during the earlier part of his confinement to edit his paper, and the hon. Member was, therefore, responsible for what appeared in the paper. When the paper continued to repeat the offence for which the editor had been imprisoned, naturally the privilege was withdrawn.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

Perhaps I may be allowed to say on this point—["Order, order!"].

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I am replying to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Longford, and am quite ready to accept any relevant interruption from him, but the right hon. Gentleman must see that I could hardly continue my speech if debating interruptions in the middle of it are to be allowed. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Longford came not for the first time to the rescue of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and put with great force the contention that while no definition of a political prisoner could be given, nevertheless it was not impossible for any practical man to draw a substantial, equitable distinction between political and non-political prisoners. "Why, then," said he, "does the Government not act on that view, and draw a distinction which would puzzle no man of ordinary common sense." Well, I do not wish to go at length into this argument; but I would point out one flaw in it, and that is that the Government of the day would be made absolutely responsible for the kind of punishment to be meted out in different cases of nominally equal sentences. If a competent Court sentenced two prisoners to six months' each, the Executive might step in (and order that one prisoner should be treated as a first-class misde- meanant and the other should not, on the ground that one was a political prisoner and the other one was not. No Executive could properly undertake such a responsibility. The County Court Judges have shown that, if need be, the Crimes Act prisoners can be made first-class misdemeanants, and, in passing sentence, they have all the facts before them and all the safeguards of judicial procedure; but the hon. and learned Gentleman wants the Executive to do what the County Court Judge has, under these circumstances, refused, to do. But even if the duty were thrown on the Executive, it would be impossible for them to say that the ordinary offences of the Crimes Act prisoners were political. I do not deny that they might be performed with a political object or on high moral grounds. It is not for me to estimate any man's motives; but it is not the motive nor the object which constitutes the merit or demerit of an action. It may modify our opinion of the offender, but not our opinion of the offence. I have as authority for this statement so competent a philosopher as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, who has delivered himself on the point with his accustomed directness and breadth of statement. The hon. Member for South Donegal has now, I think, returned to his place, and I will therefore deal very briefly with some of the observations he has put before the House. The hon. Member will forgive me for not touching on the greater part of his speech, which traversed the ground gone over yesterday, and renewed accusations which have already been replied to. I will refer only to what was comparatively new in the hon. Member's speech. The hon. Member declared that no more formidable indictment has been made against a Government since the impeachment of Warren Hastings, and thus the hon. Member instituted a modest comparison between himself and Edmund Burke which must have afforded some entertainment to the House. He went on to give us some personal experiences in relation to himself and the hon. Member for North Kildare. The hon. Member told the House that, in spite of the myrmidons of the Government, he had seen the hon. Member for North Kildare while in the clutches of the Executive, and that, in spite of the objections of the police, he had assured the hon. Member for North Kildare that the country sympathised with him in his sufferings. Well, I express no opinion on his conduct upon the occasion, nor can I see what relation his conversation can have to the Vote. What is the grievance which, as the outcome of this meeting, we are assured the hon. Member for North Kildare is suffering under? It is that the hon. Member for North Kildare was put into an ill-ventilated second-class carriage. Now the Government are not responsible for the ventilation of second-class carriages, and I cannot accept the view that the hon. Member for North Kildare suffered any serious hardship from travelling second-class. In common, I suppose, with many Members of the House, I have often travelled second-class, and found no serious inconvenience from doing so; and I think the hon. Member for North Kildare would be the last person to make this a ground of complaint.

MR. MAC NEILL

The right hon. Gentleman is somewhat misrepresenting what I said. Of course, I was not so foolish as to lay stress on the point; I simply stated the circumstances under which I saw my hon. Friend, and came to the conclusion that he was in a dying state.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Well, the conclusion of the hon. Gentleman happily turned out to be erroneous. The health of the hon. Member for North Kildare engaged the attention of the medical authorities, and, as the House is aware, the hon. Member was released before the natural termination of his sentence. The hon. Member for Donegal has indulged in denunciation of the treatment of Irish prisoners, and I think I may meet these denunciations of the Irish system by contrasting it with the treatment of English prisoners. If the prison system is wrong, reform should begin in England, rather than in Ireland. Under the English rules some 20,000 persons are in confinement, while in the Irish gaols there are only 80 Crimes Act prisoners, It is no use beginning reform in such a piecemeal fashion as to deal only with the lot of these 80 persons. The hon. Gentleman asserts that under the present rule one prisoner after another has had his eyesight destroyed by whitewashed cells. In Ireland a large number of cells are not now whitewashed, and the custom is gradually obtaining of having the cells tinted. But every single cell in England is whitewashed; and therefore, if there is an error, it is an English error, and not an Irish one. The hon. Gentleman declares that the Irish prisoners are half-starved. It is well-known that the food in Irish prisons is richer and more nutritive than the food in English prisons; so here, again, reform is needed in England, if at all. The right hon. Gentleman complains of the absence of sheds for the exercise of prisoners in rainy weather. There is one prison in Ireland which possesses such a shed; but there is no prison in England which does. Again, I say, if reform is required, let it begin where it is most required. The hon. Gentleman states that the prison doctors in Ireland, especially during my tenure of office, have exercised their functions not to relieve, but to torture the prisoners. The hon. Gentleman cannot have heard the statement I made last night, that the privileges granted by the prison doctors to Crimes Act prisoners are enormously in excess of those granted to other classes of prisoners. The rate of mortality being double in the English prisons what it is in the Irish prisons points to the habit of the English doctors of detaining weakly English prisoners longer than Irish doctors detain Irish prisoners. I do not know which custom is best; but, at all events, the Irish custom is the more humane. Therefore, we are forced to the conclusion that Crimes Act prisoners are treated more leniently than ordinary prisoners in Ireland, and that ordinary prisoners in Ireland are treated more leniently than similar prisoners in England. I would remind the House of what occurred when the hon. Member for South Armagh was imprisoned in Londonderry Gaol. The hon. Member was let out before the completion of his sentence by Sir William Miller, upon whom so much undeserved abuse has been heaped; and the only gratitude evinced by the hon. Member for this act of kindness is a declaration that he had nothing at all the matter with him. This incident, at all events, shows that Sir William Miller is peculiarly sensitive on the subject of the health of Crimes Act prisoners. The House has been told that I spoke last night on the Prisons Vote with very great indignation. I do not deny that I thought then, and still think, that the accusations brought against the prison officials were such as ought properly to have roused the indignation of those responsible for the defence in the House of men who are necessarily unable to defend themselves. If the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Belfast reads in cold blood the speech to which I replied last night, I think he will at least admit that my indignation was not unnatural. But if I was betrayed into any undue violence of language on that occasion, I can assure the House that I did not intend to wound the feelings of any man. My desire was to defend those whose defence is committed to me, and I did not wish to go beyond that duty; but I should be unworthy of the position I hold had I allowed those hostile criticisms to pass unchallenged. If I went beyond what was necessary I regret having done so.

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

I only wish to say a few words as to the point upon which I rose to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. The late Lord Mayor of Dublin told me only yesterday that during the whole of his imprisonment he was not allowed to edit his newspaper. With the question of the treatment of political prisoners I have already dealt at length, and I will only say that the objection urged by the right hon. Gentleman to the Government having to determine which offences should be treated as distinct from ordinary crimes is a far-fetched objection. If the Government, from the earliest period when these cases first came on under the Crimes Act, had laid down a principle as to who were and who were not political prisoners, the County Court Judges and Resident Magistrates would have taken their cue from the Government. Whether a man should be treated as a first-class misdemeanant or not would not now depend on the Judge who happened to try the case. Let me take the cases of Judge Webb and Judge Kisby. Judge Webb has in two cases treated prisoners under the Act as first-class misdemeanants, but Judge Kisby has in all cases directed that they shall be treated as common criminals. Mr. O'Connor Morris has in almost all the cases that have come before him directed that the prisoners shall be dealt with as first-class misdemeanants. I say, therefore, that the present system results in great inequality, which cannot be justified for a moment. But all this part of the case is immaterial to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, because the right hon. Gentleman has to-day admitted, as he has often before admitted, that he is against treating any of these men as political offenders, and thinks they ought all to be treated as common criminals. I think I am justified in concluding from his statement that the right hon. Gentleman is responsible for the fact that the Resident Magistrates in Ireland have without exception directed that men tried under the Crimes Act shall be treated as common criminals. Men have been treated as convicts under this Act for holding Land League meetings, for publishing proceedings of suppressed branches in their papers, and for other offences; and if you are to come to the conclusion that all these ought to be treated as common criminals, you must also go to the length of saying that there are no possible cases of any kind in which people should be treated as political offenders. I say that is a policy in direct opposition to the policy of any other civilised country in the world. The right hon. Gentleman has for the first time in the history of the country introduced the principle that there should be no class of political offenders who should be treated differently from common criminals. He has given the cue to his Magistrates to treat all offenders in the same way. I can only say I regret the conclusion at which the right hon. Gentleman has arrived. I hold him and the Prime Minister entirely responsible for the great scandal that has taken place, because it is their speeches which have given the cue to the Resident Magistrates and to many of the County Court Judges. We, on our part, will never be satisfied until we have reversed the policy which they have adopted; and I shall certainly do my best, both on public platforms and in this House, to rouse the public interest on this question.

MR. GILL (Louth, S.)

The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary has ingeniously assumed that we are raising a discussion upon the whole question of prison management. I do not deny that there may be very great need for prison reform in the three kingdoms at the present time, but that is not the question which we are dealing with now. The urgent question which is now before us is the method which the right hon. Gentleman has adopted of treating political prisoners in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman, in one of the many sallies which he was good enough to indulge in at our expense, declared that we are only humanitarians by halves, and asserted that we only took an interest in 80 out of the 20,000 prisoners in the gaols of the United Kingdom. That is an assumption that there have been only 80 persons punished under this Coercion Act. As a matter of fact, I believe the number is about 2,000. The manner in which the right hon. Gentleman made that suggestion is very characteristic of the way in which he endeavours to throw dust in the eyes of the British public. The right hon. Gentleman says we ought not to throw on the Executive the duty of deciding which prisoners are to be treated as political offenders. In every other country in the world that duty is thrown on the Executive, and the reason is that the public sentiment is so distinct and emphatic upon the question of what is and what is not a political offence that there has been no necessity to place on the Statutes any definition of the kind. The right hon. Gentleman last night alluded to the case of General Boulanger. I do not know whether the French law will now allow him to be classed as a political offender, as he is charged, rightly or wrongly, with having embezzled money; but I say that the French Executive would never have a moment's hesitation in deciding whether a man is or is not a political prisoner. England was in the same position until the year 1837, and the Executive up to that date always exercised the duty without any hesitation or difficulty. When William Cobbett and Feargus O'Connor and Mr. Vincent were confined in English gaols the Executive had no Statute to relieve them from saying whether they were political prisoners or not. They decided that they were, and acted accordingly with regard to their prison treatment. When a number of Irishmen were put into English gaols, and when the Executive of the day, not so generous in their treatment of them as they were in the treatment of political prisoners, who happened to be Englishmen, insisted on treating them as common criminals, the effect of public opinion, brought to bear in this House, was such that a law was actually enacted which provided a means of deciding between political prisoners and common criminals. Mr. Bruce (now Lord Aberdare), the very gentleman to whom the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) recently submitted certain questions connected with prison treatment in Ireland, was Home Secretary at the time, and he appointed a Commission to inquire into the treatment of treason-felony prisoners. Mr. Bruce said he was of opinion that in the case of these political prisoners some relaxation of the strict rules might, in accordance with the practice of both countries, be allowed. The Commission also made up its mind that they were political prisoners, and recommended that they should be treated as a separate class. That is all we want in Ireland now: The great principle we contend for is that of the segregation of these prisoners and the drawing of a distinction between them and common criminals. In carrying out the recommendations of that Commission, Parliament inserted clauses in the Prisons Act of 1877 which made a distinction between persons convicted of sedition and seditious libel, and set apart a special prison for such prisoners. One of the County Court Judges in Ireland has recently said— We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that these are incidents in a great social movement which is taking place in the country. The offences of Mr. Patrick O'Brien and Mr. O'Hea are not to he classed as disgraceful crimes or infamous crimes. If the right hon. Gentleman would follow the guidance of that County Court Judge, he would adopt a far more wise and civilised method than he has hitherto done of carrying on the Government of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman made very slight reference to the prisoners in Derry Gaol in reply to the many questions that have been raised, and which were brought before the House last night by my right hon. Friend the Lord Mayor of Dublin, in a speech which I am quite sure deeply impressed the House, and which I am quite sure, if fully reported in the Press, would deeply impress the country at large. But the most serious charge of all the right hon. Gentleman has utterly ignored. "We had the right hon. Gentleman last night working himself into a state of passionate indignation in defence of Sir William Miller, and he repudiated as monstrous and infamous the charges made against that gentleman; but he did not take the pains to refute a single one of the numerous and specific charges which my right hon. Friend made, not in any loose hearsay manner, but from the actual official Report submitted to the House, and the evidence of eye-witnesses of the scenes described. The Chief Secretary assumed that the very gravity of the charges carried their own refutation, and that Sir William Miller is a man so far above reproach that nobody would for a moment expect the public to assent to any such charges made against him. But while this was the right hon. Gentleman's method of meeting these charges in this House, what was Sir William Miller's method of meeting the charges made in a public Court yesterday? Sir William Miller keeps an hospital book in which he is supposed to enter every variation in the treatment of a patient in the hospital, and which should contain these particulars in reference to the man who has died, and upon whom an inquest was being held. This book was asked for by the representative of the next of kin; but Sir William Miller instructed his counsel to refuse to produce it. Let Sir William Miller be all that the right hon. Gentleman represents him to be, his own method of defending himself is a stronger accusation than we can make against him. I do not want to use any stronger language, or to make any graver charge than is suggested in Sir William Miller's refusal to produce this book. So much for the worked up and simulated indignation which the right hon. Gentleman exhibited to the House last night. The right hon. Gentleman referred to another matter last night. In dealing with the cases of Irish Members, and other political prisoners under the Crimes Act, he produced a number of ingenious statistics, carefully worked out even to decimals, to prove that the Irish Mem- bers and their fellow-prisoners under the Crimes Act were, in the first place, malingerers; and, in the second place, that they were accustomed to receive privileges no other prisoners were allowed to receive; and, in the third place, if either of the other two hypotheses was to be rejected, that they must be persons of extreme delicacy. This was the language of the right hon. Gentleman:— Unless, which he was unwilling to believe, prisoners under the Crimes Act were guilty of deliberate malingering, either they were persons of exceptionally delicate constitutions, or they were treated with exceptional leniency by the prison officials. And he produced a number of statistics to support his statement. Well, he has been two years administering his Coercion Act in Ireland, imprisoning priests, Irish Members, and persons of all grades and positions, and I should think that if his experience had taught him little, one thing at least it should have taught him—respect for the courage of those he has had to deal with. The charge of cowardice and of malingering is a mean, a miserable, and a false charge to make against us as a people. We have no doubt a good many faults, and it may be demonstrable that we have committed errors in our method and action in Ireland; but surely among our faults nobody with any self-respect can accuse us of shirking any of the consequences our public action may bring upon us, or of being afraid to accept any of the dangers into which we have ventured to lead our people in the movement we are carrying on for the redress of our grievances and the accomplishment of our national aspirations. It is the part of a generous foeman to recognise when he has to deal with an adversary whose courage is worthy of respect. When General Grenfell sent home his despatch about the unfortunate Dervishes he had slaughtered he took care to remark upon the bravery as well as the misfortunes of those he had defeated. But the right hon. Gentleman is not capable, apparently, of so much generosity towards the nation he is oppressing; and, indeed, if we were to accept the hypothesis of the right hon. Gentleman that he is dealing with gangs of cowards, malingerers, or sneaks—for that is what his suggestions amount to—it says little for his prowess that with all his efforts, and with the powerful weapon, of the Coercion Act, he has been unable to get the better of those people. Will the right hon. Gentleman specify any single instance of an Irish political prisoner whom he will venture to describe as a malingerer? He once made the attempt when the hon. Member for North-East Cork was suffering his first imprisonment. The right hon. Gentleman wrote a letter to the Press suggesting that the hon. Member sought shelter under a medical certificate, pleading a weak heart and delicate lungs, to escape from prison discipline and the consequences of refusing to wear the prison dress. But the right hon. Gentleman soon had to change his tone; and now when he flings the charge of malingering against his political opponents, I challenge him, as I did when he made a disgraceful charge against the priests of Clare, to give a specific instance, and if he will not do so, then I say his conduct is unworthy of a Member of the House, let alone that of a Minister responsible for the government of a whole nation. The right hon. Gentleman speaks of malingering especially in reference to the Derry prisoners, because that was the case under notice; but surely he does not moan that M'Gee, who died two days after he left the prison, carried his malingering to that tragic extent, or that the young man Size, who entered the prison strong and powerful, and was released in such a condition that the prison doctor had to supply him with a car to carry him to the railway station, and four ounces of brandy as a viaticum, and who has since died, was a malingerer? Or does he so describe John Mandeville, now in his grave, or Larkin, who died in Kilkenny, or John Powell, the editor of the Midland Tribune, now undergoing his third term of imprisonment, who has lost the sight of one eye, and who is in the prison hospital spitting blood? If Powell is a coward and malingerer, one term of imprisonment would have been sufficient, and he would not have committed another offence by publishing in his newspaper that which he thought it his duty to publish. Men who are cowards and malingerers do not subject themselves twice and thrice to prison discipline if they wish to avoid it. What are the privileges Crimes Act prisoners have had over others? Does the right hon. Gentleman count the forcible stripping off of clothes, knocking down and rendering insensible, privileges to which Irish Members under the Coercion Act are entitled to, and from which other prisoners are excluded, or the clipping of hair and beard, or bread and water for resisting those indignities? I do not know whether in his ingenious compilation of figures the right hon. Gentleman took into account the privilege of prisoners to wear their own clothes, to take separate exercise, and to be relieved, on payment of fees, from the odium of performing menial offices; but if he did so, I tell him that these were dearly bought, and that the Executive can claim no credit for them. The right hon. Gentleman thought it conclusive to say that if the hypothesis of malingering was rejected, then the constitutions of Irish Members must be peculiarly delicate. I think this was an unworthy remark to make; but since it has been made, I may be excused if I retort in that tu quoque manner which the right hon. Gentleman has himself used with skill and frequency, and ask how he supposes the treatment to which my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cork was subjected, would affect his own physique? No doubt many hon. Members and others who have been imprisoned are not very strong; that may be said of my hon. Friends the Members for East Mayo and North-East Cork and Mr. Powell, now spitting blood in his prison hospital, but what an unworthy, unmanly, argument is this to use. I, for one, would never wish to see the right hon. Gentleman subjected to the penalties inflicted upon my hon. Friends; but if it should ever come to be his turn to endure such sufferings, I trust there would be none of us to fling against him the taunt that he must be malingering, or his constitution must be exceedingly delicate. The right hon. Gentleman has now carried on his policy for two years, and I ask him how long does he mean to continue it? Has the opportunity been afforded him of testing the chances of his success? The country has tolerated his experiment for two years; but I am sure the country will not tolerate it for 20 years. If the right hon. Gentleman has succeeded in striking terror by his method of treating Irish prisoners, if by this means he has created respect for his law among the people, let him go on. But I deny that he has succeeded in terrorising the people. He has put in prison Members of Parliament, priests, editors of newspapers, public men of all kinds, and every citizen who chooses to sacrifice himself for the National cause in Ireland. Even while we are debating, the hon. Members for North-East and West Cork are being tried before a Coercion Court—

MR. SPEAKER

Order, order! The hon. Member is not confining himself to the Vote for the Prisons Board in Ireland.

MR. GILL

I will not pursue the point further than to say that the treatment of prisoners in Ireland, harsh, cruel, vindictive, though it has been, has not succeeded in breaking the spirit of the people on whom it has been inflicted. The hon. Member for North-East Cork is probably about to undergo his third term of imprisonment, and the hon. Member for West Cork his second. They are not in the least degree daunted or shaken in their resolution to carry on the policy which has brought upon them these penalties. As for the people at large, among whom the right hon. Gentleman finds his victims whom he tries to stigmatise as criminals—

MR. SPEAKER

For the second time I must remind the hon. Member that he is not discussing the policy of the Prisons Board in relation to the Vote.

MR. GILL

I will not continue this line of discussion. I will only, in conclusion, refer to the condition to which the Chief Secretary has reduced the prison rules in Ireland, by reason of what I may describe as his own malingering. What is malingering? It is endeavouring to escape penalties under a false pretence. The right hon. Gentleman, defeated in his endeavour to carry out his prison régime, rather than frankly confess his defeat and acknowledge that rules must be applied to a class of political offenders, has made the prison rules, as at present administered, a complete farce. He will not make the distinction between political and other offenders, and so the perpetrators of the Belfast frauds, described by the Judge as the most extensive and wicked system of frauds that ever came under his notice, are allowed to go about Derry Gaol in their own clothes among the other criminals, simply because the right hon. Gentleman will not admit there are political prisoners in Ireland, and has played ducks and drakes with the rules rather than accept the recommendations of Lord Aberdare1s Commission. Public opinion in Ireland and in England has been shocked by the treatment of his Coercion Act prisoners, and the public opinion of the civilised world condemns his policy. The other day the noble Lord the Member for Paddington (Lord R. Churchill) gave voice to what I believe to be the large proportion even of Conservative opinion on this subject, when he said there was disgust with the manner at which the right hon. Gentleman had been carrying on his prison policy. I say then that, after two years, the right hon. Gentleman has produced nothing but failure by his policy as far as Ireland is concerned, and nothing but discredit as far as England is concerned.

MR. W. A. MACDONALD (Queen's County, Ossory)

I regret that I was unable, through physical exhaustion, to hear the greater part of the right hon. Gentleman's (Mr. Balfour's) speech; but I understand that he made no reply whatever to the remarkable address delivered last night by my hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork—a speech which I think rose far above the ordinary Party discussions of this House, and which dealt with questions of permanent interest. I think that speech deserves to be answered. My hon. Friend divided prisoners in Ireland into two classes, namely, prisoners of the ordinary criminal type, and political prisoners, and in reference to both these classes he made remarks which, I think, ought to receive the most careful consideration of everybody who claims to legislate in a spirit of humanity for the most helpless class of our fellow-countrymen. The system you pursue in Ireland is to half-starve the ordinary criminals, to give them work to do of the most uninteresting character, and to prevent them having the ordinary means of exercise in the open air. The change which my hon. Friend wants to see effected is one which I think sooner or later the conscience of this country will compel statesmen to adopt. It is that you should give prisoners plenty of work of a kind which is really useful and remunerative to the community, and that you should give them sufficient food to enable them to do that work. Instead of having to come to this House every year for a large sum of money for keeping up these prisons in Ireland, you should try and make them pay their expenses, and so take the burden off the general taxpayers of the country. The only objection which, as far as I can see, can be made to such a suggestion is that traders outside might possibly complain because articles produced in the prison might, by their quantity, reduce the price of such commodities. But am I to be seriously told that the interests of one or two trades are to be set in opposition to the general interests of the community? Are we to go back to the old principles of Protection once more, and to say that prices must be kept up in order to sustain those who carry on certain industries? No, Sir; if it be for the interest of the community or of the prisoners themselves that they should be employed, I do not think that argument will stand for one moment. I have one suggestion to make to men of all shades of opinion. I am afraid that most of us know very little about the actual administration of the prisons either in this country or in Ireland. I think we ought to know more about it, and that it is our business to know it; and I hope, if I am supported by the feeling of this House, to bring in a Bill next Session to enable Members of Parliament to visit prisons on the same conditions as Visiting Justices, so that we may know what goes on in them, and be able to legislate like intelligent men. The right hon. Gentleman said there were a great many more political prisoners released in proportion to their numbers than ordinary criminals, and that this might be due to the fact that political prisoners had exceptionally delicate constitutions. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman and the House whether no other alternative can be suggested? Did it ever occur to the mind of the right hon. Gentleman that there might be another reason—a reason which strikes at the very foundation of his method of treating political prisoners in Ireland—namely, that those prisoners do not belong to the class from which ordinary criminals are taken, that they are men who have lived lives of com- parative comfort, and that, therefore, prison life tells on them in a way in which it could not tell on common criminals? I say there is not a man in this House except the right hon. Gentleman himself—and he is so callous that he will not feel these arguments—who does not see the broad distinction I have hinted at. The right hon. Gentleman has said that in the case of a large number of prisoners of a certain social position in Ireland certain degradations ought not to be inflicted on them. Their hair is not clipped, and they do not have to discharge certain menial offices. But, after all, whilst these things touch the honour and the feelings of men who have been brought up as gentlemen, far worse remains behind. If I were a prisoner I think I should complain most, with my bringing up, of the plank bed, of insufficient food, of insufficient exercise, and of an unnatural and cruel and needlessly enforced silence. These things remain, and the right hon. Gentleman has not attempted to deal with them. As long as they remain, I say there is no equality in the treatment of different classes of prisoners in Ireland, and it must be our duty to raise our voices again and again until something like humanity is introduced into the system of treating political prisoners in Ireland. Let me say, in conclusion, that I think the right hon. Gentleman would act far more wisely if he showed a little more consideration for the feelings of others. We do not feel so strongly against the right hon. Gentleman because he is opposed to us in politics, but because he does not act upon what we regard as the ordinary principles of humanity. As long as we think his administration cruel, as long as we think he does not really inquire into wrongs when they are pointed out to him, so long we shall be opposed to him in the strongest manner. We object to his proceedings, not because he is a political opponent, but because he is a man who, in our opinion, is destitute of the feelings of common humanity.

MR. M. HEALY (Cork)

I rise to call attention again to a case which has already been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy), but to which the right hon. Gentleman completely gave the go-by when he was speaking. I refer to the refusal of the Deputy Governor of Cork Gaol to permit certain Visiting Justices to have a private interview with a prisoner who demanded such an interview. The rule on this subject is perfectly plain and clear. It provides that Visiting Justices may from time to time, and at frequent intervals, visit any prisoners and hear any complaints made to them by the prisoners, and, if asked, shall do so privately. The Mayor of Cork and Messrs. Day and Dunn, two City Magistrates, visited Cork Gaol this month, and in the course of their visit a prisoner under the Crimes Act, named O'Brien, asked for a private interview, with the object of making a complaint to them. The Deputy Governor informed the Justices that he could not permit any statement to be made to them in private; and the Justices had to leave the prison without hearing what O'Brien's complaint was. Now, Sir, one of the few protections which prisoners in Ireland have is this right of making statements in private to the Visiting Committee. If there were not such a right prisoners would be absolutely at the mercy of every petty tyrant who happened to be Governor or Deputy Governor of a gaol. The Mayor of Cork wrote to the Prisons Board on the subject, and the Prisons Board have admitted that the Deputy Governor was wrong in refusing to allow the private interview to take place. But they have not inflicted any punishment on the Deputy Governor, nor have they even censured him. I ask whether this is the way in which the Prison Rules ought to be enforced in Ireland? Is this the way to deal with a man who was culpably ignorant of the rules he has to administer? They simply sent him a Circular drawing his attention to the rule. If a Deputy Governor is not supposed to know the Prison Rules, I do not know who is. I should hardly think he is likely to pay more attention to the Circular than he has paid to the rule itself. If this prison had been an ordinary prison, I do not suppose the Deputy Governor would have thought it his duty to interfere. If the Justices, instead of consisting of the Nationalist Mayor of Cork and two Catholic Magistrates, had consisted of the Grand Master of the Orange Lodge and some of his colleagues, the Deputy Governor would never have prohibited a private interview. But because this unfortu- nate prisoner happened to have been imprisoned under the Coercion Act, and because the Visiting Justices happened to be headed by the Mayor of Cork—who, as every one knows, is a Nationalist—they are a fit mark for the ignorance of these people. The Chief Secretary, in referring to another case of the kind which occurred in Cork Gaol, said he did not desire to speak harshly of the Governor. No; all the harshness is reserved for the prisoners. But if the Governor had been guilty of leniency towards the prisoners a different fate would have waited on him. We know that warder after warder has been removed, and that some of the warders have been dismissed because the Prisons Board came to the conclusion that they were too lenient towards the prisoners. But when the mistake is in the other direction, and the warder offends on the side of rigour and not of leniency, the Prisons Board refuse to reprimand him. When the Deputy Governor is so ignorant of the rules that he is unaware that the Visiting Justices are entitled to see a prisoner in private, the Prisons Board merely send him a Circular calling his attention to the rule.

MR. O'KEEFFE (Limerick)

I desire to take some little part in this discussion, inasmuch as owing to the position I hold in Ireland I happen to be ex officio Chairman of two Prisons Visiting Committees, and have had considerable experience of visiting gaols. I apprehend I have paid something like 600 visits to the city and county gaols of Limerick. As regards the statement which has been put forward in this House that Irish prisoners have occasion to complain of an inadequate dietary, I must say one of the very few complaints I have ever received from the prisoners has been that the dietary allowed in the Irish gaols is utterly insufficient for their wants. I find that in the case of every prisoner committed to gaol the first three days' confinement amounts to absolute starvation, because the quality of the food is such—bread and water, and a miserable compound called "stir-about"—that no one is able to eat it. I have frequently been told by prisoners that for the first couple of days in gaol no food whatever has passed their lips. At this late hour of the Debate I will not enter into any of the general aspects of the case. As to the distinction between prisoners under the Crimes Act and prisoners convicted of ordinary crime, it is in evidence that according to the civilised ideas of every other country there should be some distinction. So long as the present relations between England and Ireland exist, political offences will be committed, and it ought to be a part of the prison economy of this country towards ours that a just and equitable and honourable provision shall be made to distinguish between political and non-political offenders. I would call attention to three specific instances which have come under my immediate notice as showing the injustice of the present method of treating political prisoners in Ireland. The first case is that of a man named Tully, which has been referred to to-day. I will not travel over the ground which has already been traversed. I am not here to make an appeal for mercy on this man's behalf, as he has almost completed his 12 months' imprisonment. I have several times put a question as to his condition in this House, and have always received an evasive answer. I say that this man has almost entirely lost his eye-sight in Limerick Gaol. His offence was a very slight one under the Coercion Act, and though I do not know him personally, as he is a stranger to Limerick—being one of what are known as the Woodford prisoners—he is well known to the two hon. Members for Galway, who declare that he has always been looked upon as a respectable man in his district. Well, this man contracted in gaol an affection of the eyes, and the complaint has been going on month by month until I have it from the members of his own family and from actual observation that in the natural course of things before very long he will be absolutely blind. There are three other prisoners in Limerick Gaol whom I think it a gross act of injustice to detain there, and those are the three men who were held as hostages for the settlement of the difficulty on the Vandeleur estate. I know these men we'll, having visited them almost daily during the six months they have been in gaol, and I am bound to say, on their behalf, that they would not care for me to make any appeal for a modification of their sentence—that, in fact, if they knew I was even mentioning their names here they would reprobate my conduct. A settlement was arrived at on the Vandeleur estate on the implied basis that these men should be liberated. But though the settlement was arrived at, in violation of its terms these men are still detained in custody. I say that the effect of keeping the men in custody is really to maintain an open sore in that part of the country, and to discourage other tenants from assenting to any species of arbitration. I do not think I am violating confidence if I say that I have reason to believe, from information derived from a certain source, that these three humble peasants of County Clare would be released from custody in the morning if they would only humble to the extent of asking the Chief Secretary to give them their liberty. A newspaper I received from Clare only this morning shows that the agitation in the public mind with regard to this case is as keen as ever. I hold that in the present peaceful condition of the county it is unjust to detain these men any longer in prison. Another case I would mention is that of my hon. Friend (Mr. Finucane). He was sentenced to five months' imprisonment for taking part in what was called an "illegal conspiracy," though the "conspiracy" was evidenced by four public meetings, every one of which I attended, and over the last of which I presided, for the reason that it took place in my Division. Mr. Finucane receive five months' imprisonment, and several of my constituents were also sent to prison. During the first month he was in gaol Mr. Finucane was in the hospital. He was sentenced to a second imprisonment—four months—and of that he spent the greater part in the hospital of Tullamore Gaol. I say it is abhorrent to the feelings of every humane person that Mr. Finucane should have been kept in the prison hospital if he was not considered fit to be in the prison itself. My hon. Friend, who came across from Limerick to this country to perform his duty to his constituents in this House, is at this moment prostrate in his hotel from the effects of the treatment he received in gaol, and the Member for South Longford (Dr. Fitzgerald), who has seen my hon. Friend, declares that he will feel the effects of his imprisonment during the remainder of his life. I am glad to say that though I have visited up- wards of 100 Crimes Act prisoners I have never heard a word of complaint escape their lips. I remember in one case sympathising with a man who had received nine months' imprisonment for some paltry offence, and his reply to me was, "I don't mind it. Michael Davitt spent nine years in gaol." The Chief Secretary would be surprised at the spirit of heroism displayed by every one of these people—and I refer not only to men but to women also. In the City of Limerick there was a woman named Ryan who had been detained in prison under one sentence for contempt of Court. She is now undergoing a second term. Instances like these show the present prison system in Ireland. The only thing I fear is that when Parliament is prorogued the right hon. Gentleman will be relieved of even the thin barrier of Parliamentary revision, and that his coercive policy will break out with renewed violence. I can assure him, however, that this policy will not wean the people from the struggle they are making; but that they will continue to use every Constitutional engine to effect the purpose they have in view, which is to establish the right of the Irish people to legislate for themselves in their own Parliament.

SIR J. SWINBURNE (Staffordshire, Lichfield)

Yesterday there were four specific charges made by the hon. Member for South Armagh (Mr. Blane) against the Irish prison discipline, to which no answer has been made on behalf of the Government. These charges were not made on hearsay evidence; they were made on the hon. Member's own responsibility, as the result of his own observation and experience when a prisoner in Derry Gaol. The hon. Member declared that prisoners bared their arms to show that they were suffering from a loathsome disease, such as it was declared by the Government Mr. Conybeare could not have contracted in prison. When the hon. Member had asked them why they did not go to the hospital to be cured, they replied that if they asked to see a doctor they would be ill-used; they would have their heads knocked against the wall; and that if they gave any trouble about it they would be put on bread and water and punished with solitary confinement. The hon. Member stated that prisoners were knocked about, shaken, and pushed against the wall, as if the object were to provoke them into committing assaults on the warders. The hon. Member also stated that he and other prisoners were paraded and made an exhibition of before visitors to the gaol—before Sir Hervey Bruce and some of his lady friends. The hon. Member was exhibited to these people like a wild beast. These are charges so direct, specific, and circumstantial that I cannot understand their being entirely ignored by the Government. Before this Vote is passed I should like some Member of the Government to make some reply to these definite accusations against the carrying out of the prison rules in Derry Gaol; and something more ought to be said by the Government about the tenants from the Vandeleur estate, who are kept in gaol, although even the landlord has petitioned that they may be liberated, as all the disputes out of which the offences, for which they are imprisoned, arose have been amicably arranged.

The House divided:—Ayes 67; Noes 43.—(Div. List, No. 340.)

Resolutions 4 to 11 agreeed to.

On the Twelfth Resolution.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S.W.)

As this important Vote was passed last night without discussion, I think I may ask the indulgence of the House for a few moments whilst I say a word or two upon it. A right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench has stated that the treatment of prisoners was not challenged by hon. Members on this side of the House until their own friends had suffered from it. Well, so far as that taunt is well founded at all it is of general application, and it amounts only to this: Our penal system is a social question, and hitherto, unhappily as I think, social questions have not in this House attracted the same attention and excited the same enthusiam as questions of a political or Party character. If it means more than that, then I distinctly challenge the accuracy of the right hon. Gentleman's statement; because for years past, both in this House and outside it, there have been men of the highest character and of ripe experience who, whilst admitting the great improvement—and I, for one, should be amongst the last to deny it—which have been made by the English Prisons Board, have yet complained that, on the whole, our English penal system is a failure, and that it is marked, indeed, by some circumstances of positive cruelty. I hope next year to be able to bring the subject before the House, in a comprehensive manner, in the form of a Resolution; but I cannot permit, for the present year, this opportunity, which is the only one I have, to pass without making a few observations on the subject, which I would fain hope will not be without some effect on the English Prisons Board. Looking at the matter broadly, the most salient features of our English system—the most salient defects as I regard them—are excessive centralisation in the first place, and excessive militaryism in the second. To begin at the bottom of the scale we have the warders who are in very many instances old soldiers. Then we have the Governors and Deputy Governors who control the warders and who are, with few exceptions, officers of the Army and Navy. And, over all, you have the supreme Board on which, also, the military element predominates. It is from these two causes—namely, excessive centralisation and excessive militaryism, that most of the evils arise of which I have to complain. The treatment of unconvicted prisoners, who may turn out to be as respectable persons as any Member of this House, is most unsatisfactory, and is well exemplified by a case recently tried in connection with Ipswich Gaol, where an unconvicted commercial traveller was subjected to wholly illegal treatment and to gross indignities. This prisoner, whilst still untried—and who in a recent action against the prison officials recovered £75 damages for this illegal treatment—was compelled to strip naked for purposes of examination by the prison doctor, and to wear prison clothing marked with the broad arrow. An unworthy attempt was made to throw the blame upon a warder, but in cross-examination the Governor had to admit that the warders acted in accordance with instructions received from him. But I want to fix responsibility upon the Prison Commissioners. Do they approve or disapprove of the action of the Governor in this case? If they do not approve of it, why did they defend him in the action brought against him; and how do they propose to punish him? The present system in regard to the flogging of convicts is also very unsatisfactory, for this is inflicted after a secret inquiry held, in the case of convicts sentenced to penal servitude, by a single individual, generally a military man, who probably has strong views as to the effectiveness of the lash in maintaining discipline. There has been a movement in this country in favour of an extension of flogging, which has found expression even in this House, though, to do the advocates of this proposal justice, they did desire that all possible safeguards should be taken in the matter, and proposed to limit the power of sentencing to the lash to the Judges of the Superior Court. Floggings, I contend, are unnecessary in order to maintain discipline; the lash is, in fact, the resort of incompetency, just as it is said anyone can govern in a state of siege. I further contend that short term imprisonment, by reason of the severity of the régime, inflicts permanent injury upon the health of prisoners. The present system is not only inhuman, but in the highest degree impolitic, because if men are discharged with minds and bodies enfeebled by their treatment in prison, it is obvious that they are less able to obtain an honest livelihood, and more likely to become dupes of cleverer criminals than themselves. The policy of the Prisons Board has been distinguished, more especially since Sir E. Du Cane became its head, by a love of secrecy and a morbid dread of any influence from the outside world penetrating within the walls of a convict prison. But I say that the more we extend the system of the visitation of prisoners by suitable persons from the outer world the better it will be. There ought in particular to be a lady visitor to every prison where women are confined, and I am sorry to say that, although there are now 28 prisons without these visitors, only two additional visitors have been appointed during the last two years. These visitors would introduce humanising influences into prisons, where they seem now to be ignored. I understand—and I heard it with pain—that nothing may be introduced into a convict prison, not even the photograph of a imp or child. But surely anything which tends to soften and humanise a man can do him no harm, even within the walls of a convict prison. On th9 contrary, I cannot but think that a wise and experienced Governor would not exclude, and would not despise, the invaluable influence which might be produced even upon a hardened criminal by the photograph of his innocent child, or any other memento of happier days. It has been said by one who ought to know, that "when a man enters an English convict prison, he has to leave every sentiment of decency, modesty, and shame outside." I, for one, protest against such a system. I believe it is possible to punish men severely and deterrently without adopting a mode of treatment which seems calculated to extinguish the last spark of self-respect.

THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. STUART-WORTLEY,) Sheffield, Hallam

I must protest against the language and tone in which the hon. Member has persisted in urging that on all the questions he has introduced to the notice of the House the Prisons Board has offered an unenlightened resistance to reform. The hon. Member has complained of the excessive centralisation of the system; but the Ipswich case, to which he referred, was an illustration of the evils of the want of centralisation, as in that case the Governor, in the exercise of the discretion vested in him to make certain rules, had made a rule which was in conflict with the statutory rules. Whether the costs and damages which have fallen upon the Treasury in the first instance should be borne by the Governor is a matter for grave consideration. It should be remembered that in the action against the Ipswich Governor the plaintiff's counsel and the Lord Chief Justice made it clear that the charge that was made was not against the Governor personally, but rather against the system. The hon. Gentleman has complained that the prison treatment of short-term convicts is such as permanently to injure the constitutions of persons subjected to it. Before the Committee can judge whether that is true or not specific instances in which permanent injury has resulted from that treatment would have to be proved. But the hon. Member has brought forward no such cases. Dr. Gover, in a recent Report, has shown that the system is far from being so severe as is generally supposed. If it can be shown that the system produces the permanent harmful effects suggested, then undoubtedly there would be a case for reform; but until that has been shown I protest against these general charges being made. I may add that when the dietary was fixed, independent medical practitioners were called in for the purpose of giving advice upon it. With regard to the identification of prisoners for previous convictions, mistakes do no doubt occur; but in proportion to the enormous yearly number of identifications the errors are infinitesimally few. The last case was due to a practice prevalent amongst the prisoners, the reason of which I cannot explain, of exchanging the tickets they wore with the numbers of their cells upon them. Steps are being taken by identifying the men in smaller groups to prevent such an exchange taking place in future. With regard to the "star" class, I cannot remember at the moment what the exact conditions of admission to it are, but I will look into the matter. I do not think there is so much difficulty in visitors getting into a prison as the strict terms of the rules would imply. Those rules, when not dispensed with, limit the admission of strangers to persons "interested in prison discipline and management, having some useful public object in view." But with the concurrence of the Prison Authorities, I have myself occasionally allowed the strict terms of that rule to be relaxed.

MR. T. M. HEALY

Hear, hear. Pigott.

MR. STUART WORTLEY

I am speaking of persons who merely desire to see what the prisons are like, and for the purpose only of contending that abundant opportunity exists for independent criticism of our prison system. With regard to lady visitors, the power of nominating them lies with the Visiting Justices, and the only reason why lady visitors are not appointed to all prisons where women are placed is that none have been nominated by the Justices. The Prisons Board throw no sort of obstacle in the way of such appointments; but, on the contrary, are desirous that they should be made. With regard to flogging, I think it will be admitted that it must be retained in some cases—such as violent assaults on warders or fellow prisoners. I also think any abuse is sufficiently guarded against by the doctor's certificate and the other regulations which have to be observed. I hope I have now satisfied the House that there is no ground for the charge of inhumanity which has been made.

MR. BLANE (Armagh, S.)

I think all reasonable men will admit that Members of this House ought to have access to convict prisoners. Our old friend Walter, of the Times, and his agents seem to have access to prisoners at all times. Those who got up conspiracies against Members of Parliament have the right to enter our prisons whenever they think fit. Surely Members of this House ought to have the right to enter convict prisons to ask the prisoners if they have any complaints to make and if they have to probe the matter to the bottom. I differ from those who say that our convict system should not be a reformatory system. I think it should be a reformatory system; that it should be conducted in accordance with the feelings of humanity, and that points should be strained in favour of the convicts. The prisoners are shut out from the world, Members of this House have not access to them, and they cannot make complaints themselves.

Question put, and agreed to.

On the Thirteenth Resolution,

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

SIR G. CAMPBELL (Kircaldy)

It is totally impossible on this occasion to go at length into the subjects involved in this Resolution, and therefore I will confine myself to one matter which has just cropped up at Suakin. A day or two ago I asked the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs a question as to the so-called Governor General of Suakin supplying arms and ammunition to the friendly tribes around Suakin, wherewith to make raids on the neighbouring tribes. I followed up that question by asking the Under Secretary whether these raids did not involve the despatch of large contingents of Her Majesty's troops. I did not receive an answer. To-day there appears the following telegram from Suakin:— In revenge for the raid on Sinkat, Mohamed Achmet, nephew of the late Mahdi, has left Tokar to punish the Hadendowas. He has with him 1,000 men, consisting of Tokar tribesmen, Jaleen, and Baggaras. Sheikh Kidr, of the Hassanabs, with 300 men, also joins him to co-operate with Mahdi Moussa's force, which fled from Sinkat on the advance of the friendlies from Suakin. History repeats itself. This is precisely what happened last year, I had hoped the Government had learned a lesson from what took place last year. Why cannot we try a policy of peace; that is to say, instructing the Governor General to confine himself to the town of Suakin? No one can accuse the Times of want of Jingoism, and yet I find the correspondent of the Times Says, "These raids and counter raids are unfortunate." The St. James's Gazette takes a strange view, but I will not detain the House longer. It is raids such as these which involved us in little wars with the tribes, and I hope that before separating we may get an assurance that this raiding will be stopped, as far as possible, by the Governor of Suakin. Otherwise we shall have more wars with the tribes on our hands before Parliament re-assembles.

THE UNDER SECERTARY OF STATE FOR FOEEIGN AFFAIES (Sir J. FERGUSSON,) Manchester, N.E.

I have seen the telegram in the Times, and doubtless, at first, sight, it has an alarming aspect. We know, however, that these rumours are not always well-founded. The hon. Gentleman has referred to the policy lately pursued by the Egyptian Government in permitting the tribes called the Hadendowas to make reprisals for outrages and depredations committed against them by the Dervishes and their allies. The Egyptian Government have followed the policy stated in this House again and again of standing on the defensive and maintaining the frontier which was in existence when Her Majesty's Government came into power. But it is another thing when the tribes over which there is no sovereignty exercised, but who are friendly to us, are defending themselves against the attacks of organised and predatory bodies, from, which they suffered great loss and their whole means of existence in flocks and herds are carried away. It is true that certain supplies of arms and ammunition were given to these friendly tribes in order that they might defend themselves and regain their property. As we prevent the importation of arms on the coast, we could hardly deny to our friends the means of defence against a formidable enemy. So far as recent operations have gone, the Government have not deviated from the policy which they have deliberately pursued all along. I hope the apprehensions of the hon. Member will not be realised.

Resolution agreed to.