MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT.

HC Deb 24 February 1890 vol 341 cc1032-68

(4.25.) MR. Sexton, Member for West Belfast, rose in his place, and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House, for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the illegal and violent course of conduct by which the Irish Executive are endeavouring to prevent the provision of shelter for the evicted tenants of Clongorey, and are thereby endangering the public peace and the lives of homeless families; but the pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. Speaker called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not less than 40 Members having accordingly risen,

(4.27.) MR. SEXTON

I beg to move the Adjournment of the House, and I do so for the purpose of bringing to the notice of the House with the expedition which the matter requires a statement of facts constituting in my humble judgment a case which the House will, find to be abundantly definite, and which I venture to hope, the House will consider to be urgent. I ask hon. Members of all parties candidly to consider whether the course of conduct which I shall have to describe would be ventured upon by the Government in any part of Great Britain; and, if not, whether there is any adequate reason, or any reason whatever, why such a course of conduct should be indulged in even in Ireland? The name of Clongorey is, unfortunately, not new to this House. It has been made, unhappily, too familiar. Last year, after a number of families had been evicted from their homes on this estate, a body of emergency men went to these houses in the dead of night carrying with them a stock of petroleum. They were accompanied by a force of armed police, and in the dead of night they gave these houses to the flames, and left standing in the whole of that village but one house which was required for the use of the police. That outrage sent a thrill of horror through the whole community. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, if he did not in express terms approve of it, at any rate did not condemn it, and to the substantial encouragement which he gave on that occasion I attribute the developments which it is now my duty to describe. I may inform the House that these Clongorey farms are simply minute strips of reclaimed bog-land obtained by cutting away the bog which forms the bed or bottom of the land after the turf has been removed. These strips of land were reclaimed exclusively by the labour of the tenants. Every penny of value which has been given to the land is the result of the labour of the tenants, who have built the houses which stand on the holdings, with their own hands. Not only are the houses erected on mere strips of reclaimed bog, the equitable value of which belongs to the tenants, but it was originally the system to allow the tenants to remain in possession of them for nothing. Not only are they strips of bog-land, but they lie lower than the adjacent river. In the year 1886, there occurred a disastrous flood, by which the tenants' scanty crops were destroyed and their farms seriously injured. The tenants applied to the landlord for an allowance—or, perhaps, I should not say to the landlord, because, in the case of the Clongorey estate, as in that of so many other estates which have become notorious—the landlord has lost or forfeited the right to control the property, and the right has vested in three trustees, one of whom resides in Wexford, another here in London, while a third is living in Denmark. The tenants asked for an allowance to be spent on the grass lands, and a full allowance of one year's rent, which would have gone a little way towards enabling them to cope with the misfortune that had overtaken them. The tenants were very moderate. They merely asked for an allowance of 35 per cent, on the non-judicial rents, and of 25 per cent, on the judicial rents, which claim they subsequently reduced to 30 per cent, in the first case, and 20 per cent, in the latter. The trustees offered an abatement of 10 per cent, on the non-judicial rents, and in the case of the judicial rents they refused to allow one penny, although the judicial tenants had suffered equally with the others by the flood. The Trustees, however, seemed to think that the judicial tenants had committed an unpardonable offence in having gone to Court to get fair rents fixed. As a matter of course, evictions then began; but some of the tenants who had been left in possession managed to find their way to the County Court for the purpose of getting fair rents fixed. The Judge of the County Court in that district, Dr. Darley, is a well-known Conservative, and I do not think he will resent my describing him as a strong Tory. Well, that County Court Judge, on the report of the land valuer, reduced the rents of those tenants to an average of more than 30 per cent., though in some cases the reduction was as much as 40 per cent., and in others as much as 50 per cent.; at any rate, the permanent reductions allowed by this Conservative gentleman were greater than were asked by the tenants in respect of a special claim. But the County Court Judge did more than reduce the rents; he made two suggestions to the landlord. In the first place, he urged on the landlord that these farms were poor, isolated strips of bog-land, and recommended that the tenants, who had built the houses themselves and had been ruined by the flood, should have the arrears due from them altogether extinguished; indeed, the learned Judge used some remarkable language from the Bench. He said: "It is absurd to tell me that these arrears can be paid;" but although he urged the landlord to extinguish them altogether his appeal was unheeded. He then made another suggestion, namely, that if the arrears were not extinguished, they should be reduced according to the scale on which the new rents had just been determined. If the Government had given to Ireland the same clause which they gave to Scotland, enabling the county Judge to deal with, the arrears and, if necessary, extinguish them, or at any rate to reduce them, Judge Darley would have wiped off the arrears due upon these miserable patches of bog-land, and I assert that it is entirely due to the Government that these miserable tenants at Clongorey are not in their homes to-day. The second suggestion of the Judge—that the arrears should be reduced —was also ignored, the landlord and the trustees refusing to take off one penny; and it is for these unreduced arrears that, in defiance of the Judgment of the Court, these wretched people have been evicted. I should also say that the County Court Judge pointed out that the tenants never had been able to pay their rent out of the produce of the land, and it was only by reason of their being allowed to cut turf from an adjacent bog that they had been able to make any payment at all. It seems a melancholy thing that not a penny could be paid out of the holdings themselves, and it is a still more melancholy thing to find that the landlord has taken away the right of cutting turf, and has thus deprived the tenants of their only means of paying rent. Well, Sir, on the 7th and 8th of the present month twelve families were evicted for non-payment of the unreduced arrears, and all hope of shelter in their own homes was taken away from them on the following day when a force of emergency men, encouraged by the acts of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, went to the scene of the evictions, cut down the roofs of the houses with hatchets and saws, levelled the walls with crowbars, and carried out the demolition of each of the houses, accompanying the work in each case with a round of cheers. The people meanwhile stood by and looked on as witnesses of this outrage and wanton destruction, there being among them some of the tenants who had built these houses. Nevertheless, the crowd stood by and never by act or word attempted to interfere. It is an evil lesson which the Government teaches when peaceful-ness is rewarded as the peacefulness of these poor people has been. The neighbours endeavoured to find shelter for the evicted families, and one of the tenants, Mrs. Mary Kelly—the most substantial tenant on the estate, who has paid her rates and is in possession of all the rights of tenancy—determined to make some alterations in the out-houses of her farm for the purpose of providing shelter. A number of artisans—masons, carpenters, and others—were consequently engaged from the adjoining towns, and went to the farm for the purpose of altering those out-buildings. They set to work, and the additional buildings were erected. On Saturday, the 15th inst., Mrs. Kelly was served with a precept signed by Colonel Forbes, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to read that document to the House, as the purport of it is not nearly conveyed by anything I have seen in the Press. One account of it is that it was to direct the tenant to desist from making these alterations; another is that it called on her to appear on a subsequent occasion at Petty Sessions and show cause why she should not be ordered to desist. This precept appears to me to be a very curious document. It certainly rests on the authority of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act of 1860; but the provisions of that Act are directed against unlawful waste, and the procedure of the tenant on this occasion in regard to out-houses built by herself on her own farm could not be held to be a procedure tending to produce unlawful waste; on the contrary, it would be rather to improve the value of the property, and render it worth more to the landlord. But proceedings had been initiated in the Court of Queen's Bench, and am I to be told that in this civil case, as between one subject and another, it was competent to anyone to determine the law before it had been decided by the Superior Court, and not only to call on the tenant to appear at the next Court of Petty Sessions at Newbridge, but actually to proceed to the employment of force for the purpose of compelling the tenant to desist from what she was doing? The tenant, perceiving that the question at issue was to be decided by the Queen's Bench, or by the Newbridge magistrates at Petty Sessions, directed the workmen to go on with their work. The men, acting on this direction, remained at work, and on Tuesday last a body of police marched out from Newbridge to Mrs. Kelly's farm. They found some 15 men at work, and arrested them all, without warrant. I have always understood that a man cannot be arrested without warrant except in a case of felony, and I suppose that even the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary will hardly pretend that a felony had been committed here. The men were marched into the town of Newbridge, and having been brought before Colonel Forbes, were, after an imprisonment of some hours, discharged. Now, the question I have to ask is, why were those men arrested? I submit that the Statute of 1860 dealing with unlawful waste does not provide for arrest. It enacts that, where anybody commits what is termed unlawful waste, a precept may be issued, and that course of procedure is that anybody disobeying that precept may be brought before Petty Sessions and rendered liable to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding one calendar month. I say that the course of procedure in this case should have been by summons, and that to proceed by arrest was, in my judgment, illegal. Why should these workmen have been arrested? They were doing a day's work, and earning a day's wages. Am I to be told that an Irish carpenter or stonemason engaged by an Irish farmer to do a day's work is obliged, before he enters upon that work, to inquire, under penalty of jeopardising his liberty, and satisfy himself as to the right or wrong of a technical legal question of unlawful waste as between landlord and tenant? That question is determinable as a matter of equity by a Court of Superior Jurisdiction. It comes to this, that an Irish workman when pursuing his day's work will ha veto go about with a lawyer to represent him. I say these men had a right to do their work, and that the operation of the precept only extended to the tenant. These 15 men were discharged in the course of the day. On Wednesday a large force of police, I believe about 100 men, marched out of the town to Mrs. Kelly's farm. They found 29 men at work, and arrested and handcuffed them. When a question was put to him, the Chief Secretary raised the pretence that these men were handcuffed because a rescue was apprehended. Did not the men submit quietly to arrest on the previous day? Did they not go to the barracks quietly? What substantial reason then had police to apprehend a rescue or an attempt at escape? Father Kinsella was present on this occasion at the farm. Father Kinsella is a man advanced in years; he is a man of whom very little has been heard in Irish life; he is a person of a singularly quiet, gentle, and retiring disposition—a man held in the highest esteem by all with whom he comes in contact. Father Kinsall protested against the usage to which these poor artisans were subjected, for no worse crime than doing their day's work. The 29 men arrested on the Wednesday were released on bail at 6 o'clock that evening with a caution, and to appear again at the subsequent Petty Sessions. The rising temper of the police, and the increasing audacity of those in command of them, is shown by the fact, that two men in Newbridge, who simply cheered on the Wednesday, were arrested and ordered, on bail, to appear to a charge of riotous behaviour. I now come to the third day. On that day a force of 100 police marched from Newbridge to the farm, this time with fixed bayonets—so the course of events progressed. They found the house closed. They broke into it with the crowbars of the emergency men, who are the allies of the police. The right hon. Gentleman has been asked to day why they broke into the house. He says they had a warrant. I venture to think he has been misled. Can you with a warrant break into a house where the charge is not one of felony? I am informed that the police were asked to show their warrant, and they did not do so, and, until good reason is shown to the contrary, I shall maintain that their refusal to exhibit it is sufficient proof that they had no warrant. They broke into the house, certainly. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Lowther), who was once Chief Secretary for Ireland, appears to be much am used by the statement I have just made. Does he mean to say that a police officer having a warrant for a certain purpose, can, in the execution of that purpose, break into a person's house? The police are obliged to show their warrant, and their failure in this instance to do so is a satisfactory proof that they had no warrant. The police, having broken into the house, arrested 17 working men, and handcuffed them. I must protest that this handcuffing was a wanton and cruel outrage, and I think the same view will be taken of it by men of their own class—the artisans of the United Kingdom. I think the act was not only cruel but injudicious, and the right hon. Gentleman forgets, as his subordinates appear to forget, that men of precisely the same class as those artisans who have been arrested, are now potentially the rulers of this Kingdom. Sir, I have now to give proof of the most deadly malice on the part of those in control of the police. They arrested these men after dark on Thursday evening, and, inst3ad of going by the direct way to the barracks, which is through a street deserted at that time of night, they made a detour with their prisoners through a part of the town which is always crowded at that hour of the evening. They did it for no other conceivable cause than to get among the people with those prisoners in custody. They laid about them accordingly with their batons. One man had his eyeball burst by the blow of a baton. The skull of another man was fractured, and he lies at this moment in danger of death. A respectable tradesman of the town was dragged out of his open doorway. His hat was snatched off, and then, I suppose by a natural sequence, he was knocked down and kicked about brutally. The Chairman of the Town Council was violently assaulted. In driving themselves among the people with their prisoners the police obtained a pretext for this savage assault. The prisoners were lodged in the barracks. A local solicitor asked to be admitted. Admission was refused. The men arrested on the Tuesday and Wednesday had been released the same evening. The men arrested on the Thursday were kept all night. They were herded together all night in one small room, which was without any means of ventilation. On the Friday morning the Chairman of the Town Council and two other gentle- men offered bail for these honest and respectable artisans. They were hurried and hustled away from the police barracks. You are very often asking for sureties in Ireland under the Statute of Edward III., but if a surety presents himself you chase him away with batons. On Friday morning a Castle Magistrate, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald made his appearance in the town of Newbridge. Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald is a magistrate who has distinguished himself by hustling soldiers and counsel out of his Court, and when persons accused before him expressed discontent at being undefended, he commits them to prison week after week for contempt of Court. In the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cork, his counsel (the hon. Member for Longford) was expelled from the Court, and when my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cork expressed his indignation at the plight in which he was left, the magistrate listened quietly on the Bench until my hon. Friend Had concluded. Then, after an absence of 15 minutes, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald returned with an elaborate warrant, which he could not have drawn up in the time, and, in the exercise of a jurisdiction never before exercised, and never suspected to be in existence, he sent my hon. Friend to spend three months in prison. Well, the appearance of this gentleman in Newbridge, on Friday last, was signalised by a second baton charge. Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald entered the police barrack; the police sallied out with batons and attacked every one they saw; in point of fact, they acted as if the people were obliged to imprison themselves in their houses, and as if their presence in the streets was a crime. The next step was for the fourth successive day to despatch a party of armed police to Mrs. Kelly's farm; as soon as the police left the town a party of dragoons, 200 in number, marched from the barracks. They came, I assume, by the order of Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald. They were armed with carbines, and they marched with drawn sabres. They took possession of all the approaches to the town. They did not allow any one to pass in or out of that town; throughout the day locomotion was suspended; a funeral happened to come in the way, and they refused to allow it to pass over the bridge; the mourners had to go up the river bank until they came to a ford, over which they passed with some danger to their lives. How they contrived to get the coffin across I have not ascertained. The police meanwhile had proceeded to the farm. They found Father Kinsella, described as a dangerous person, sawing a plank. They arrested him and conveyed him to Newbridge. He was brought before Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald in the police barrack. His solicitor had applied for admission, and had been refused. The case was heard not in public, but in private. The magistrate refused. This gentleman, bred to official life in India, who would not be considered fit for any magisterial function in any part of Great Britain, is considered good enough to exercise very exceptional magisterial functions in any part of Ireland. The solicitor asked that at least one shorthand writer might be admitted to make a record of the proceedings and enable us to have some check on the system of falsehood that is continually applied to these reports in Ireland, but the magistrate refused to admit a solitary shorthand Writer. The affair went on in private. Now, I ask what was the charge against the working men? I need not ask what it was against Father Kinsella. I have read the text of the complaint. He was charged with defying and contravening the precept of Colonel Forbes, but the precept of Colonel Forbes was a precept of civil operation dependent on the ultimate decision of the Court of Queen's Bench, and it was directed to the tenant and not to Father Kinsella. It was a precept to show cause at Newbridge Petty Sessions, and before the case came before the Sessions, and before the determination of the question by the Court of Queen's Bench, the magistrate had Father Kinsella arrested for disobeying the precept. I say, that even if Father Kinsella had committed an offence in disobeying the precept, the course was to summon him for that disobedience, to cause him to appear before the next Newbridge Petty Sessions, and at that Petty Sessions, according to the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1860, the utmost penalty that could have been inflicted was imprisonment for a term not exceeding one calendar month. What course was pursued? The charge of disobeying the precept was heard in private in a police barrack. Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald came to no finding on the charge. Let it be legal or let it be illegal, let it, be valid or let it be invalid, Mr. Fitzgerald came to no finding on the charge, but he put it aside, and putting the charge aside, he turned to the Statute of Edward III., and under that—in reference to an act which, if it were an offence at all, was prosecutable, not before an individual, but before a Court of Petty Sessions, and if a Petty Sessions Court convicted was not punishable by a higher sentence than one month—under that statute, I say, this individual magistrate in private took it upon himself to call upon Father Kinsella to find hail himself, and to get two other sureties, to be of good behaviour. Because Father Kinsella refused to confess himself to be a rogue and vagabond by giving and finding bail under this mediæval statute —a statute long obsolete in England, and never at any time, in England or elsewhere, intended for use except against rascals of evil fame — because Father Kinsella refused to confess himself a rogue and vagabond, this gentleman, bred in India, sitting at a private police barrack, in reference to an offence only punishable by one month's imprisonment, sentenced that venerable and respected priest to go for a period of two months to Kilkenny gaol. He is in Kilkenny gaol at the present moment, and he will be there, I suppose, for the next month, if he can so long endure the ordeal. This is the extraordinary condition of society under the personal rule, as he is fond of calling it, of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Manchester. Father Kinsella, in this quiet town, in this quiet county, having been so arrested and condemned, was taken to a railway station by an escort of dragoons, and when the people assembled at the station and peacefully cheered their departing pastor, the third baton charge of that week occurred, and many persons suffered injuries. The first baton charge occurred when the police provoked it, the second signalised the entry of Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, and the third, occurred at the departure of the parish, priest. There remained to be dealt with the case of the 17 men arrested on the previous day and kept imprisoned in the barracks all night. These humble artisans—whose crime was that they were endeavouring to live, who were earning a day's wages for a day's work, the legality of which was beyond their capacity to settle—had been imprisoned all night and the succeeding day, when their cases came up to be dealt with. I should here state that the solicitor asked the magistrate if he would state a case for a higher Court in regard to the action against Father Kinsella, but the magistrate refused to do so. The creatures and instruments of this Act were not willing that their criminal pranks should be reviewed by any Court. Well, the magistrate took up the case of these 17 men. He refused to proceed with the hearing that day, deciding that the case should be taken on the day following. Late that night there was another riot, and 16 more men were arrested; so that, in order to prevent shelter being given to 70 poor people, old men and women and young babies amongst the number, the Government have arrested and sent to prison one respected clergyman and 70 or 80 blameless artisans. And, now, I come to a curious part of the case. On Saturday, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald took up the adjourned case of the 17 men arrested on Thursday, and he was asked by the County Inspector to again adjourn the hearing—and let it be noted that those requests for adjournment and all those proceedings were ordered by telegram from Dublin Castle. On Friday a question had been asked in this House as to the nature of the charge against these men. Up to Saturday it had been disobedience to the precept. On Friday the batches of men arrested on Tuesday and Wednesday having been discharged, either with a caution or on bail, the magistrate turned away from the charge before him to the Statute of Edward III. and called on the men to find bail. Though the offence was one determinable by the Court of Petty Sessions, though the maximum penalty provided by law is imprisonment for one month, yet because these men refused to find bail they were committed by the will of this individual magistrate to prison for two months. On the Saturday occurred the change of front; the charge of disobedience to the precept was abandoned—the authorities seeing that if a charge could be maintained at all it could not be so maintained under that name— and the charge of "unlawful conspiracy" was made. On this charge these 16 men have been called upon to appear before a Coercion Court; that is to say, they are to be tried for an offence which the law declares to be not determinable by a Coercion Court but by a Court of Petty Sessions. Four batches of. working men have been treated in four different ways for precisely the same offence—if it were an offence, and I say it was no offence whatever—and after that I submit the question of the consistency and legality of the course of the Irish Government is one on which even the Member for Dover, in spite of his self-assured smile, would find it difficult to satisfy the House. I have laid before the House as definitely as I can the facts of this case. The events which I have referred to are events which have occurred within the last few days in a peaceful district of a peaceful county. The county of Kildare is a county in which the Sessional Judge and the Judge of Assize concur in congratulations to the people on the absence of disorder and crime. The last criminal calendar for the county, if I remember rightly, included just two cases, which were not cases which need alarm the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland as pointing to any danger or disorder. One was of uttering base coin and the other of petty larceny. But what evil lesson is being taught by the Government to that peaceful place? The people are being given to understand that the more peaceful, the more law abiding and patient they are, the more likely are they to be oppressed. I think it is the duty of the House and of the Members of all Parties in the House to put the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary on his defence. He has been in the habit of boasting, lately in this House and elsewhere that the rule in Ireland is his personal rule. ["No, no!"] Yes, I have heard him within the last few days call the Government of Ireland "my rule," just as his subordinate, the late Viceroy of Ireland, used to call his Viceroyalty of Ireland "my reign." Discreditable as the fact may be to the House of Commons, the boast of the right hon. Gentleman is that his rule of Ireland is not the rule of the Queen or of the Constitution, or of the law as you understand it and respect and honour it in this country. His rule is that of a horde of unscrupulous, irresponsible instruments, who rely upon the favour of a Minister practically absolute, owing to the conduct of the majority in this House—who rely upon his favour not only to condone but to reward and applaud their worst excesses. I say it is the duty of this House to put the Minister on his defence, and whether this House discharges or disregards its duty, I think the people of England, unless I am very much mistaken—and especially at this moment the electors of North St. Pancras—will look with very particular interest to the judgment of the House upon the series of acts which I have detailed—a series of acts which, in my humble judgment, exceeded in lawless audacity the worst that has hitherto been heard of in the personal rule of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Manchester, in Ireland.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Sexton.)

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

The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down said that the Secretary for Ireland should be put on his defence. The Chief Secretary has not, so far as he is concerned, the slightest objection to the operation, but, on the contrary, he is always glad to have an opportunity of explaining face to face with those who intentionally or unintentionally — and no doubt the hon. Gentleman has done so unintentionally—"misrepresent the condition of things in Ireland. The speech of the hon. Member has travelled over a considerable amount of ground, and some of the observations he has made appear to me to be not altogether relevant to the issue that is now before us. He began by giving us an account of the unhappy condition of the tenants on the Clongorey estate; and I concede this much to the hon. Gentleman—that I believe the estate is a poor one, that the land is indifferent, and that, as invariably happens under these circumstances, the tenants cannot rank amongst the prosperous class of farmers in Ireland. But I fail to gather either from the speech of the hon. Member or my own reflections on the subject any ground whatever for basing on that fact the con- clusion that these persons should be allowed to break the law with impunity. Poverty may be an excuse for much. It is not an excuse for deliberate and organised illegality.

MR. SEXTON

It is a reason, in my judgment, why the Government should not prevent distressed people from obtaining shelter.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I will deal with the question of shelter in a moment. I say that the shelter that these tenants are said to have required was owing to their having been evicted, and their eviction was itself the result of an illegal conspiracy started and fomented on the estate, by the friends of the hon. Gentleman. I fail to see that the poverty of these men was an excuse for their action, or that of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite. These tenants were not rich or prosperous; but they were, at all events, well enough off to pay money into the campaign funds, and at the earlier stage of the conspiracy to offer to pay the agent, on condition that the Member for North-East Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien) was allowed out of prison. Those tenants have a right to their own opinion as to the legality or illegality, the justice or injustice, of the sentence passed on the hon. Member for North-Blast Cork; but I submit that if the legality or illegality, justice or injustice of a sentence passed by a Court of Law on any man in Ireland is a ground for some other men not fulfilling their obligations, the chaos which already exists in Ireland where the Plan of Campaign is in operation will not be easily mitigated. The hon. Member dealt with another question which I think irrelevant to the question before the House. He gave a version of the incidents which accompanied the destruction of certain houses from which the tenants had been evicted. I think the hon. Gentleman should have been more careful in his statement of the facts. I did not give police protection on the occasion of the destruction of the houses.

MR. SEXTON

The police were there.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Policemen were there because there were caretakers there, and caretakers have to be protected by police men On account of the teaching which has always accompanied the institution of the Plan of Campaign. There were no policemen sent for the purpose of protecting the agent. The police were no more than were there under normal conditions protecting the caretakers, and they had no notice whatever of the proceedings which the agent proposed to take. While I absolutely repudiate every sort of responsibility for affording police protection in a transaction which I heard nothing of before it took place, I must add this general observation: that if landlords and agents in Ireland would take my advice they would be extremely sparing of ever using the methods that were employed by the agent on this occasion; but to say that the agent destroyed the property of the tenants is not to state the facts as they are. The tenants bad been evicted because they refused, in obedience to an illegal conspiracy, to pay their rents; and they having by their own fault been evicted under circumstances which prevented their taking the legal remedies which the House has provided for the protection of every Irish tenant in the improvements he has made on his holding, the holding belonged absolutely to the landlord. Whether, therefore, the landlord was right or wrong in destroying the houses, at all events he only did what he pleased with his own. The hon. Gentleman has stated that these tenants were turned out in consequence of excessive arrears being exacted from them; and he led the House to believe that they would have been ready to fulfil their obligations if the landlord had been prepared to make a reduction in those arrears proportionate to the reduction made by the County Court Judge in the rents. I have not a, full account of the transactions between landlord and tenant; but I have enough to show that that statement is not correct. I understand that last October, three years' rent being due, the agent offered to receive one year's rent, less 25 per cent, that being the reduction subsequently made by the County Court Judge in the permanent rent of those tenants. The hon. Member has quoted some statements made by the County Court Judge in respect of those tenants, implying that he thought the rents very much too high, and that the landlord was acting in a harsh manner.

MR. SEXTON

And that the arrears should be wiped out.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I can hardly believe that the hon. Gentleman has given an accurate version of it. As I understand it, there was a decision that there should be a stay of execution till January, and that the tenants should be allowed to remain undisturbed during that period; but that in January one year's rent out of three should be paid. January came, and the one year's rent was not paid. Therefore, I suppose we may take it that the County Court Judge, having all the facts before him, thought it was an equitable arrangement; but the tenants, acting, I presume, under the advice of the leaders of the Plan of Campaign, absolutely refused to accept the terms imposed by the Judge on that occasion.

MR. SEXTON

The County Court Judge said it was impossible for the landlord to get those arrears; that the poor tenants had built the houses and reclaimed the land from bog; and that it was absurd to say that the tenants could pay.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

But the County Court Judge ordered the tenants to pay one year's rent in January. The tenants have declined to carry out that arrangement. I come now to the action of the police and the magistrates. As I understand the indictment of the hon. Gentleman it consists of two parts. He thinks, in the first place, that the action of the police and the magistrates was harsh, and in the second place that it was illegal. The accusation of harshness rests upon the undoubted fact that those workmen were arrested and handcuffed. The hon. Member forgot to tell the House that the police had provided transport for the prisoners; that the prisoners refused to use it; that the police were inferior in number; and that the general condition of things in Newbridge justified the police in believing that a rescue might be attempted. I have more than once stated to the House my opinion that it is desirable to discourage absolutely the use of handcuffing except in cases where it is absolutely necessary, but that it must, from the nature of the case, be left to the discretion of the officer commanding to decide when it is necessary. I do not know a case in Ireland which has come to my knowledge in which the discretion has been abused. The next allegation of the hon. Member was that the police took the prisoners not by the shortest route but by a long and roundabout way, in order that they might have the pleasure of batoning the crowd. The hon. Member must have known that such a charge is extravagant to the verge of absurdity. It is perfectly true that the way which the police went was not the shortest, but it was by far the widest, best lighted, and most convenient; and there would have been no batoning if the inhabitants of the town had allowed the police to take their prisoners quietly before the magistrate. The hon. Gentleman told the House that one person lost his eye, and that another had his skull fractured. The information which I have received does not bear out that statement. I believe that two persons were injured; but, so far from one having lost an eye, or another having had his skull fractured, they were, I believe, going about next day. The third case of what the hon. Gentleman called brutality was with regard to the alleged action of the military in stopping a funeral. The hon. Gentleman said—and, I think, said truly—that respect should have been shown, or, at all events, that a large amount of licence might have been granted to a funeral going to a place of interment. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is not aware that the funeral was not going to the place of interment, but was coming back from it; and I think he will admit that simple statement of fact deprives his allegations on the subject of most of its point.

MR. SEXTON

They had as good a right to come back as to go.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

They had as good a right to come back as to go; but they went not by right but by favour. If they went through public streets, where the traffic had to be stopped for the purpose of preserving public order, they went not by right but by favour; and if they came back through streets where the traffic had to be stopped they came back not by right but by favour. The hon. Gentleman gave no reason why the favour should be extended to a funeral returning.

MR. SEXTON

There was this special reason—that their homes lay on the other side of the bridge.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I have not the slightest doubt that the funeral did desire to come back by the bridge. That is not denied; but the whole of that part of the speech of the hon. Gentleman was founded on this—that a dead body was in the funeral cortége.

MR. SEXTON

I said I had not heard whether the corpse was there or not.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The phrase the hon. Gentleman used was that the funeral might be respected until its functions had been discharged. I apprehend that when the dead was buried its functions had been discharged. I pass now to the far more important question of the legality or illegality of the action of the police and the magistrate in the case. I understand that the first charge brought against the police was that on the first three or four days with which we are concerned arrests were made upon the precept under the Act of 1860 issued by the magistrate. On the face of it the precept entirely justified the arrests. If the right hon. Gentleman opposite will refer to the Statute in question he will see that it distinctly contemplates arrests. So far, therefore, there is no ground for complaint unless the arrests were illegal; and if they were illegal there is a summary method by which any such illegality may be punished. The arrests having thus been legally made under the Act of 1860, on the first day the men on being brought before the magistrate were cautioned and sent away, and next day they repeated the offence. The hon. Gentleman says that these labourers were; earning their bread; and he asked, were the labourers to be obliged to carry about with them a revised edition of the Statutes in order to see whether they were acting illegally or not? Well, every labourer in Ireland may assume that when he is brought before a magistrate and told his action is illegal, and further, that at the next Petty Sessions his case will be brought up for final decision, that if he persists in his action he is breaking the law. The hon. Member appears to assume that this precept has only a provisional operation, and has no binding efficacy until it is finally decided at Petty Sessions. But if the hon. Gentleman will look at the words of the Statute and the precept he will see that is not the case, and the magistrate in absolutely forbidding under the precept any further waste being committed was acting entirely in accordance with the law as it is now.

MR. SEXTON

The labourers were o[...]sred to show cause. Does not that imply that the precept was a conditional document dependent on the decision of the Court?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I am advised that the precept is not as the hon. Gentleman supposes — a conditional document, but an absolute document. Well, these labourers, having been arrested and having been cautioned by the magistrate, went back and repeated the offence, and, on that occasion they were bound over and let out. Some of them went back a third time, and for the third time committed the offence. Then they were bound over under the Statute of Edward III. Next, when they committed the offence a fourth time, they, or some of them, were arrested and brought before the magistrate, and they were summoned to appear before a Crimes Act Court for illegal assembly, of which, I presume, it is hardly denied they were guilty.

MR. SEXTON

On the third occasion they were thrown into a cell and kept there all night, and finally they were sent to prison, under the Statute of Edward III.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The third time they were ordered to give bail, and sent to prison in default, and the fourth time they were summoned to appear before a Crimes Act Court under the charge of illegal assembly. What is the extraordinary criticism which the hon. Gentleman passes on this transaction? He says that for the same offence four different methods of procedure were adopted, and he bases on that an invective against the arbitrary and illegal government of Ireland. It appears to me that the action of the magistrate was the most merciful which could be adopted. On the first occasion, when the men might be presumed to be ignorant, they were warned and sent away. On the second occasion, when they must have known that they were committing an offence, they were discharged and summoned. On the third occasion they were bound over under the Statute of Edward III., and it was not until the offence was committed for the fourth time that they were summoned for illegal assembly. The hon. Gentleman has taken occasion to trot out ancient and somewhat threadbare observations upon the Statute of Edward III. He says that it is a statute obsolete in England, and only recently brought into operation in Ireland. That statement has been refuted over and over again. From the days of Edward III., down to 1890, that statute has been in constant use in England as well as in Ireland. [Mr. SEXTON: Against respectable people?] Against people who are expected to break the law. I will not compete with the hon. Gentleman in defining respectability. This Act of Edward III. is not obsolete; it is part of the common procedure of this country, and in Ireland there have been thousands of cases during the last 20 years in which it has been employed, and to say that we are taking down from some ancient armoury this rusty weapon of oppression is to misrepresent the best known facts of criminal legal procedure in this country as well as in Ireland. The last point which the right hon. Gentleman took exception to was the treatment of Father Kinsella. But it is clear from all the circumstances of the case that the one great object of that gentleman was to be sent to prison. He was warned that his action was illegal, and he replied that he would persevere in it whether it was legal or illegal, and a man who publicly declares his intention of persisting in illegal action cannot complain if he is bound over to keep the peace. The hon. Gentleman alleges that the magistrate acted harshly in making two months' imprisonment the alternative to giving bail to be of good behaviour, because he says the maximum penalty for the offence was only one month. But what Father Kinsella was guilty of was unlawful assembly, for which, according to the law both of England and Ireland, the maximum penalty is not two months, but two years' imprisonment.

MR. SEXTON

May I ask what was "unlawful assembly?" Was it disobedience to the precept, which says one month's imprisonment?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Father Kin-sella's offence was, I take it, open and violent defiance of the administration of the law, and a man declared guilty of persisting in an illegal course cannot complain if he is taken out of the category of respectable persons. I think I have now gone over most of the specific allegations of the hon. Member. Before coming to a determination in this case I would ask the House to bear in mind a fact which the hon. Member has not referred to—namely, that for three years the Plan of Campaign has been in operation on this estate. The hon. Gentleman told us that Kildare is a quiet county, and that Judges and Magistrates have exchanged congratulations on its peacefulness. No doubt Kildare as a whole is a quiet county. But in Kildare, as in other counties, there is an exception to be made in respect of those districts where the Plan of Campaign exists. There it is that you have this violent resistance to the law, there it is that you have riotous assemblies, there it is that you have the forces of the Crown brought into conflict with the people. The persons responsible for this are those who started the Plan, not those who oppose it. The hon. Member began by stating that in no other portion of the United Kingdom would such proceedings as these on the part of the executive be tolerated. The hon. Gentleman is wrong. If day after day an illegal and disorderly crowd persisted in breaking the law, the law of this country would he strong-enough to keep them in order. Are we to be told that because the Clongorey estate is poor, and the tenants are not prosperous and have joined the Plan of Campaign, they are therefore to be allowed to break the law precisely to the extent they desire? It appears to mo that the magistrate acted legally when he issued his precept, and that that precept having been defied no action was open to the authorities but that which they took. I hope the House in voting upon this question will see that we are practically asked to say that the law may be broken with impunity when the law breakers are backed up by a powerful conspiracy, and that no heavier blow could be struck at the prosperity of Ireland.

(5.50.) SIR CHARLES RUSSELL (Hackney)

I think there are few who have listened to the course of this debate who will be disposed to deny that the hon. Member who moved the Adjournment of the House was perfectly justified in the course he took, for it will be admitted that it was startling to have announced to the House that, under the circumstances which have been detailed, somewhere about 80 persons have been arrested, some at one period and some at another. Taking the facts as stated by the hon. Gentleman, and not contradioted by the right hon. Gentleman, it appears that there being a number of evicted tenants houseless and homeless on this estate, one of the tenants, a Mrs. Kelly by name, allowed certain alterations to be made in the out-offices attached to her farm with a view to giving some kind of shelter to these poor houseless persons. She was doing that upon a farm, which in point of law was her farm in part, and the landlord's farm in part, for it is too late in the day to deny that a tenant's farm is partly his and partly the landlord's. A number of men were engaged, and peaceably engaged, until the interference of the police, in doing what may, without exaggeration, be termed an act of mercy—erecting shelter for the houseless. Then someone on behalf of the trustees of the estate applied to the magistrate under the ill omened Statute of 18G0 for a precept forbidding such work. I do not desire to discuss this question in any narrow spirit of technicality, and I will, for the purpose of argument, admit that the grant of the precept was within the authority of the magistrate, and that under that precept the constable charged with the execution of it could lawfully make arrests. But I deny that the statute under which this precept was issued was ever intended to deal criminally with such cases as this. It was a gross abuse of the technical and literal powers given by the statute, to apply it to any such case. The Attorney General for Ireland will not deny that Section 35, under which the precept was issued, was aimed mainly at wilful waste on the part of the tenant—waste designed to injure and calculated to depreciate the property of the landlord. I will admit, for the purpose of my argument, that there was a technical right of arrest, but what was the moral justification for the arrest? What was there in the circumstances that would have rendered the ordinary proceeding by summons inadequate to the occasion, and how comes it that the force of police—it looks as if they desired to invite a conflict with the people—that the force of armed police went out for the purpose of making arrests upon the extensive scale they did? Now, let mo correct the right hon. Gentleman. He says Father Kinsella was charged with unlawful assembly. Does the right hon. Gentleman say that the magistrate could inquire into that charge, and send a man to gaol for two months —[Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: I never did say so]—or send him to gaol for any period? Did the right hon. Gentleman say that Father Kinsella was charged with unlawful assembly? Surely he did.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I did not intend to say so.

SIR C. RUSSELL

I accept the right hon. Gentleman's statement of what he intended to say, but I beg to assure him he made the statement. The charge against Father Kinsella was, in the words of the precept, that he did, with the other defendants, "assemble on the premises of Mary Kelly for the purpose of proceeding with certain works, namely, the enlargement"—not the destruction or the committal of waste, mark you—"of certain out-houses." This was contrary to the precept, which laid it down that the defendants' proceedings were calculated to create a breach of the peace. Does that justifiy the proceedings of the magistrate? No, it does not. The offence charged is contravention of the precept, and J wish to know what power or authority the magistrate had to deal with any charge of unlawful assembly. Under the statute it is distinct and specific, after the service by posting of the precept, the punishment is one month's imprisonment and one month only. Ah! but why is this other proceeding resorted to? Because the magistrates know that when under such circumstances honourable men, men respected by their fellows, are called upon to give bail for good behaviour they regard it as a slur upon their character to which they ought not to be subjected. Therefore it is that resort is had to these proceedings, and this old Statute of Edward III. is misused for the purpose of inflicting a heavier punishment than the magistrate could otherwise inflict. The right hon. Gentleman says the Statute of Edward III. is in force in this country, and of course I know it is, but it has never been applied to such cases as these in England. Refer me to any case where a man holding a responsible position such as this gentleman did—I do not refer to the others for the moment—whose address was known, who had lived his life in the presence of his fellows, and was respected by those who knew him; tell me any case where in England a man in this position has been proceeded against under the Statute of Edward III. This statute has been often referred to, and it might be worth while to call attention to it more particularly. It would be useless to quote the old Norman French. This statute provides that in each county there shall be magistrates whose duty shall be to restrain offenders, and among other duties imposed is that of arresting all "pillers and robbers from beyond seas who have come again, and go wandering, and will not labour as they were wont." Also to arrest such as may be suspected of offences and are not of good fame, and who may be required to give sufficient surety and main prize for good behaviour. Now, I noticed there was one point in the allegations made of illegality in the action of the police and the authorities on the occasion to which the right hon. Gentleman has not adverted; I mean the breaking of doors.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I forgot that.

SIR CHARLES RUSSELL

I say at once it is a criminal proceeding against the spirit of the statute of 1860, for there is no evidence of real waste of property, and it was an insidious method of preventing protection and shelter being given to these people. I say further, that if the arrests were lawful under that Act, they were not needed. It was a wanton disturbance of the peace to bring the police under such circumstances with such a show of armed force, when, names and addresses being well known, a summons would have accomplished the same purpose. The breaking of the doors under the circumstances was illegal. I do not know whether I differ from my learned Friends on this point, but I understand that the doors may be broken after first demanding admission and being refused, or when the person inside is under indictment or known to have committed treason or felony, or has inflicted a dangerous wound, or has escaped from lawful custody; or when a constable can hear that violence is being committed within the house a door may be broken to arrest an offender or sup- press an affray when the party within ref uses to open on demand. In this case there was, it seems to me on the facts stated, no power to break open the door, and in that particular there has been a violation of the law. Does anyone who has heard the right hon. Gentleman accept the justification he has offered for the handcuffing of this large number of men? I could refer to cases where actions have been brought in this country and heavy damages awarded against officers who, without full justification, of which a jury, and not a policeman, judged, handcuffed individuals unnecessarily, even when charged with serious offences. These are not small and unimportant matters, and are not so regarded in Ireland. For myself I feel little interested in discussing the mere details of what I conceive to be the despotic Government of the right hon. Gentleman. I confess I think it is to a great extent waste of time. The policy of the right hon. Gentleman may be good or it may be bad, but it is not a system which can long stand side by side with a Government supposed to be based on constitutional principles; one or the other must go. I have only discussed the details in this case because it is an instance of the absolute manner in which the right hon. Gentleman in every case stands by those whom he looks to for enforcing the laws, however brutal, however unfeeling their conduct may be, however much they may disregard the rights of private liberty. I say it is an instance, one of a great many we have had, and I think the House is indebted to the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Sexton) for calling our attention to it.

(6.10.) THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,) Dublin University

I will endeavour in the few observations I have to make to avoid discussing this matter in a narrow and technical spirit. The hon. and learned Gentleman has raised a very broad issue which, to a certain extent, is an issue of law. He has referred to the Act of 1860, which he has called an ill-omened Act. It is not for me, and this is not the occasion, to criticise the Act of 1860. That Act has in its spirit been departed from in modern legislation, whether rightly or wrongly it is not for me now to discuss, but this I say, that the provi- sion of the Act now under discussion is as relevant to the relations between landlord and tenant now as on the day after the Act was passed. I mean the sections that provide the means of temporarily arresting proceedings complained of on the ground of waste pending the adjudication of a competent tribunal. But the broad question to which the hon. and learned Gentleman invites the attention of the House is this: he says, An Act of Parliament in this particular case has been wrested from its proper application, that it has been applied to what is not legally really and substantially within the conditions imposed by the Act. Now, with all the hon. and learned Member's research, I do not think he could have read the twenty-third volume of "Law Reports," Ireland, and if he thinks it worth while further to consider the question which has been raised by this Motion for the Adjournment of the House, I invite his attention to two particular cases in which he will find that the very action in question, the destruction or alteration of premises used as an agricultural holding by the erection upon such of what are popularly known as Plan of Campaign huts, has been decided to be a wilful and gross act of waste as between landlord and tenant. One of these cases was brought before not one of those inferior tribunals in regard to which we are accustomed to hear so many adjectives applied, but before the Court of the Vice Chancellor of Ireland.

MR. SEXTON

One of the weakest Judges in the Empire.

MR. MADDEN

One of these cases was brought before the Court of that most eminent and respected Judge, one of the most learned Judges on the Bench, the Vice Chancellor of Ireland. Another case was brought before the Court of the Master of the Rolls, and this last case was carried to the Court of Appeal. I do not know whether this phalanx of legal authority will be deemed satisfactory by hon. Members opposite, but at any rata it is the best that Ireland can supply; two Judges in Courts of First Instance and the Court of Appeal. If the persons who were defendants in the last instances thought that Irish Judges were affected by any kind of prejudice in regard to such matters nothing would have been easier for them than to bring their case before the House of Lords.

MR. SEXTON

This was a case of erection of huts.

MR. MADDEN

Alteration of premises by their conversion from a dwelling house with outhouses suitable for an agricultural holding into what are popularly known as huts. I do not think any lawyer will stand up in this House and contend that there is not a stronger case of actual waste if instead of erecting huts on the outskirts of a farm there is an actual conversion into dwelling houses of out-houses suitable for the occupation of an agricultural holding. Therefore, on the main question in which the hon. and learned Member challenges us, the decisions to which I have referred afford a complete and satisfactory answer. How does the matter stand? Allow me very shortly, and in plain English, avoiding technicalities, to tell the House what this precept means. It means that a Petty Sessions Court will be held on a certain day, and that the question of waste will come, before that Court for trial. Meantime, says the precept, you must stay your hand from the proceedings complained of, or if you refuse to do that, you must go to gaol. That is what the precept means. I do not know whether a similar proceeding exists in England. I have enough to do dealing with the laws of my own. country; but if it does, does anybody doubt that the Executive would interfere in England to prevent forcible interference with the magistrate's precept. The hon. Gentleman says there have been 80 arrests, and surely that very fact shows there was a large force brought together outside the workmen actually doing the act of waste, a considerable body of men who constituted in law an unlawful assembly committing this act of wilful waste. Is it to be supposed that the Courts of Law in England would be so weak as not to meet and punish in-stanter any such lawless defiance of the authority of a competent Court? There are plenty of remedies open to any person who feels aggrieved by an order made under the Act in question. It may be said that the Petty Sessions is not the best Court to decide cases of waste; and I am disposed to agree. Well, there is under the Act a summary procedure by which one of the superior Courts of Equity or Law can immediately be appealed to. The facts of the case amount to this—that with such remedies at command there was an unlawful and organised defiance of an order legally issued by a competent Court. My hon. and learned Friend mentioned the Act of Edward III., and I notice that a laugh can always be raised in the House by quoting antiquated the phraseology of the Statute and the reference to "pillers and robbers," always gets a cheer from hon. Gentlemen opposite, but when the hon. and learned Gentleman asks if this Act has been applied to such cases in England, I would ask him have such cases ever arisen in England.

SIR C. RUSSELL

I meant to speak of persons with known addresses and positions, such as those in question.

MR. MADDEN

Of course I accept the hon. and learned Gentleman's correction. I understood him to challenge the application of the Act to the classes of cases to which it has been applied in Ireland; but if he admits that it would be applied in England to such things as to which it has been applied by a long series of decisions in Ireland; for instance, to the non-payment of rent in 1882, by a decision of the Court of Queen's Bench, to boycotting cattle and acts of that kind; if I understand that the hon. and learned Gentleman admits that the Act can be applied to proceedings of this kind, I have nothing more to say on this subject. But I gathered from his allusion to the Act of Edward III. that he was contesting the application of the Act to that class of cases, rather than dealing with the comparatively trifling question of whether the offenders in this particular case might not have been dealt with otherwise if summoned. The case before the House, I would point out, is still to a great extent sub judice, bnt I must state that the institution of the proceedings is the action of the landlord, and is not due to the initiative of the Executive. The obtaining of the precept was the act of the landlord, for the protection of his private rights. The action of the Executive in the matter has been what it would have been in any other civilised country—namely, to prevent by lawful means an organised and systematic defiance of the law.

(6.20.) MR. CLANCY (Dublin Co., N.)

Those of us who are well acquainted with the cases that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has cited know that they are distinguished from the cases in which the House is now concerned. In the two cases before cited the point was not the enlargement of an out-house, but the erection of a large number of huts upon the land. In the first instance the erection of houses on the holding was decided to be a destruction of the agricultural character of the holding. In the case Steel v. Turner the special point was that the erection of new buildings on the holding was a breach of statutory conditions. I may also remind the House that a tenant may be restrained by the injunction of a Civil Court. The cases are totally distinct from the case under notice, which is the enlargement of a single out-house, which certainly is not a destruction of the character of an agricultural tenancy in any sense whatever, but is rather an improvement of the holding for the landlord. Moreover, the cases cited by the right hon. Gentleman apply to the civil remedies of the landlord; and the commission of waste is not a criminal offence, though, in the case before the House, the Government have made it a criminal offence. Beyond doubt this is a case to which the Statute of Edward III. was never intended to apply, and the Government have acted in defiance of the spirit of the law and the Constitution. Anyone who reads the 35th, 36th, and 37th sections of the Act of 1860, will see that they are intended in the first place to provide a civil remedy for the landlord, and if a criminal offence is established, it is proceeded with before two Justices in Petty Sessions, and, on sentence after trial, only a month's imprisonment can be inflicted. It is clear that proceedings ought not to be taken under the Statute of Edward III. A more flagrant and disgraceful misuse of the statute has never been proved, nor has any clearer proof been given of a criminal conspiracy between the Government and the landlords. The right hon. Gentleman spoke repeatedly of the violent conduct of the people arrested, but I ask, in what did the violence consist? Was there any violence in Father Kinsella's act of sawing a piece of timber? From beginning to end of the affair there was no trace of violence on the part of the accused, and the Attorney-General for Ireland ought to withdraw his imputation of violence, in order not to prejudice the case of the people before the magistrates. I appeal to him to do so. These people will come before Petty Sessions next week, and the magistrates will have the opinion of the Attorney-General that they have been guilty of violent conduct, and, I say, looking at that expression of opinion, and from whom it comes, the magistrates will feel coerced in their decision, unless the expression is withdrawn. But if the Attorney General has made an unwarrantable use of his position tonight, the action of the Chief Secretary in the matter has been simply disgraceful. He has used the words, "It will not be denied that these men are guilty," and after that what chance have the people when they come up for trial in a week's time? This is the most disgraceful utterance ever made in the House of Commons, though perhaps not unparalleled in the case of the Chief Secretary. We know when it was that month sentences began to be imposed under the Coercion Act, after the right hon. Gentleman's speech at Birmingham, in which he hinted at the inconvenience of appeals. This is not the only thing. The House will recollect that a funeral procession has been declared to-night to have marched along a public highway in Ireland only by favour of the Crown. I suppose the Chief Secretary's desire was that after the corpse had been buried the mourners should also bury themselves, as that would be a convenient way of getting rid of them. The policy of the right hon. Gentleman has been to exterminate—in conjunction with his allies the landlords of Ireland—all his opponents—political or otherwise. And now I have some information to give as to the Glongorey dispute. The right hon. Gentleman has stated that the Plan of Campaign was started on the estate by some friends of the hon. Member for West Belfast. The hon. Member for Cork and myself were the first to attend a Plan of Campaign meeting there. That was in 1887, and the meeting was not held till after the tenants had themselves resolved on adopting the Plan of Campaign, in consequence of the landlords' refusal to accept their terms. Everything had been arranged when we went down to the meeting, which was held in the presence of 200 armed policemen and half-a-dozen reporters. Why proceedings were never taken against my hon. Friend and myself for it has ever since been a standing mystery. On the second occasion on which the Plan of Campaign was brought into operation I went down before it was started, and I attended the meeting, at which it was resolved to again have recourse to it. The advice I gave to the tenants on that occasion was a warning to beware of what they were doing, and to be sure that they were in the right, because their conduct would be closely scrutinised in England, but when once they adopted the Plan they must stick to it. They must be sure that they had justice on their side. So much then for the charge that the Irish Members wanted the tenants to join the Plan of Campaign. But I may add in reference to my action with regard to the Clongorey estate that I regret nothing I have said or done; on the contrary, I am proud of it, because there never was a clearer case in which the tenants were right and the landlords wrong. The House has already been informed of the statement of a County Court Judge that this was a case in which the arrears ought to be entirely wiped out, and when the Chief Secretary told us to-night that the agent of the landlord offered to take one year's rent in settlement, he gave a complete misrepresentation of the nature of the offer, which was really to take a year's rent on account, leaving the arrears still standing, and the tenants in perpetual dread of eviction. The offer was not merely illusory; it was an insult and a mockery, and I should have been surprised if any body of tenants, however crushed or humiliated, could have been found to accept such terms. And to show how fairly the tenants on this estate treated the landlords, I may mention that not only did they pay this exorbitant rent as long as they were able, not only did they keep clear of combinations—criminal or otherwise— until they were forced into them by the action of the landlord himself, but it was their custom every year when the landlord had some work to be done on his land either to do it themselves or to pay men to do it. Their conduct towards the landlord was most generous; on the other hand the conduct of the landlord was marked by the grossest ingratitude on record. It was stated by the Chief Secretary, on the authority of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, that the tenants refused to pay even the reduced rent until Mr. William O'Brien was released from prison. But is that authority worth accepting? I will give an example of the untrustworthiness of the hon. Member's statements. The hon. Member wrote to the Times that the valuation of the property on this estate was £800, while the rental was only £600; but the fact is the valuation is £555, while the rental is £1,009. The Attorney General has given the go-by to more than one of the statements made by the hon. Member for West Belfast. My hon. Friend in the first place referred to the brutality of the police on several occasions last week, and to the attacks made on the people in the county of Kildare, on many occasions since the beginning of the struggle on the Clongorey estate, attacks unparalleled for their wantonness and brutality. I will give but one instance, but I think it will suffice to show the nature of the attacks. As a brother of Mrs. Kelly was being marched to gaol, a sister walked by his side conversing with him, until one of the constables knocked her down. The district inspector gave the order to his men "If any one will not move on give them a dig in the ribs." The chairman of the Town Commissioners of Newbridge, a gentleman highly respected, was thus greeted by the inspector, "Go on now, you know what I gave you before." He was threatened not only with personal assault, but with a repetition of the month's imprisonment imposed on him on a previous occasion. The spirit which actuates this district inspector is the one which prompted Capt. Plunket's telegram "Do not hesitate to shoot," and which prompts the watchword of the Irish police of to-day "do not hesitate to swear." It is the spirit which induces the Chief Secretary to condone and defend every act of the police, however unjustifiable, and so long as he shows a willingness to do that we may be sure he will find willing instruments to carry out his orders. Now, I deliberately assert that these attempts to deprive evicted tenants of shelter constitute an abuse of a statute framed for a very different purpose, and if we could suppose that these things were to go on for an indefinite period, if these assaults and batonings were to continue, if we had no remedy in Constitutional agitation, then the only thing we could have recourse to would be insurrection. But it is the hope that we shall eventually got justice from the English people, the knowledge that these things cannot go on for ever, and that Constitutional means will suffice for the attainment of our rights, that induce us to keep to Constitutional means, and when at last peace comes it will be no thanks to you, for the preservation of peace is not your object. Your aim is to promote acts of violence, and I am only surprised that the people of Kildare have thus kept themselves within the law. Mr. Fitzgerald, the resident magistrate, conducts himself in a manner worthy of a Cadi sitting under a palm tree in the East. He holds his Courts and administers the law, sometimes privately, sometimes in the police barracks, and at other times in the open air, reminding one of some of the revolutionary tribunals of '98. I say it presents to the Irish people a mockery of the British Constitution, and is a public scandal. Both the right hon. Gentlemen opposite this evening have endeavoured to obscure the real issue. The Irish Members do not wish to argue the matter on mere technicalities; they are content to leave it on the broad facts which prove that landlords and the Government have combined to prevent evicted tenants from obtaining shelter, preferring that they should be on the roadside and die of exposure to the wintry weather. We intend to inform the electors of the country that a person who erects a hut for those who are homeless through being evicted, is to be treated as a person of evil fame, even though he be the clergyman of the district, and that he must give bail or go to prison. Men are now being prosecuted for performing the commonest duties of humanity, and they are being treated as felons. This is a simple fact which the people of England will be made acquainted with, and it will not be our fault if the authors of this policy are not made to rue the day when they adopted it. Finally, let me point out that in enforcing this misuse of the law the Government are employing agents who are distinguishing themselves in brutal fashion.

(6.52.) MR. T. P. GILL (Louth, S)

I think I should not be doing my duty if I did not point out a very remarkable admission made by the Chief Secretary this evening. He has practically admitted that the reason for denying shelter to the evicted tenants is that they have been tenants under the Plan of Campaign which he has for three years been trying to crush. We are now seeing the commencement on his part of a new crusade against the men whom he has hitherto failed to crush—that henceforth they are to be denied the shelter of a roof. The Attorney General has quoted a decision of the Vice-Chancellor in regard to a similar case to this. I have still another quotation to give him. County Court Judge Darley had a case before him in reference to the erection of certain huts on the Clongorey estate, but he decided that he could not interfere, as the building of the huts could not be looked on as "waste to the farm." His decision was, however, reversed by the Vice-Chancellor, and the County Court Judge in announcing that fact to his Court the other day, said— On the equity side of the Court I was asked to grant an injunction, and to order the levelling of a hut or building into possession of which an individual had been put who was evicted from a neighbouring farm. I had serious difficulty in carrying out that strong power, because to my mind there was no charge that the tiling which was done amounted to waste or to such an injury to the property as to call for the interference of a Court of Law. But my decision was found fault with and brought to the notice of the Vice-Chancellor, who took a different view, and directed the case to go back in order that I should order the hut in question to be removed. I take it the Vice-Chancellor took a, general view of the proceedings, and held that they were in furtherance of the combination known as the Plan of Campaign. I am bound to act according to the view of the Vice-Chancellor, and if any case comes before me in which the proceeding is of the nature of putting up a building for the purpose of housing persons evicted from other farms—although it may not amount to waste or injury to the farm—I shall consider it a proceeding in furtherance of the Plan of Campaign, and it will be my duty to order the building to be levelled to the ground. Therefore, Sir, we have it in clear and unmistakable language that the crime in this case is not doing waste to the farm, or doing any acts which are technically considered to justify the interference of the law, but simply and solely the erection of the shelter for persons evicted from another farm. We are going back to the days of penal laws, and the only parallel I can call to mind is the law, which once prevailed in the Southern States of America, making it a crime to shelter a runaway slave. Just remember how these tenants are being treated. They are unjustly hunted out of the houses which they have themselves built; emergency men, supplied with hatchets and paraffin oil and protected by armed Constabulary, burn or level the buildings to the ground, and then it is made a crime to shelter the people who have thus been deprived of their homes. And all this is done because they have been numbers of a combination which every test applied to it proves to be just. It is the combination against which the Chief Secretary has hurled all the forces of his Coercion Act, but he has been humiliated and baffled by it, for he has not been able to-day to tell us of one single crime which has stained its history from the time of its starting in this very county of Kildare, nor has the Attorney General been able to point to a single act in the nature of a crime, according to moral law. I think we have arrived at a most extraordinary stage of the administration of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary began by discussing a series of new crimes, and now in the fourth year of his administration, he is enabled to add another crime to his previous list, namely, the crime of sheltering tenants who have been evicted because they have adopted the Plan of Campaign. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman, before sitting down, if, having embarked in this course of procedure—if pinning his position to the judgment of the Vice Chancellor in the case of these huts, he intends to go on in the same way, and, in that case, where he thinks he is likely to stop? If it be a crime to enlarge an out-house in order to give shelter to evicted tenants, simply because they have been evicted under the Plan of Campaign—if it be a crime to aid such persons, where is the right hon. Gentleman to pause in the administration of punishment for this class of offences? The Vice-Chancellor has laid it down that the sheltering of those persons is a crime, because it is an act in the furtherance of the conspiracy. And we know, from what has previously happened, that it is also held to be a crime to give bread to evicted tenants. This being so, we have here a new principle of boycotting laid down by the Coercion Act, and the Government will now find it necessary to boycott all tenants who have come under the Plan of Campaign, treating them as pariahs in the land, and, consequently, refusing to give them either shelter or food. But I would tell the right hon. Gentleman that if he dreams he can by any such procedure intimidate the Irish people into abandoning these evicted tenants and leaving them without shelter or the means of existence, he must have learned very little from his three years active coercion. If there be one fact which more than another his experience ought to have impressed upon his mind, it is this, that so long as there exists, either here or in any other part of the world, Irishmen who have a single dollar or shilling in their pockets, so long will they assist in providing the necessary food and shelter for their evicted compatriots. The more the right hon. Gentleman brings his Coercion Act to bear upon these unfortunate people, the more will he find they are not to be intimidated from the performance of their patriotic duties by all the terrors of the Coercion Act. As he finds it now, so will the right hon. Gentleman find it to the end of the chapter, and although he may have to confess the deep humiliation occasioned by the defeats the tenantry have inflicted upon him, he will at length become convinced that he must go even still further in his iniquities before he will be able to strike terror into the hearts of the Irish people or induce them to abandon the Plan of Campaign.

(7.5.) The House divided:—Ayes 151; Noes 196.—(Div. List, No. 8.)