IRELAND—SPECIAL COMMISSION (1888) REPORT.

HC Deb 03 March 1890 vol 341 cc1656-759

MR. W. H. SMITH

Mr. Speaker, the Motion which I have placed upon the Paper is intended to complete what may be termed a judicial procedure. The words of the Special Commission Act, 1888, directed a Commission to be appointed to inquire into the truth of certain charges and allegations made against Members of this House, and to report upon those charges and allegations. It appears to me that this Motion is not only the natural result, but the only right consequence and conclusion of an important judicial procedure. We desire to place on record the findings of the tribunal appointed by Parliament solemnly and seriously, after prolonged Debate, and the Motion will in our humble judgment effect this fairly, impartially, and justly. We consider the course which we propose to take is one which will do absolute justice to all the parties concerned—justice to hon. Members whose conduct has been impugned; justice to the other persons included with them in the allegations; and justice to the newspaper which, in the first instance, gave publicity to these charges. [Ironical cheers from the Irish Members.] I notice the cheers of hon. Members opposite, but I apprehend that there is no one in this House—no one who is not extremely prejudiced—who would not wish to do justice even to the newspaper in question. I have always been of the number of those who have most deeply deplored the circumstances in which certain publications were made in that newspaper. I deeply deplore the publication of the forged letters, and I join in the satisfaction which has been expressed in all quarters of the House that the personal charges which were based on them have fallen to the ground. I have from the first joined most heartily and sincerely in that congratulation, but I will also do justice to those who, in the performance of what they deemed to be a public duty, have brought forward certain charges, some of which have been maintained, and some of which, fortunately, have been disproved. The Commission was one which was absolutely unique in its character. Happily for this House and the history of this country there has been before no occasion for the employment of any such machinery in connection with what is affirmed to be, and believed to be, a conspiracy against law and order. The body of learned men who conducted this inquiry are entitled in my judgment to the thanks of the whole English community for the absolute impartiality with which they discharged their duties—an impartiality which has been recognised even by the warmest supporters in the Press and elsewhere of hon. Members opposite. It must be remembered that the charges made were the subject of frequent debate in this House. On April 18, 1887, the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, answering the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton) said— The hon. Member for West Belfast can bring on the owner and editor as serious a punishment as he could desire through a Court of Law … Let him bring his case into Court; let him have it tried where it can be tried fairly. Subsequently, in May, the hon. Baronet the Member for North Belfast proposed that the printer of the Times should be summoned to the Bar of the House, and, after a long debate, the Government offered to hon. Members opposite that a State prosecution of the Times should be undertaken in the name of the Attorney General. [Ironical Opposition cheers.] Again hon. Members think it right to cheer; but there is not a lawyer in this House who does not know perfectly well that it would have been necessary to use the name of the Attorney General in a prosecution of this kind. The prosecution itself need not have been under the direction of the Attorney General, for the offer was made that any Queen's Counsel and any solicitor whom hon. Members opposite desired might be employed in the conduct of the prosecution, the only object and purpose of the Government being that in some way or other the charges which had been made should be investigated by a tribunal which was able to take evidence on oath and do justice to all parties concerned. That offer was not accepted by hon. Members opposite. They did not desire to place their case before a jury, and I make no complaint against them in respect of the course which they then thought right to take. The rejoinder that came from them was a demand for a Committee of this House to investigate the matters, and I then said, on behalf of the Government, what I still believe, that no tribunal could be imagined that would be more unfit to undertake the duty. We are charged sometimes with being unfair as to our views of acts which may be committed by hon. Gentlemen opposite; but it may be imagined what would have been said if, claiming to deal with charges brought in this way in a spirit of absolute impartiality, we had constituted ourselves, by a majority, the tribunal before which all these charges should be considered. It is obvious that any political tribunal of that character would have been perfectly unfit to try questions of the gravity and importance of those which would have been submitted to it. The right hon. Gentleman opposite asked for the Committee, and the debate lasted for a considerable period. In the course of that debate the hon. and learned Member for Longford (Mr. T. Healy) said not that the only question was that of the forged letters, but that the question was the personal charges brought against individual Members of the House. The hon. Gentleman said— You know it is the Irish representation which is on its trial, and the Irish representation challenges you to the combat. Then the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) said that in his view the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) and his Colleagues were not only charged with falsehood, but that they were further charged with being the associates of, and in league with, assassins and some of the vilest criminals of the United States. Therefore, they recognised in 1887 that these charges went much further, and extended considerably beyond the personal charges to which reference is made in the Amendment of the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), and which are dealt with by the Commissioners in their Report. We were asked by the right hon. Member for Derby (Sir W. V. Harcourt) to submit the question of the forged letters and the truth of all the charges that have appeared under the head of "Parnellism and Crime" to a Committee; and from time to time it was pressed upon us that a complete and full inquiry should be made by a Committee or some such tribunal. The question was again raised in 1888, after the famous trial which is referred to in the Act which was passed, and a Motion was again made for a Select Committee of this House by the hon. Baronet the Member for Cockermouth (Sir W. Lawson). The hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) himself asked for a Committee; but the Government again felt that they must decline to submit to a political tribunal of this House the very grave questions which would have to be dealt with in respect of the conduct and character of Members of this House and those implicated with them. It is hardly necessary for me to go through the story of the Bill that was passed through this House, but I will remind hon. Gentlemen that it was an offer by the Government, in the first instance, as an alternative to the inquiry by a Select Committee. That offer was accepted in this sense—that the Second Reading and the previous stages were passed without a Division, and it was only in Committee that questions arose as to the extent to which the inquiry should be carried, and these questions produced very long and heated discussions. Hon. Gentlemen, the ref ore, we re agreed as to the principle of an inquiry by a Commission. ["No, no" from some, Members of the Opposition.] Well, I remember perfectly well that the hon. Member for Cork on one occasion said that he would "hold the Government to this inquiry, and would not allow them to sneak out of it." The House and the hon. Gentleman himself may draw what conclusions they please from the fact that there was no Division whatever against the Second Heading of the Bill; and therefore, according to Parliamentary usage, the principle of the Bill was accepted without a Division. I admit that hon. Members objected in Committee to the scope of the inquiry and to the fact that it included other persons than Members of this House. But they accepted decidedly and completely the principle. How did Lord Chief Justice Coleridge define the charges which were made? In the trial of "O'Donnell v. Walter" the Lord Chief Justice said that— Members of Parliament and others"—not Members of Parliament only—"are accused frankly and plainly of abominable crime, not so much having been guilty by their own hands, but of having lent themselves to a system which must necessarily as its reasonable effect be accompanied with crime, and of having had a personal knowledge of many of the crimes which did accompany it. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews) said— An investigation into the conduct of Members of Parliament to enable them to clear themselves was not the primary object of the Bill. The primary object of the Bill was to investigate charges which my right hon. Friend has correctly described as constituting a catalogue of melancholy and disgraceful crimes which had been left un inquired into and uninvestigated by those most concerned. We thought it right, as a matter of public interest and importance, as a matter of duty, that not only the truth, but the whole truth, should, if possible, be ascertained with regard to all the charges, without exception, which were made in the Times. I think I have now said enough to vindicate the course which Her Majesty's Government think it right to take upon the present occasion. We say that this Body was set up by Act of Parliament to make this inquiry—an inquiry in answer to the repeated demands made by hon. Members below the Gangway opposite, as they had failed to avail themselves of any other method of ascertaining the facts of the case, and we now say that the complement and completion of the whole business is the record of the result at which the Judges have arrived. What is the alternative presented to the House? The right hon. Member for Mid Lothian thinks it right to ask the House not to adopt the Report, not to thank the Commissioners for their just and impartial conduct, and not to order the Report to be entered on the Journals of the House. His opinion is that a Resolution should be placed on the Journals of the House expressing reprobation of the false charges of the gravest and most odious description, based on calumny and on forgery; and he also asks the House to declare its satisfaction at the exposure of these calumnies, its regret for the wrong indicted and the suffering and loss endured, through a protracted period, by reason of these acts of flagrant iniquity. Now, if this were adopted there would be a record in the Journals of the Act of Parliament constituting the tribunal, but no record of the verdict, the exhaustive judgment, or of the labours of this tribunal. Instead of that there would be, if the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment were carried, a statement from which any one would assume that all the charges which were made were to be considered as false charges and were all based on calumnies and forgeries, that they all merited condemnation as acts of flagrant iniquity, and that, in short, the conduct of hon. Gentlemen, which is detailed in the evidence upon which a true finding has been given by the Judges, is conduct which is not reprehensible, which is not deserving censure on the part of this House, and which is, in point of fact, on the whole so meritorious that it deserves the expression of this House's sympathy. I am not in a position to accept that Amendment. It appears to me that we should do injustice to the very great gravity of the utterances of the learned Judges, who have found that in some oases, some of them important, the hon. Members accused have been completely exonerated from the charges made against them; but who have also found that other, and some of them very grave, charges, had a foundation in truth, and that the action of hon. Members had a serious effect upon the peace and good order of an important part of the country. These were very much wider than the personal charges, as the hon. and learned Member for Longford admitted when he said that— When Members are charged with complicity with assassins and dynamitards, with treason against the Queen, and other forms of political and human villainy, there is no question whatever to be referred to a Select Committee. And the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton said, on the same day, that it was charged against hon. Members that they were associated with some of the vilest criminals in the United States. Language as strong as that has been used, but I think it can be shown that the association has been proved to have existed to some extent, and if hon. Members did not know the character of their associates before, they know it now. The exposure of the character of their American allies has rendered, in my humble judgment, a great service to the country and some service to the House. The hon. Member for East Mayo was willing that the inquiry should be widened, so as to include every charge which could be brought against hon. Members opposite. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Morley) accepted that on behalf of the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone). The charges have also been summarised in the language of Lord Chief Justice Coleridge in the action of "O'Donnell v. Walter." Lord Coleridge says:— The main issue is whether what is called in the Times 'Parnellism' is or is not founded on a system of cruelty, and rapacity, and murder, and crime. And again— The articles contain a great variety of statements, and statements deeply incriminating a number of persons—Members of Parliament, persons not Members of Parliament, but well known to the world, and a number of prominent men, who are accused, if I may say so, frankly and plainly, of abominable crime, not so much, perhaps, that they themselves have committed with their own hands abominable crime, but they have lent themselves to a system which must necessarily as its reasonable effect be accompanied with crime, and that with regard to many of the crimes by which it was accompanied they themselves had personal knowledge. Such, in effect, was the charge, and the Report with regard to it states— While we acquit the respondents of having directly or intentionally incited to murder, we find that the speeches made, in which land grabbers and other offenders against the League were denounced as traitors, and as being as bad as informers—the urging 'young men' to procure arms, and the dissemination of the newspapers above referred to—had the effect of causing an excitable peasantry to carry out the laws of the Land League, even by assassination. Now, while we must all feel sympathy for men against whom baseless charges have been brought, and though we admit that they have been acquitted of the graver charge of directly inciting to murder, we cannot pass by altogether that of which they have been found guilty. The Commissioners add:— We find that, whilst some of the respondents, and in particular Mr. Davitt, did express bonâ fide disapproval of crime and outrage, the respondents did not denounce the system of intimidation which led to crime and outrage, but persisted in it with knowledge of its effect. If the respondents generally had acted as Mr. Davitt did in this matter what an amount of suffering might have been saved! Then the Commissioners go on to point out the effects of boycotting— The effects of boycotting," they say, "were such as might be expected to and did create a well-grounded terror in the minds of those who suffered under it, and we come to the conclusion that this was the intention of those who devised and carried out this system. It is further to be observed that, though boycotting led in many cases to actual outrage, yet it was persisted in for years against the same individuals, and was generally recommended, notwithstanding the evils which plainly resulted from it. The respondents are found guilty of persisting in intimidation with knowledge of this effect, and though exonerated of knowing that murder in some cases was going to take place, yet it is found that they were present at meetings where murder was talked of, and did not disown it. Thus at a meeting of the Land League, at which several of the respondents were present, Mr. Redpath referred to the murder of Lord Mountmorres in these words— He had had the misfortune to be in Clonbur when Lord Mountmorres was killed. The friends of the Irish peasantry had been altogether too gentle in their talk about the infamous rascal. He was a Government spy, and once bragged that he was in the pay of the Castle. He made very disrespectful remarks about Fenians. If they were going to do that they should keep out of the west of Ireland, or they would be hurt. Upon this the Commissioners state— We find no repudiation of this speech by those present, and on the 29th of November, 1880, two Resolutions of the Land League were passed, one thanking Mr. Redpath for his services in the cause of the toiling masses in Ireland, and the other requesting him to give his services in the Land League movement in America in lieu of Mr. Davitt, who was coming back to Ireland. And then there is Mr. Davitt's letter in May, 1882, to the Standard, in which he expressed the loathing which he felt for outrage, his belief that a pilgrimage to denounce assassination and outrage ought to be made, and that, had it been made before, he firmly believed that the terrible tragedy of the Phœnix Park and many another tragedy which, though it had not attracted so much attention, had wrung heart-strings as bitterly, would never have occurred. There was one man above all others who could have effectually denounced crime, and if he and the hon. Gentlemen associated with him had done so, and had acted as Mr. Davitt did, what an amount of misery might have been saved! Well, such are some of the charges which have been proved. No doubt the Commissioners find that others of the charges—personal charges—were without foundation. But the Amendment would pass by unheeded the grave charges which have been proved, and practically exonerate hon. Gentlemen opposite in respect to them. Such an exoneration would, in fact, practically applaud them for having entered into a criminal conspiracy, "illegal both in its objects and the means which were adopted." We cannot accept this course. The respondents are found to have entered into an alliance with and to have been supported by the American Fenians, including the Clan-na-Gael—"a body actively engaged in promoting the use of dynamite for the destruction of life and property in England." The Report finds that they invited and obtained the assistance and co-operation of the Physical Force Party, including the Clan-na-Gael; that they abstained from repudiating or condemning the action of that Party; that they invited the assistance and co-operation of, and accepted subscriptions from, Patrick Ford, a known advocate of crime and the use of dynamite. This finding would rather seem to imply that they knew all about the Clan, and invited their assistance, but that it is not proved that they knew the particular fact of the complete supremacy of the Clan in the American League, and that the Parliamentary Fund was supplied by the Clan. They are entitled to the benefit of that. Lastly, there is the grave charge of conspiracy to obtain separation. It will be admitted that this is a political charge of the most serious importance. It is proved that Mr. Davitt and seven other of the respondents are guilty of this charge. It is found that some of them established and joined in the Land League organisation with the intention to bring about the absolute independence of Ireland as a separate nation. The organisation was established for that purpose. In its origin it aimed at separation. This is the charge which is held to be proved. The Commissioners said guardedly, Some at least of the leaders of the movement joined it as a means of obtaining the complete separation of Ireland from England, but we do not think that the mere joining the Land League necessarily implied a desire for such separation. They also say that a large force in favour of complete separation would follow such leaders is apparent, and the Report finds too that Mr. Parnell Used language indicating a desire for the complete separation of Ireland from the United Kingdom. Well, Sir, I think few will deny that these are grave charges, and cannot permit a "clean bill" to be given to the respondents. The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman would practically be a condonation of crime. It cannot be said oven that the respondents considered that they were unimportant charges, and that the whole accusation was contained in the personal charge against the Member for Cork. But now, Sir, I have no doubt I shall be asked why the Government propose to proceed no further. Why is it the Government proceed no further than the Resolution I move to enter the Judges' Report on the Journals of the House; my answer is because it was no part of our intention at any time to constitute a Commission for the purpose of obtaining evidence to inflict punishment. The primary object was to obtain the truth whether the charges were true or false, and the Bill specially provided that all who gave witness of the truth would receive indemnity for so doing. On this point the Bill was clear. Sections 10 and 11 are as follows:— 10. (1) Every person examined as a witness under this Act who, in the opinion of the Commissioners, makes a full and true disclosure touching all the matters in respect of which he is examined, shall he entitled to receive a certificate signed by the Commissioners, stating that the witness has on his examination made a full and true disclosure, as aforesaid. (2) If any civil or criminal proceeding is thereafter at any time instituted against any such witness in respect of any matter touching which he has been so examined, the Court having cognizance of the case shall, on proof of the certificate, stay the proceeding, and may, in its discretion, award to the witness such costs as he may be put to in or by reason of the proceeding; provided that nothing in this section shall be deemed to apply in the case of proceedings for having given false evidence at an inquiry held under this Act, or of having procured, or attempted or conspired to procure, the giving of such evidence. 11. This Act may be cited as the Special Commission Act, 1888. And as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary stated— The primary object of the Bill was to investigate charges which have been left un-inquired into and uninvestigated by those who are most concerned. My right hon. Friend spoke definitely on this point. He said— A statutory Commission has never been used as an instrument for the prosecution of people, and that is why you cover it with indemnity. You use it as the instrument for discovering the truth on an occasion of such great public importance as to warrant the creation of an extraordinary tribunal of this sort. Why is it that you shut the door against punishment and against all those consequences which are the loot and foundation of all that is precise and accurate in your Criminal Law? It is because you want to discover the truth of the matter. As I have said, our desire was to obtain the truth in the interests of the whole community, including the hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. It was on that ground the Commission was granted. I ask the House to adopt the Report without colour, without adding a word by way of preface. I ask the House, in the second place, to give its thanks to the Judges, who have so ably and labouriously discharged their duties. The task imposed upon them was a most painful one, and it was with great satisfaction that in a newspaper representing hon. Gentlemen opposite I observed it stated that the Judges had vindicated the absolute impartiality of the English Judges. It is with regret that I observe the right hon. Gentleman omits to include in his Amendment any recognition of the services of the learned Judges who have acted as Special Commissioners. Whatever may be the view which the right hon. Gentleman and his friends entertain of the conduct of the Government in asking the House to pass the measure which became law in 1888 under which these learned gentlemen were appointed, there can, I imagine, be but one opinion as to the absolute impartiality with which they discharged the most painful duty which was imposed upon them. I am glad, as I have observed, to notice that even the strongest partisans in the Press of the right hon. Gentleman and his friends have recognised frankly and fairly the absolute impartiality of the Commissioners. It is no more than I should expect from honourable opponents, but I venture to think for myself that we owe a great debt of gratitude to those gentlemen for the patience, the justice, and the discrimination which they have shown in the discharge of, I admit, the painful duty imposed upon them. The labour has been severe, but I can best express the temper and the spirit in which they have approached the discharge of their duties by quoting the words of the President himself, who says— Conscious that throughout this great inquest we have sought only the truth, we trust that we shall be guided to find it, and set it forth plainly in the night of all men. There can be, I think, no doubt in the mind of any man, whatever his political feelings may be, that the Commissioners have indeed "sought and set out the truth plainly in the sight of all men." The attempt to call the offences political was absurd. Time cannot change the character of the offences or their nature, nor can Party exigencies. [Ironical Opposition Cheers.] I am exceedingly glad to hear those cheers and that there is a disposition on the part of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway to return to those ancient methods—[Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: Ancient alliances]—those ancient methods—[Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: Alliances]—of honesty. [Cries of "Oh!"] I beg pardon; I do not impute to them dishonesty, but my contention is that the influence they have exercised on the unfortunate tenant-farmers of Ireland has been destructive of their ancient character for honesty. Is it seriously contended by the Liberal Party that the methods denounced by the Commissioners are legitimate weapons of Party warfare? Is that the view of the right hon. Gentleman? Do they identify themselves with acts which up to 1885 they condemned? Are Home Rule and an Irish Parliament to be set tip on the ruins which boycotting and intimidation have left, on the abolition of all personal liberty and freedom, on the destruction of any rights of property which the law has solemnly recognised, and on the misery, suffering, and destruction of all who refuse to obey, or hesitate to obey, the mandates of an irresponsible League? Is this to be the basis on which a representative and responsible Government is to be created in Ireland, and if in Ireland, why not in England? The right hon. Gentleman may say that the misery which has existed in Ireland, the difficulty of paying the rent (which is alleged as the cause of these offences), is an excuse, if not a justification, for the outrage and disturbances and defiance of the law which have existed in connection with the Home Rule agitation; but he must remember the occasions on which he has himself alleged that the Land Laws of Ireland are more favourable to the tenant and to the occupier than any which existed in any quarter of the civilised globe. He must remember his own declarations that the provisions of the Land Acts, for which he is responsible, ought to give satisfaction to the tenant and security to the landlord; and he will know that it has always been held that even hardship does not justify the contempt of all law, and the infliction of suffering and misery upon perfectly harmless and helpless individuals who refuse to carry out the behests of a society which seeks to enforce its rules and its laws regardless of the interests of the community at large. If these things are to be done in Ireland, why should they not be done in Scotland and in England? Why, if they are to be done with reference to the land, are they not to be done with regard to the oilier relations in which debtors and creditors stand to each other in the same position of hardship so far as the debtor is concerned? Are we now, in the 19th century, to depart altogether from those conditions which have hitherto been held to be necessary to the prosperity of any civilised land? It is true "political economy" is banished to Jupiter and Saturn, but there has been hitherto a belief in the necessity of enforcing the obligations which the State itself has revised and recognised as fair and just. In our progress towards liberty, in our advance towards good government, are all the experiences of past generations to be set at naught? Is the mandate of an, illegal Association alone to determine whether legal obligations shall or shall not be discharged, which have not only been the result of contract, but have received the approval of the State itself? Sir, this prospect afforded by the alliance of a great Party with doctrines which can only be regarded as anarchical is one which must make a man pause and hesitate. If political necessities compel them to imperil the very existence of society, it may become a question whether even the maintenance of Party government in this country, which has in the past done so much to advance and develop our Parliamentary institutions, may not be regarded in these latter days rather as a curse than a blessing. If only a few years ago I or any of my hon. Friends had ventured to prophesy that the Liberal Party would be found ranging itself on the side of those whose language they denounced, whose acts they alleged to be, and believed to be, criminal, no words of condemnation would have been too strong in the mouths of our political opponents in denouncing us for such an anticipation. Alas! it has come to pass; and I can only hope and believe that the people of this country, and even the people of Ireland, will come to realise how dangerous to the best interests of the State are the temptations to which the right hon. Gentleman and his friends have succumbed.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That, Parliament having constituted a Special Commission to inquire into the charges and allegations made against certain members of Parliament and other persons, and the Report of the Commissioners having been pre- sented to Parliament, this House adopts the Report, and thanks the Commissioners for their just and impartial conduct in the matters referred to them; and orders that the said Report be entered on the journals of this House."—(Mr. W. H. Smith.)

(5.35.) MR. W. E. GLADSTONE (Edinburgh, Mid Lothian)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to move the Amendment of which I have given notice. It is to leave out all the words after "House," in line 5, in order to add the words— Deems it to be a duty to record its reprobation of the false charges of the gravest and most odious description, based on calumny and on forgery, which have been brought against Members of this House, and particularly against Mr. Parnell: and, while declaring its satisfaction at the exposure of these calumnies, this House expresses its regret for the wrong inflicted and the suffering and loss endured, through a protracted period, by reason of these acts of flagrant iniquity. In the temperate speech of the right hon. Gentleman there are several passages which would invite remarks. I do not propose to dwell on them, though I might be tempted to ask what are those periods in the past when the application of honest principles gave, as he says, prosperity to Ireland? On one of his observations I wish to make a comment, and it is on the construction he has given to the Amendment. He states that in the Amendment, fairly construed, the language is such as to lead to the impression that everything noticed by the Commissioners, everything done by Irish Members, receives the sanction of that Amendment. Now, I should have thought it hardly possible for the right hon. Gentleman to fall into such an error, because the reprobation which is recorded is directed to— The false charges of the gravest and most odious description, based on calumny and on forgery, which has been brought against Members of this House. It is impossible that the right hon. Gentleman can suppose that it is intended by the Amendment to convey that all those assertions of censure which have been made by the Parliamentary Commission "are charges of the basest and most odious description, based on calumny and on forgery." Consequently, I put it to the House that the right hon. Gentleman's construction of the Amendment entirely falls to the ground. He is quite right in stating that the Amendment bestows no censure upon the conduct of hon. Members, and to that part of the subject, of course, it will be my duty to refer. The right hon. Gentleman occupied the earlier part of his speech with a defence of the conduct of the Government. Now this subject, I must own, to me, as connected with the Opposition, is, in that point of view, a tempting one, but I will not follow the right hon. Gentleman on this occasion. I desire to avoid on this occasion, for a reason which appears to me even more than sufficient, all Party recrimination. Tempting as the opportunity is, I entirely refuse it. For I ask myself, whoso character and honour are at issue to-night and will be principally affected by the Vote the House is about to give? In some sense the three Judges are upon their trial; in some sense the Irish Members of the Nationalist Party are upon their trial; in some sense the Government may be upon its trial; but, Sir, it is mainly the House that is upon its trial. It is the character of the House, which, when brought to the tribunal of history, no Parliament, as well as no Party, can finally avoid; it is the character of the House which will suffer or gain according as on this occasion its course is wise and just, or according as it has been led into setting a precedent in my opinion unworthy of its high honour and highly dangerous as an example of future Parliaments. There is one point which I will explain at once, for it is one on which I do not think there can be any quarrel on principle between the right hon. Gentleman and myself. He invites us to thank the Judges of the Commission "for their just and impartial conduct in the matters referred to them." It is not on account of a fundamental difference as to the conduct of the Commissioners that I have hesitated to embody these thanks in my Amendment. It appears to me to be a questionable and hazardous proceeding to introduce into the course of our political action the practice of rendering formal thanks for the performance of judicial duty. I own that I have very considerable apprehensions on that subject. This House must necessarily be swayed from time to time by passion leading it in this direction or that. It has been our object to keep the action of the Judges separated by the widest possible interval from all our pro- ceedings and from the temper and heat that here occasionally prevail. Here is an occasion in which all feelings have been stirred and roused from their depths, and in which the Judges have been called in to deal with a large portion of the subject matter, and I own I have very great doubts indeed as to the policy of rendering to them the formal thanks of the House. But I will not grudgingly render to the Judges what personally I can. An hon. Friend of mine sitting behind me has expressed a desire to insert words in the Amendment, "To acknowledge the zeal of the Commissioners in the discharge of the arduous duties imposed upon them." Well, I am ready to acknowledge their zeal, and I am ready to acknowledge more than their zeal. I acknowledge their ability, their assiduity, and their perfect and absolute good faith. Though I may reserve to myself the right to criticise freely some of their statements, yet I do not think there is a line of that Report from beginning to end which has not been written by the Judges in absolute honour and good faith. And accordingly in what I may now say I beg it to be remembered that it is under the reservation of what I have just said and which I do not, in the slightest degree, desire to qualify. What I have said of the Judges I think I may have been able to say of many a speech I have heard delivered in this House. Such temper and disposition and such honour and good faith do not expel from the human mind and from human action all the effects of prepossession. In this Report, as I think, along with the amplest evidence of every quality I have described, there are defects, and there are errors— Quas aut incuria fudit, Aut humana parum cavit natura. I hope I have satisfied the House that I do not look in a grudging or unworthy spirit at the action and proceedings of the Judges, and accordingly if I claim, and it is a duty to claim—I am compelled by the action taken by the other side to claim—a liberty to criticise that Report, that will not imply any defect of fair and equitable intention towards those on whom we imposed a heavy burden, and who, I am bound to say, whatever view we may take of the political prepossessions—well, political sentiments, I will not even say prepossessions —with which they entered on the inquiry, have in every respect, I think, fulfilled the best and fullest expectations which we could possibly have entertained of them. So much for the Judges; and now I come to the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman. I will not dwell upon the serious addition that he proposes to make to the burden of the Journals of this House by inscribing upon them the 120 pages of this Report. I should have thought that if the House were to deal with this Report it ought to have been presented to us not wholesale but in parts. As far as I know, that is the course which has been pursued upon former occasions—not upon, occasions of Commissions like this, for, as the right hon. Gentleman says, there has been no Commission like this before, and I hope there may never be again. When bodies acting by delegated powers, or by powers not supreme—for example, a Committee of this House—have made a Report, and when it has been intended to induce the House to adopt the Report, the regular and Parliamentary course, I believe, has been to move that the Report be read, in order that it may be adopted freely and with full consideration of all its parts. But was there ever seriously made to a deliberate body such a proposal as is now made to us when we are asked, with reference to a document of 120 folio pages, bristling throughout with contested and disputable matter, to accept it in the lump, and at once to pledge ourselves to every proposition it contains? If the purpose of the Government had been to secure our adhesion to the main propositions of the Report—namely, to the findings—the course was obvious and open for the right hon. Gentleman to follow. He had only to propose that the findings should be adopted by the House, and undoubtedly then the decision of the House of Commons would have been taken upon a considerably narrowed issue. But I submit that the demand he now makes upon us, that we should adopt this Report of 120 pages, considering the multitude of varied propositions it contains, is alike contrary to the usage of Parliament in analogous cases and, I must say, to the dictates of propriety and of common sense. If it is said that we are totally unable through a Select Committee to deal with a question of this kind, are we more fit to adopt the present course? Observe, that when the right hon. Gentleman refused the repeated demand for reference to a Select Committee he stood in this position, of advantage—that in acceding to it he would have had the unanimous assent of the House. The demand was the demand of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork and the whole of the Irish Nationalist Party. It was thoroughly supported and approved by the Liberals on this side of the House. But the right hon. Gentleman, with his extreme scrupulousness and tenderness for the position of the Irish Members, would not allow their case to be submitted to the consideration of a Select Committee, a political tribunal. If because of our political colour we are unable to investigate the facts, I want to know how we have acquired a better capacity for that purpose now when we are called upon without examination, without inquiry, and without the slightest discrimination between any one proposition in the Report and another, to swallow the whole from beginning to end. Now, Sir, I will illustrate what I have said about some of the judgments in this Report in respect of which I find it necessary to reserve my liberty of criticism, and I will point out a few of the propositions to which hon. Members are going to be invited to-night to append their subscription and approval. I say that this Report contains a number of opinions given upon issues which are in no sense and in no degree judicial. A serious question arose before the Commission whether the agitation and the Land League were the causes of crime in Ireland, or whether it was due to other causes. Four other causes were brought before them as causes of crime, or causes of the cessation of that crime. The first was eviction and fear of eviction—I am now in 1879 and 1880. And I must offer this practical criticism upon the Report, that it is extremely unfortunate that in these findings generally there is no reference at all to period. We shall presently see that that is a matter of the most vital importance. The Commissioners say, on the top of page 86, that evictions and the fear of evictions were not the causes of crime but on the bottom of the page they say that the increase of evictions and the result of the agitation against the landlords were contributory causes; consequently, it all comes back to the agitation. We are told that we have no right to look at evictions as having contributed to the increase of crime. They have of themselves, we are informed, induced to crime; but we must look to the causes of evictions, and the causes of the evictions are the causes of the increase of crime. This is an issue which is absolutely non-judicial. In what way can these three Judges, sitting 10 years after the fact, have authority to determine with more weight and influence than any other man that evictions were not the cause of crime, or, if they were the cause, still that the evictions themselves were due to agitation? Observe, in that statement we are given to understand that in the creation of those crimes in 1879–80 distress and extravagant rents had nothing to do with it. This opinion, so irrational in itself, we are called upon to adopt without question or correction. Then there is the statement that crime was due to secret societies. I will not criticise that conclusion, because I admit that the question as to whether there were secret societies or not is a question of fact which may fairly be called a judicial issue. Then we come to another issue, absolutely non-judicial, and yet we are called upon to declare to-night—every one of us—that the rejection by the House of Lords of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill in 1880, which was the remedy we sought to apply to the great difficulties of Ireland at that moment, had nothing to do with the increase of crime at all. I cannot conceive a more astounding assertion. It appears to me to be in defiance of all the first rules of common-sense and of every likelihood of the case. It may be said that the Irish ought to have met their distress more in the spirit of philosophers or angels, and to have drawn upon an unbounded stock of patience, and to have had unbounded faith in Parliament; but the Irish were men, and, according to the view of the Commissioners, they were men with a fair share of human imperfections; and to say that the provocation offered by the rejection of that Bill, which, drew from Mr. Forster a most indignant denunciation—to say that it is not to be reckoned one of the causes of the increase of crime in Ireland, is indeed not a matter for censure, for no doubt it is an honest opinion on the part of the Judges; but it is an astounding proposition to submit to us in the year 1890 and to ask us to subscribe to. Then the land legislation of this House is brought upon the carpet. It was alleged by some persons before the Commission that the land legislation had been a great cause in mitigating the condition of Ireland and procuring the decrease of crime. Nothing of the sort, say the Commissioners. They say that the legislation of 1881 had no such effect, and they reject the proposition in like manner in respect to the Arrears Act of 1882, and say the suggestion that the Arrears Act tended to produce, and did produce, a diminution of crime, is a suggestion not well founded. That is a statement entirely untrue, in my opinion; but, whether true or untrue, it is a judgment upon an issue entirely non judicial, and one which, in virtue of the authority we gave to the Judges, we ought not to be asked to subscribe to. I will give one other instance, perhaps in one sense of a different description; but I will give an instance of what I think disproportionate and ill-balanced judgment. It will be for the Law Officers of the Crown to correct me, and contend that in this case the amount of censure has been justly apportioned to the amount of guilt. The Commissioners unearthed in the course of their inquiry the history of a miserable and obscure Irish paper called, I think, the Irishman—a paper so obscure that my noble Friend Lord Spencer, whom no one will accuse of insufficient attention to Irish affairs and the duties of his office—Lord Spencer has said that he was not even aware of its existence. However, this paper has at length attained to fame through the labours of the Commission, and several pages of the Report are filled with extracts from it, and these extracts from the paper, with the concurrence of Archbishop Walsh, are termed most abominable. I do not object—I do not complain; but what I ask is that you should be equally liberal in according blame to other things as abominable, when, as I think I can prove, these extracts from the Irishman were—I will not say pardonable at all, but insignificant from obscurity as compared with other things as abominable, blazoned forth to the world. When we come to the grand and capital offence, the nature of which I will do my best to set forth to-night—when we come to that, there is not a word, there is not a citation of one of the aggravating circumstances; all that is given is a statement that the letter upon which a certain detestable charge was founded is a forgery. That I call an unbalanced judgment, a disproportionate assignment of blame. I did not wish to enter into minute criticisms of this kind; but yon have forced me by compelling me, through your Motion, to become responsible for each and all of these assertions from beginning to end. There is one other objection to adopting this Report which I will dwell upon by-and-by; but it appears to me to be so conclusive, so simple, that I own I do not understand in what way it is to be met on the other side, or how the Motion is to be justified. We have it on the declaration of the Judges themselves—a declaration they were justified in making, and bound to make—that great portions of the evidence, and what we know to be essential portions of the evidence, were entirely excluded from their view. They have arrived at these conclusions; they have recorded them; they have passed censure upon certain acts; bat they have shut out from their consideration—as they have told us, and, moreover, in my opinion, they were justified from their position and point of view in shutting out from their consideration—essential portions of the evidence. What those essential portions were I will endeavour, by and by, to explain; but surely it is hard to believe the right hon. Gentleman can maintain this contention, that a judgment has been passed upon the Irish case by a body of men who were precluded from looking at many of the most important topics that bear upon it. They have said that they were so precluded. But we are not precluded from looking at them—we are bound to look at them, we cannot do otherwise than include them. We are totally unfit for our office as politicians and as legislators unless we do include them, and give to each its due weight. How is it possible to so accept, on the authority of the Judges, the conclusions they make upon a portion of the evidence, when you are both able and bound to look at the whole evidence which the Judges were prohibited, by the nature of their Commission, from examining? These are, I think, conclusive reasons against adopting the Report en bloc, as has been suggested. The right hon. Gentleman calls upon us to adopt this Report, but in what circumstances? It comes to us with the authority of the three Judges, who have most laboriously, zealously, and, so far, meritoriously, taken an enormous amount of evidence, upon which mass of evidence they have founded their conclusions; but you cannot separate the conclusion from the evidence on which it is founded. That evidence is not before us. There is not a man in this House who has read it—he cannot; it is morally impossible, it is physically impossible. Is it decent? Is this what the right hon. Gentleman describes as being the due conclusion of judicial procedure, if, when certain conclusions have been adopted by other people and upon evidence, we ate to adopt them wholesale, the evidence being out of our knowledge, out of the recollection probably even of those who heard it, and not having been heard by one in 10, or 20, or 50 of those who are called upon to accept the conclusions? Now, consider what is the sum of this great and important Constitutional case. In my opinion it is this. There has been a controversy in which the Nationalist Members for Ireland were accused of two classes of offence. One of those classes was a class of infamous and dishonourable offences. The right hon. Gentleman has expressed his joy and satisfaction, if I understood him rightly—and I should be sorry indeed if I did not—that justice has been done to the Members accused in respect of the personal charges. By that I apprehend he means those infamous and dishonourable offences. There was also another set of accusations of acts which were not in the nature of infamy or dishonour, but which were of a character which attach to all great and passionate popular movements and crises of agitation. On the first and great charge they have been acquitted, and our contention is that that acquittal, viewing the nature of the charges, absolutely demands notice from the House. The censure, as we contend, is not a subject for a Vote of Parliament at the present day and in present circumstances. Now, let us see what are the arguments which bear on those several propositions. Let me consider what are the points upon which the Nationalist Members of Ireland have been censured. I will endeavour to gather them into heads in a manner to which I do not think hon. Gentlemen opposite will object. I bring them into three heads. I admit that I take no notice of two charges which, do not fall under those heads. One is the charge that they disseminated newspapers tending to crime. That is the charge the formation of which is said to imply the application of the high doctrine of constructive conspiracy. Some of the agents of the League were found disseminating some of those newspapers, and consequently the 65 Members of Parliament, who sit in this House and who are not ashamed to belong to the League, are implicated. Yet the right hon. Gentleman really thinks that it is the business of Parliament to adopt and make such a contention as that. There is another head which may be called the £6 case, or it may be called the £12 case—because in all there were £12 spent for the purpose of relieving persons who had been or were supposed to have been engaged in committing crime. I think a more trumpery charge to appear in a State indictment than this, standing as it does and supported as it is, it would be difficult to conceive. Now, the main charges are three; and I do not think there is any doubt about it. One is that seven of the respondents joined the Land League with the ultimate view of separating Ireland from England. I here lament, as in many places I have to lament, that the Judges do not point out the time when this offence was committed. The time when this offence was committed was a time when desperate distress prevailed in Ireland, and when she was on the brink of famine; when unrighteous, unjust, and impossible rents largely prevailed in Ireland, as we know from subsequent experience of facts. It was in 1879 and 1880 that they joined the League with a view to the ultimate separation of Ireland from England. For my part I rejoice to believe that the idea of the separation of Ireland from England—which, even in the worst circumstances, I think was both unreasonable and impossible—I rejoice to think that that idea is an idea which is now dead. If anything would tend to revive that idea it would be the vote which is now proposed to be given in condemning a portion of our fellow Members because they have given countenance to that idea. I am compelled by the love of truth to say that, in my opinion, to deny the moral authority of the Act of Union was for an Irishman no moral offence whatever. Yes, the hon. and learned Gentleman may take me down [referring to the Attorney General making a note of the last observation]. I heard the Attorney General cross-examine his witness from a pedestal, as he felt, of the greatest elevation, and endeavouring to press home the monstrous guilt of an Irishman who did not allow moral authority to the Act of Union. In my opinion the Englishman has far more cause to blush for the means by which the Act of Union was obtained than the Irishman has to blush for anything, even of excess or error, into which he may have been betrayed in his recollections of that Act of Union. It was, Sir—and this I speak not in temper nor in heat, but after having done the best in my power for years past to learn the case—it was the offspring of tyranny, of massacre, of bribery, of fraud. It is no doubt a very serious responsibility to disturb a country that is under a Government procured by those means, because every man is responsible for the consequences of that disturbance; but to treat this as a great moral offence, and to come forward now in 1890, and in a sanctimonious vote, to condemn Irishmen because they held opinions in which it is highly probable, if not almost certain, that Grattan would have concurred had his life been prolonged, is a monstrous proposition. I do not object at all to the recital of the Judges; they have made it in fair and temperate terms; but the adoption of this Vote of Censure by the House of Commons I object to in the strongest manner. I deem it not only unjust to the Members so designated—and who will suffer from it extremely little—but flagrantly absurd and unwise. The other two censures of the Judges are more to the purpose—I mean more to our purpose, more to the purpose of the present Motion. I think those two propositions sum up the assumed guilt of the Irish Members. First, they incited to intimidation by speeches, with knowledge that intimidation led to crime. I do not think that, as far as I can judge, that is an unfair statement of the case on that head against the Irish Members. I believe it is quite as much as the Judges themselves have stated. I think the citations of the right hon. Gentleman were not entirely fair on the subject. I do not understand what was his object in citing from the charge of Lord Coleridge, where he set forth the nature of the accusations which have been made on the part of the Times as if he were favouring us with Lord Coleridge's opinion. Some one will, perhaps, kindly explain what in the world those have to do with the Vote now before the House. But I would call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to a passage on page 76 of the Report, where the Commissioners speak of the connection between agitation and crime. It is about 15 lines from the bottom, and it runs as follows:— We may say at once that the charge that the respondents, by their speeches or otherwise, incited persons to the commission of murder, or that the Land League chiefs based their scheme on a system of assassination, has not been substantiated. But, in the opinion of the Judges, it was substantiated that the Nationalists incited to intimidation by speeches with knowledge that it led to crime. I am not in a position to say that intimidation did not produce crime. I contended and argued from that place [pointing to the Treasury Bench] that it did, and I have seen no reason to reverse that opinion; but again I observe we are now speaking of what happened in 1880 and 1881. The proofs connecting those speeches with intimidation, and with intimidation which led to crime, belong to that period, and do not belong to a later. The prosecutors of this case arrived at an arrangement with my hon. and learned Friend which I think excluded everything after 1885 or 1886 from that investigation. [Sir C. RUSSELL: 1886.] It was not worth their while to enter upon it; but we are now speaking of a former period. The hon. Member for Cork has himself frankly and ingenuously confessed and stated in this House his opinion that much had been done at that time in the way of boycotting which was questionable or improper, and I do not imagine that they deny the Judges case in which they say there were cases in which intimidation led to crime. What was the other great charge? It was that the Nationalist Members never placed themselves on the side of law and justice; that they did not assist the administration, and did not denounce the party of physical force. I believe that I have stated fairly the charges against the Nationalists as they have been given by the Commissioners. Let us see what follows. In the first place, let me point out that these charges of continuing to encourage intimidation, after its association with crime had become known, are charges perfectly general in their character. It is a question of the general prudence or imprudence, propriety or impropriety of the language that they used in its action upon the temper of an excited nation; it is not a question of having ministered to this crime or that; it is not a question of the slightest personal complicity with crime. There is not one here who will not share in the opinion held by Lord Spencer on the subject from the first: that personal complicity with crime was not charged against any one of the Members returned to this House. These charges are charges made by the Judges, and I am going to give you some weighty and conclusive reasons against voting in affirmation of them. In the first place, they are 10 years old. It is a bad and a dangerous precedent to go back upon these long dates in order to obtain matter to hurl at the heads of political antagonists. In the second place, being 10 years old—what happened at all happened in 1880, 1881, and 1882, chiefly in the two former years, 1880 and 1881—were the facts then unknown? Were these things done in a corner? Were they not the subject of incessant discussion and denunciation in this House? Is there anything now affirmed against the Irish Members by the Judges which was not affirmed by Mr. Forster and, in part, by myself and brothers at that time? If these things deserve condemnation now by a Vote of this House, why did you not then condemn them? Well, I will tell you why. The Liberals of this House desired the matter to be fought out fairly in debate, and I do not think there was any reason or ground—not a rag of reason or ground—for a Vote of Parliamentary condemnation. That was the Liberal idea; was the Tory idea more severe? Not at all. They thought that these men were good enough to associate with for political purposes. The practice was to arrange with them the Votes and Divisions, and at last, in 1885, how was the crisis of the Liberal Government brought about except by the firm, steady co-operation of the Irish Members with the Tory party, for which I have never blamed them anymore than I blame them now, because they thought that the interests of their country were superior to those of any British Administration. Right hon. gentlemen opposite climbed to power upon the shoulders of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork—upon the strong shoulders of the hon. Member for Cork, and they have now become a majority; and, having had full cognizance of his guilt upon the charges at the time—the charges not having been added to since—now in 1890 they actually rouse themselves to such a point of indignation that they are, forsooth, prepared to vote the condemnation of a cause and of a policy, the whole benefit of which they took at that period. I am very sorry that I have been compelled, by the nature of this proposal, which left me no choice, to go into the discussion of polemical matters between the two sides of the House, but I am contending that it would be unwise, and, indeed, in the highest degree indecent, now in 1890 to pass this Vote of Censure, and I cannot give my own opinion of that without showing what was your own conduct during the preceding years, when the offences were committed. The right hon. Gentleman read out the ninth finding of the Commissioners, and he seemed to be deeply impressed with the subject matter. What he said was indeed, in his characteristic way, put very mildly, but he felt he was setting forth matters of extreme gravity when he stated that the Irish took money for Parliamentary purposes from men promoting physical force in America—physical force which the Irish Members disapproved; but these men were willing to do what the Irish Members approved—namely, to subscribe money for Parliamentary purposes. If a parallel precedent were wanting to justify their conduct they have nothing to do but to point to you. You disapproved of the proceedings of the Irish in 1881 and the following years; you thought those proceedings led to crime and to mischief, but then the Irish were willing to join you in voting out the Liberal Government, and you took advantage of their good dispositions, notwithstanding their criminal and unworthy deeds. Mutatis mutandis is a formula which will well serve to express what the Judges have put into this Report. I ask the House of Commons now to consider the counter-allegations which may be laid before them—allegations made seriously by the Irish Members. They hold the opinion that the agitation, even of 1879, 1880, 1881, prevented more crime than it caused. Crime was caused; what the Judges very properly call increased crime was caused by agitation. But I believe it to be a perfectly serious allegation, tendered in good faith by the Irish Members, that more crime and worse crime, more atrocious crime, was prevented by agitation. But what do you say to the allegation of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork, who has told us from the first that his endeavour, his policy, his scheme has been to draw off agitation and popular action in Ireland from violence to Parliamentary methods? Now, for my own part, I do not hesitate to say that there was a time when I did not recognise that intention. And when was that time? This I shall say, as a matter of fact, that never at any period since the early part of 1882 have I charged the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork, as a Minister or otherwise with any action, any language, tending to the increase of crime in Ireland. I viewed him as a conservative force—I mean conservative in the sense of maintaining the law, the order, and the peace of the country. And when the Irish Members tell me that in their conviction the agitation, even when it was of the roughest and wildest, stopped more crime than it caused, and especially when they tell me that the endeavour of their distinguished leader has been to put an, end to violence and to substitute Parliamentary action for what Mr. O'Connell used to call "the wild justice" of popular movements, I will not say that the House ought to vote in affirmation of that statement—that may be left to the historian to decide—but to vote that such a statement is unworthy of credit, and is without force or weight is, in my opinion, a course not very well suited to maintain the dignity of the House. I ask the House to listen to the words in which the Judges describe the limited scope of the inquiry. I will not quote the entire passage; it will be found on page 5 of the Report, but nearly at the close are these words— We must confine our researches to the question whether the respondents, or any of them, have been guilty of the things charged and alleged against them; we have no commission to consider whether the conduct of which they are accused can he palliated by the circumstances of the time, or whether it should be condoned in consideration of benefits alleged to have resulted from their actions. In the first place, I say this—I am not making it an accusation against the Party opposite for their former conduct, but only against what they propose tonight—that condonation was given in the amplest, in the most solemn manner which is conceivable when, in 1885, the representative in Ireland of Her Majesty's Government, with the knowledge and the sanction of the head of the Government, entered into close, private, confidential communications with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork, the leader of the Irish Party, for the purpose of devising, if possible, a scheme and a policy for the government of Ireland. I ask you to answer that argument, and to show me that the proceedings of Lord Carnarvon and Lord Salisbury—for he was an essential party to them, and it would not surprise me if I were to be authentically informed that no other Member of the Cabinet knew anything about it—I have my own suspicions, but I do not wish to act on suspicion alone—I ask you to show me that the action of the Viceroy and Lord Salisbury, who concurred with the Viceroy, in taking these gentlemen into their confidential counsel, for the purpose of devising a plan for the government of Ireland and their treatment in Parliament, was not a full, absolute, and ought to have been a final condonation and closing of the book of controversy with respect to former acts. I Want the House to consider a little what is the meaning of those remarkable words, "palliation and condonation." Suppose this to be true—that there was some evil in the Irish agitation of 1880 and 1881, when, as I conceived at that time—erroneously or not—there was a policy which aimed at the destruction of agricultural rents. That charge I made at the time in good faith; but I am not quite sure now whether it ought not to have been strongly qualified by the circumstances of the time. But supposing I am told that even then the good in the agitation far outweighed the evil, are you prepared to deny that? And here I have a sorrowful confession to make. Suppose I am told further that without the agitation Ireland would never have had the Land Act of 1881, are you prepared to deny that? Are you prepared to say that without the agitation Ireland would have got the Land Act of 1881? I hear no challenges upon that statement, for I think it is generally and deeply felt that without the agitation the Land Act of 1881 would not have been passed. I ask, what would have been the condition of Ireland at this moment—what horrors would have filled the interval—because you are now looking back on a period of comparative calm and tranquillity. I had a controversy with some of the Irish Members—particularly the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. T. Healy)—upon a point of difference. I always contended, and I now believe, that the abolition of the Irish Church and the Land Act of 1870 were the free gifts of the Imperial Legislature to Ireland. I do not admit that agitation had to do with the passing of either of these measures. I am not endeavouring to convince others. I am only reciting my own opinion. I was glad enough to claim credit for Parliament where I could for an impartial judgment in matters beneficial to Ireland. The abolition of the Irish Church was, in point of feeling and sentiment, a great sacrifice for Parliament to make, and, I think, a most honourable sacrifice, and the abolition of the Irish Church carried in its train the Land Act of 1870. At the time it was passed that Act was a great blessing to Ireland. It was highly favoured by the fortunate circumstances of good seasons, and for some years it seemed as if it might be a settlement of the Land Question. Then came the distress and misery of 1879, and it broke down. As the man responsible more than any other for the Act of 1881—as the man whose duty it was to consider that question day and night during; nearly the whole of that Session—I must record my firm opinion that the Act would not have become the law of the land if it had not been for the agitation with which Irish society was convulsed. You may say, that if it be true that a great law was necessary for the safety of Ireland—to save the people from misery and starvation—and if that Act could not have been passed without popular agitation, and if you are now going to pass censure on those concerned in that agitation, are you justified in saying—"I am precluded from looking at the beneficent results of their agitation"? The truth is this. This is our position. The Judges, under the necessities of the case, have looked at a part of the case. It is our duty to look at the whole. What were the whole facts of that crisis? In the first place, terrible distress; in the second place, the rejection by the House of Lords of the legislative remedy for the time proposed by the responsible Ministers of the Crown, and passed by a large majority in this House; in the third place, the growth of evictions; and, in the fourth place, the wide prevalence of iniquitous and impossible rents. Out of this great group of facts the Judges, acting under the terms of the Commission, absolving themselves, but not absolving us, have selected the agitation, and have said—"We cannot look to the right or the left, or backwards or forwards; all we have to do is to return a verdict upon the dry facts whether we can allege that in some degree or other, and in some circumstances or other, there was a connection between the agitation and the increase of crime." But is Parliament to act upon such a basis? Are we to put out of view the facts I have referred to? Perhaps I shall be told that in the year 1881 I myself expressed my belief that the number of landlords levying iniquitous rents in Ireland was comparatively small. Yes; I did express that opinion, and I did it on the best evidence at my command. That was the evidence of the Commission, at the head of which sat Lord Bessborough; and that Commission reported to that effect. But I cannot plead such ignorance now. Somewhere about 400,000 tenants in Ireland were empowered and enabled by the Land Act to seek judicial rents, or to make covenants with the landlords, which were themselves equivalent to judicial rents. And, in round numbers, 200,000 of them went into the Court or obtained these agreements, by which large reductions were secured. It is not possible for me now to deny that at that time excessive, iniquitous, and impossible rents prevailed widely in Ireland, and that they constituted a gigantic and capital fact in the whole Irish case of that period; and to pass judgment on that case without taking them into account is in itself a monstrous injustice. The fact is this. You are called upon now to weigh certain classes of actions and speeches in gold scales. They are the actions and speeches to which you can trace, as you think, injurious consequences. But all the other acts of far greater consequence, all the great historic force which determined the bringing about of the Irish crisis, and, as one may perhaps now say, the happy determination of that crisis, you are to set aside and say, "No, we have nothing to do with them." And yet you are not Judges in a limited Commission, but statesmen, politicians, and legislators, bound to look at the whole range of circumstances of the case, and guilty of misprision of justice if you fail so to do. I can only show you my meaning in this matter by historical illustrations. My doctrine is this: These acts, with respect to which Irish Members have been censured, are not fit subjects for Parliamentary censure at all, because they are so mixed up with other circumstances that unless you take those circumstances into view you cannot possibly do justice; and when you have taken them into view, you find that the acts are such as are invariably incident to periods of national crisis, struggle, and revolution. Perhaps you think it wrong in me to apply the term revolution to any changes that have taken place, or are likely to take place, in Ireland. But remember who it was who connected revolution with Irish affairs. It was your own greatest authority—it was Lord Beaconsfield, as Mr. Disraeli. In the year 1844, in one of the most remarkable, and perhaps, the wisest, passages to which he ever gave utterance in Parliament, he pointed to Ireland and told the Parliament of that day that the evil features of Ireland were such as could only be corrected in other countries by revolution, and that the duty of Parliament was to correct these evil features without revo- lution. Yes, that he said in 1844, and for 25 years after that declaration no single Act of importance was passed which in any way touched the conditions, fortunes, and prospects of the people of Ireland. Well, now, Sir, what are the circumstances? The circumstances are that, in the existence of this great necessity to relieve half the population from the pressure of impossible rents, means were adopted which were not ill-intended and which were not purposely directed to crime or mischief, but which were capable in given circumstances of excitement in this case or in that, of operating on excited minds, and of being auxiliary causes of crime in such cases. These are the circumstances. But, Sir, is it not the case that in all great movements in human affairs even the just cause is marked and spotted with much that is to be regretted? Have you ever heard of great changes brought about in the condition of a nation with nothing contrary to honour, nothing contrary to right, nothing contrary to order? Let me take the two charges against Irish Members—one of them that they gave no assistance to justice, and the other that they did not denounce the party of violence. I will take an illustration from our own history. Under Queen Elizabeth—and if ever there was a period of crisis in English History it was during that reign—the body of Roman Catholics of England were strictly and absolutely loyal. Of that there is no doubt, and it is recorded that the venerable Lord Montagu—I do not know whether he was entitled by years, as some others who have taken a share of public action, to be described as venerable—but, at any rate, the venerable Lord Montagu marched to Tilbury to support Queen Elizabeth with a troop of horse, commanded by himself, his son, and his grandson. Such was the loyalty of the body of Roman Catholics. At that time there was a handful or group of Roman Cotholics, young Roman Catholics, chiefly in holy orders, emissaries of Rome, sustained and cherished by the colleges abroad, and continually engaged either in arranging plots or awaiting outbreaks when they might have an opportunity of riveting upon this country a foreign domination, and possibly even of removing by assassination the Queen whose life was regarded by the mass of the people as an inestimable treasure. I have contrasted these two classes of persons—the one small and working against the law, the other as heartily attached to it. But who ever heard—I, for one, never heard—that those loyal Roman Catholics made it part of their active duty to detect the disloyal? They had no share in exposing them; and it is too much to demand when you have got before you an oppressed nation and a system of law which you believe to be in the main radically unjust and bad and administered in a foreign spirit, hostile to the welfare and the feelings of the country—it is too much to expect every man as a test of loyalty and as the only means of extending to him protection, to actively associate himself with the law and to make himself a portion of its train for the purpose of detecting those whom such a state of the law naturally alienates. I take another case, and that is with regard to the fact that the agitation in the eyes of the Judges, and possibly in the opinion of many more, cannot be held to have been wholly dissociated with crime. I will illustrate that in like manner from our history. I will illustrate it from the history of the Long Parliament. Now, I suppose that if there is a body of men who have a secure place from generation to generation in the grateful veneration of the country it is the leaders of the Long Parliament in its early years. I do not speak of the time of Cromwell, of Ireton, and of Lambert, although it has become a great fashion of late to worship Cromwell. It is the time of Pym and Hampden, of Falkland and Hyde, for the incidents which I am going to recite occurred within the last 12 or 14 months of the Long Parliament. Falkland and Hyde themselves in the Long Parliament belonged to the Opposition. I will not quote the passage from Hallam, where he gives a general description of it, but I will quote cases of what was done by those great champions of law and order who now enjoy our gratitude and veneration. I take them from Mr. Hallam, except in one case, which I take from the notes of Sir John Northcote, a very worthy and distinguished ancestor of Lord Iddesleigh:—"The Long Parliament usurped from the first," Hallam says. Legislative, executive, and judicial functions. There was a Judge whom they did not like, who was considered to be subservient to prerogative. They sent the Usher of the Black Rod into the Court of King's Bench, and they seized Judge Barclay while the Court was sitting. They required the Judges who had signed the warrants for ship-money to enter into heavy recognisances of many thousands of pounds" (whether they had been students of the Act of Edward III. or not). "When they heard of a clergyman who had performed any ceremony in the Church that they disliked they sent and seized him and committed him to prison as a delinquent. There was a tailor so imprudent as to curse the Parliament. He was sent to labour in Bridewell for life, not by the House of Commons, but by the House of Lords, so that a congenial spirit prevailed in both branches of the Legislature. Well, Sir, when petitioners petitioned in the most orderly manner for the preservation of the Constitution they were sent for and imprisoned, but when tumultuous crowds brought petitions for a change they were welcomed to the Bar of the House. The climax of all these cases was one which I hope, Sir, will never be repeated during the period of your own experience. This happened on the 10th of December, 1641. A Member of Parliament, Sir William Earle, gave information of some dangerous words that had been spoken. Dangerous words! That is the statement of the charge. What was voted? That Mr. Speaker should issue his warrant to apprehend such persons as Sir William Earle shall point out. Such, Sir, was the admixture of gross and human elements in the popular movement upon which, notwithstanding, we look back as one of the most beneficial and most glorious, at any rate in these early stages, in the whole course of our history. And we have been accustomed, many of us, to toast at our festive gatherings, "the cause for which Hampden bled in the field, and Sidney on the scaffold." Very probably some of those who vote with the right hon. Gentleman to-night have toasted this cause for which Hampden bled in the field, and Sidney on the scaffold. These deliberate, flagrant, constant, wilful, and systematic violations of law and of private right which were thus perpetrated by those great men, and, on the whole, good men, are far graver and far fitter to be put into an indictment than the indirect consequential responsibilities that you throw upon some of the Irish Members, whose motives and whose intentions the Judges themselves have been the first to acknowledge. Perhaps I may be allowed, for it conveniently sums up the whole case, to quote the words ascribed to Lord Chatham. I believe they are not in his speeches; they rest upon the authority of Mr. Grattan. Lord Chatham spoke of that very time which I have beep describing. He said— There was ambition, there was sedition, there was violence, but no man shall persuade me that it was not the cause of liberty on one side, and of tyranny on the other. The cause which was marked by sedition and violence was—in the judgment of Lord Chatham, who stands at the head, perhaps, of your orators and statesmen—the cause of liberty; and the cause opposed to them, which no doubt had its catch-words of "law and order," was, in his judgment, the cause, not of liberty, nor law and order, which are the sisters and essential allies of liberty, but the cause of tyranny. For these reasons I say that in my opinion you must raise yourselves a little above the level of the day, and, if you can, endeavour to take the view of the transaction we are now engaged in that the historian will take when he comes to perform his final office; and you will see that these matters—though I will not say the conduct of the Irish Members is free from censure, any more than I will venture to say that my own conduct is free from censure or the conduct of better than I—are not fit subjects for a Parliamentary vote. And that Parliamentary vote, the vote of an adverse, antagonistic majority, delivering itself in consonance with its own views to crush or discredit political opponents, while adding nothing whatever to the weight of the judgment of the Commissioners, will, on the contrary, tend to deprive it of such weight. I will now refer briefly to the acts which constitute the acquittal. I allude to the charges, every one of which would have personally stigmatised and personally disgraced all the men who were the objects of them had these charges been true. I do not think you could ever have made arrangements with these men to conduct along with them the opposition to a Liberal Government. I do not think that in 1885 you would have entered into confidential communications with them for the pur- pose of arranging informally a scheme for governing Ireland. What are these charges? I take them in their latest edition. There are many editions, and the last edition is the least violent, and, I was going to say, the least atrocious. They were charged with having given incitement by speeches to a scheme of assassination carefully calculated and coolly applied; with having given payment to promote murder; with having entered into personal association with criminals; and with having made payments to aid escape from justice. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has observed that the Commmissioners expressly absolved the Members from this personal asssociation with notorious criminals. Then it was charged that they gave countenance to a murderous association in America, but it was proved that they gave it no other countenance than that which I have described; it was charged that they, in the person of their chief, were intimate with the leading Invincibles, and had probable knowledge of what they wore about in the beginning of May. And lastly, Sir, there come the forged letters. These are the charges of an infamous character from which there has been a full acquittal, and we ask you to give effect to that acquittal. Now, I have spoken thus far of the Irish Members without distinction. I must now speak of the chief among them, because he was the object of by far the worst and most atrocious of these charges. I must speak of Mr. Parnell. I believe that the charge brought against him was not only an atrocious charge, but that it was in itself a charge of atrocity entirely unexampled in our history. Had that charge been true the hon. Member for Cork would have been guilty, morally guilty, as an assassin, as a coward, as a liar, and as a hypocrite, Every one of those crimes, the worst and the basest that can be charged to a human being, would lie at the door of the hon. Member for Cork had he been guilty. Such was the charge in itself. If it were true, it was the more needful that it should be made. On whom was it made? It was made on a man who, looked upon in his public career, was charged with the leadership of a people. He was charged from day to day with the daily care of a nation's interest, at a time when he was invited to become virtually a defendant in a Court of Justice that sit for a year and a half. Such was his condition in public. What was his condition privately and personally? The hon. Gentleman was well known to be strong in mind as he was weak in health. He was known to be a man of broken health at the time this charge was made, and finally—there is no indelicacy in alluding to it, because the hon. Gentleman himself has modestly and becomingly spoken of it—he was known to be a man whose lot has not been cast among the rich men either of England or of Ireland. When this charge was brought, under enormous responsibility, what was the assurance that accompanied it? It was not cast at random before the country; it was cast with a solemn assurance that imposed even upon Members of this House, in these terms, that, "after the most I careful and minute scrutiny, we are satisfied that the letter is authentic." Was there a scrutiny? Was there a scrutiny at all? Was there anything careful and minute about it? Yes, Sir; there was something careful about it, and that was a carefulness not to know. Mr. Macdonald went into the box, appeared upon his oath, not closed up within the curtains of the office of the Times newspaper, but upon his oath personally in the face of day; and what said Mr. MacDonald? "I abstained from asking Mr. Houston why the envelopes were wanting, and from whom he got the letters"; and then, "I particularly avoided the subject of origin." Having ventured upon forgery, having carried calumny to its climax, the whole of this was crowned with falsehood, divulged in the most solemn form, and given to the credulous, those whom Party prejudice for a moment might mislead, to assure them that they would tread in the paths, not of cruelty and tyranny, but of justice. Sir, is it an immoderate demand that, after an occurrence like this, after a poisoned weapon has been aimed, aimed under such circumstances, aimed at such a person, and aimed with the solemn assurance that nothing was so dear to those who launched it as the strict observance of the law—is it too much that I should ask the House of Commons, which by implication and involuntarily at least came to give much countenance to the exterior I part of this case—is it too much to ask that we should record our judgment upon this unexampled occurrence? I have not been able, I admit, to abstain altogether from reference to the conduct of the Party opposite in former years. I have made no charge against the conduct of the Party, or the conduct of the Government, in immediate connection with this matter. I wish to do nothing to give an excuse to prejudice or to prepossession. And now, Sir, as a Member of the minority, to whom am I to appeal? I appeal from the Party opposite to the Party opposite. I appeal from them as a Party to them as individuals. I ask you as citizens—I will not say as Christians—and as men to consider this case. I ask you to acknowledge the law of equal and reciprocal moral obligation; I ask you to place yourselves for a moment—not the mass among whom responsibility is diffused and severed till it becomes inoperative and worthless; but I ask you individually, man by man, to place yourselves—in the position of the hon. Member for Cork as the victim of this frightful outrage. Is it possible, in doing this, after all his cares, all his suffering, all that he has gone through—and I believe there is no parallel to it at least for 200 years—that you can fail to feel that something remains due to him, or that you can bring that something lower or make it smaller than I have put it in the Amendment I am about to move? No, Sir. Then give, I pray you to give; give it as men, but do not be satisfied with giving a judgment that may be sustained by the cheers of a majority of this House upon a victorious or favourable Division; give such a judgment as will bear the scrutiny of the heart and of the conscience of every man when he takes himself to his chamber and is still. Of such a judgment I have no fear. For such a judgment I ask you, I entreat you, I urge you, I might almost say, in the name of that law of reciprocal obligation, I respectfully demand it of you. Give such a judgment in the terms of the Amendment, concur in declaring that which is, after all, but a part, and a feebly drawn and represented part, of the wrongs that have been inflicted—give that judgment, accede to our demand, accede to our prayer, and grant this late, this measured, this perhaps scanty reparation of an enormous and unheard-of wrong.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "House," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "deems it to be a duty to record its reprobation of the false charges of the gravest and most odious description, based on calumny and on forgery, which have been brought against Members of this House, and particularly against Mr. Parnell; and, while declaring its satisfaction at the exposure of these calumnies, this House expresses its regret for the wrong inflicted, and the suffering and loss endured, through a protracted period, by reason of these acts of flagrant iniquity,"—(Mr. W. E. Gladstone,) —instead thereof.

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

(7.13.) THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir M. HICKS BEACH, Bristol, W.)

Mr. Speaker, the right hon. Gentleman, in a passage of fervid and glowing eloquence, has invited this House, and especially those who sit on this side, to give a judgment, as he calls it, in satisfaction of a wrong done to the hon. Member for Cork. But I appeal to anyone who has listened to the whole of the right hon. Gentleman's speech whether in that speech there is not proof that the judgment for which he asks could not, consistently with justice, be given by this House. We have heard that the Report of the Commission has been described as a triumphant acquittal. The whole speech of the right hon. Gentleman shows that he regards it as something very different—as not only, after fair inquiry and deliberate judgment, acquitting the hon. Member for Cork with regard to those infamous and dishonouring charges to which he alluded in the latter part of his speech, but also as recording judgment on other matters, which possibly may seem of even greater gravity to the country at large. Now, the right hon. Gentleman has not accepted the terms in which my right hon. Friend proposes to acknowledge the work of the Judges. He objected to that proposal on this ground—that he objected to render formal thanks for the performance of judicial duties. But, Sir, I venture to remind him that this was no ordinary duty. It was imposed by Parliament upon public servants very much against their desire, I should imagine, and certainly very much beyond the scope of their ordinary work. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman should have marred what he said with regard to the conduct of this inquiry by the Judges by the suggestion of political sentiment. I think that the Report before us bears on its whole face clear proof of calm, impartial judgment, absolutely devoid of any political sentiment or prepossession whatever; and remembering the suggestions made and the insinuations thrown out before this Commission was appointed, and since it began its work, of unfair bias on the part of those of whom it was composed, I think that the least this House can do is to show that it has no sympathy whatever with such insinuations, and that it trusts and accepts the absolute impartiality with which this Commission has been conducted. The right hon. Gentleman divided the charges under two heads. He classed the first, on which an acquittal has been given, as infamous and dishonouring; and, secondly, as charges of conduct such as accompanied all great popular movements; and the right hon. Gentleman who sits next him, while admitting the other day that the Judges formed a most competent tribunal simply for the investigation of questions of crime and questions of fact, stated that they were, in his judgment, not a competent tribunal for matters involving political considerations. I think, Sir, this is the distinction which is drawn by the two right hon. Gentlemen between the two classes of charges into which, the Judges have inquired; but I would venture to point out that the distinction between those two classes of charges really depends upon the opinions of those who consider them. It may be all very well for right hon. Gentlemen opposite to say that there is nothing infamous and dishonouring in a particular class of charges, and that there is something infamous and dishonouring in the other. But I am bound to say, without using the word infamous, I do think that there is something dishonouring in some of the charges which have been proved against hon. Members opposite; and if the matter were looked at from the point of view of a "member of the physical force party" in America who advocates the use of dynamite and assassination, such a person might con- tend that all the charges related to matters involving political considerations. You cannot classify charges of this kind in this way. I think that the right hon. Gentleman, at any rate by the length of that part of his speech which he devoted to this matter, admits in his own mind the gravity of some of the charges which, in his judgment, are matters involving political considerations. No doubt they are now matters of history; but there is this advantage in that respect—that perhaps we can consider them with somewhat greater calmness, and that we have with regard to them placed upon record the opinions of the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues in the Government of that day—opinions which singularly corroborate the findings of the Commission. I will venture to divide the charges which have been reported to be true under two heads. In the first place, the Judges find that some of the respondents, including the two most active leaders of hon. Members below the Gangway, established and joined in the Land League organisation with the intention by those means to bring about the absolute independence of Ireland as a separate nation. Now I quite admit, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt) stated the other day, that in that there is no overt act of treason which could be indicted; but, on the other hand, surely it is a treasonable intention? When right hon. Gentlemen go on to compare this treason with other acts in the past history of the world—with the cases, for instance, of Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington, who, of course, were legally traitors in their day—I thought to myself, would men like Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington have done, in carrying out their treason, what has been proved to have been done by hon. Members below the Gangway? [Sir W. HARCOURT: Yes, and a great deal more.] Now, let me just proceed to the points which were hardly lit all dwelt upon by the right hon. Gentleman, but which surely have a very close and intimate bearing upon this charge of treasonable intention. The Commissioners report that the respondents disseminated newspapers tending to incite to sedition and the commission of crime. Now the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian passed very lightly over that. He called it a trumpery charge—

MR. W. E. GLADSTONE

No, I said that it was a constructive charge.

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

I beg pardon. But at any rate he passed very lightly over it. But the Commissioners report that among those newspapers was one purchased by the hon. Member for Cork, maintained by the Land League funds, and the columns of which—as is shown by quotations in the Report—I venture to say contained as outrageous suggestions upon the use of dynamite and assassination as were ever reprobated by the right hon. Gentleman in American newspapers nine years ago. Well, Sir, that is one way in which treasonable intentions manifested themselves in the actions of those whose conduct is reported upon. But there was another way still. It is found that the respondents invited the assistance and co-operation and accepted subscriptions of money irom Patrick Ford, a known advocate of crime and the use of dynamite, and the physical force party in America, including the Clan-na-Gael, and that in order to obtain that assistance they abstained from repudiating or condemning the action of that party. Sir, the members of that party in America are men—and were men—guilty not only of treasonable intention and treasonable action, but guilty of the most atrocious designs, such as I will venture to say have never been paralleled in any of those political movements of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke—the execution of which has been happily frustrated mainly by their miserable squabbles among themselves. Now, Sir, I do not suppose that there is anything in this—in the conduct which is proved by this Commission to have been committed by the respondents—to justify any indictment for treason. But this I will say, I do think it strange that such conduct as that should be excused and palliated by ex-Ministers of the Crown, who may some day occupy that position again, as involving political considerations. Then there is the second group of charges. What are those charges? That the bulk of the respondents, including the bulk of the party below the Gangway, are found to have been guilty of a criminal conspiracy, one of the objects of which was by a system of coercion and intimidation to promote an agrarian agitation against the payment of agricultural rents for the purpose of impoverishing and expelling from the country the Irish-landlords, who were styled the English garrison. It is shown that boycotting, the instrument of this combination, was a system of intimidation of the most severe and cruel character, that the object of this elaborate and all-pervading tyranny was not only to injure individuals, bat the class of landlords, and to drive them out of the country, and that the intention of those who devised and carried out this system was to terrorise, and that it led in many cases to actual outrage. Further, it is found that the respondents incited to intimidation, and that the consequence of that incitement was that crime and outrage were committed by the persons incited; that the speeches made by the respondents, though the speakers did not intend it, had the effect of causing the peasants to carry out the laws of the Land League, even by assassination; that the respondents did not denounce the system of intimidation, but persisted in it, with the knowledge of its effect; that they, through the Land League, systematically and indiscriminately paid for the defence of persons charged with agrarian crime and supported their families; and that the knowledge that such assistance would in all cases be afforded must have had the effect of encouraging persons to commit outrage. Well, now, I was surprised that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid-Lothian should have turned no small portion of his speech into an absolute apology for—nay, justification of—such conduct as that. He stated in so many words that it was the conduct so deseribed by the Judges which led to the passing of the Land Act of 1881. He justified the agitation, the methods, and the procedure which the Judges have so described. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby agrees with him in that view, for he said the other day, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian has said to-night, that all this evil came from unjust and impossible rents. Why, Sir, it is obvious to any one who reads the Report of the Judges that this was no case of an attempt on the part of the Land League to deal simply with cases of unjust eviction or the payment of impossible rents, but that it was a conspiracy deliberately formed against a whole class, and carried oat by methods such as are described. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby knew a great deal better than this in 1881. In that year, speaking as a responsible Minister of the Crown, with all the responsibility of office as Home Secretary, with the knowledge of these matters fresh in his mind, he addressed a meeting in Glasgow, and what did he say? He referred to the men who are defended and apologised for by right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite, and who, he said, had not for their object, or at all events for their principal object, the advantage of the Irish tenant, but were pursuing schemes of political revolution. The land agitation in their hands was not merely a Constitutional agitation to redress land grievances, which was perfectly justifiable, but was an agitation whose object was to destroy the union of the Empire, and to overthrow the established Government of the United Kingdom. Mr. Parnell admits now that what he wants is not fair rent; he wants no rent at all. He wants to get rid of the landlords in order that he may get rid of the English Government, and for this object every kind of intimidation has been employed to deter honest men from doing their duty and fulfilling their obligations. The Land League has employed terms whose avowed object is to set aside and over-rule the laws of the land. It is utterly impossible that any Government responsible for civilised society can tolerate such a condition of things. The Land League has thrown over the false colours of fair rent; it has hoisted the red flag, and the buccaneering craft sails under its true colours. Men who stood by it before, like Archbishop Croke, have repudiated the doctrines of which they must and do disapprove, and the Government have consequently felt it their duty to put in force all the powers that Parliament have granted them, in order to put down a public danger and a public nuisance. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by saying:— It is a great comfort and a great support to us to know that our conduct has generally been approved. The right hon. Gentleman is of a very comfortable disposition, and I do not doubt that, with perfectly changed opinions, he is equally satisfied with his present position. There is a point in the findings of the Commissioners which I have quoted, which, I think, deserves some further notice—the payments for the defence of persons charged with agrarian crimes, and the support of their families, and payments made to compensate those injured in the commission of crimes. This is the charge which the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian described as a trumpery charge. He said only two cases were quoted by the Commissioners, proved by a few letters that were all that could be found out of the very large correspondence of the Land League. But the facts detailed by the Commissioners in their Report are sufficient to show those where not isolated cases, but may have been samples of the regular course of dealing. [An hon. MEMBER? "May have been?"] May have been: Yes, but why was it not proved that they were not? There is nothing more remarkable in the whole of this inquiry than the absolute disappearance of the books, papers, records, and accounts of the Land League. If there is suspicion not only that large sums of money have been spent for such purposes, but even for worse and graver purposes, those who were responsible for the management of the Land League in those years have no one to thank but themselves. What do the Commissioners say as to the singular disappearance of those documents and the absolute failure to account for the large expenditure of the Land League?— Thus we have over £100,000 of Land League funds received—(from Mr. Egan)—but no details of the manner in which it was expended. It is proved that the books and documents of the Land League were numerous and bulky. … We have been unable to obtain these documents, and no valid excuse has been given for their non-production … Mr. Justin M'Carthy, M.P., stated that he had obtained a list of books relating to the Land League of Great Britain, and which he was willing should be produced. … "When called for he was unable to produce them or explain the reason for their non-production. Mr. Parnell refused to give authority to Messrs. Munro, of Paris, to produce the accounts relating to the Land League.

MR. R. T. REID (Dumfries, &c.)

The right hon. Gentleman does not follow that up by saying that Messrs. Lewis gave an explanation.

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

[Continuing the quotation]: We have therefore been deprived of evidence upon the question how the moneys of I he Land League were expended in the years 881–82. We may say generally that we have not received from Mr. Parnell and the officers of the Land League the assistance we were entitled to expect in the investigation of the Land League accounts, in order that it might be seen how its funds were expended. I venture to say that that is as remarkable a part of the Report as any in it, that no satisfactory explanation of these circumstances has yet been given at all, and that there must be elements of very grave suspicion, until, in defence of their own honour, those who are able to give an explanation, give it. I now turn to the main part of the second group of charges—the question of intimidation and boycotting. The right hon. Member for Mid Lothian said hardly anything to-night on the question of intimidation or boycotting. When it is his fortune to take part in debates upon boycotting at the present time, he describes it always, I think, as exclusive dealing. But he did not venture to apply that definition to it in the years now under review by the House. At that time he described boycotting as combined intimidation used for the purpose of destroying private liberty of choice by fear of ruin and starvation, sanctioned by the murder which is not to be denounced: as a monstrous public evil, threatening liberty and interfering with law and order; applied whether the landlord has been tyrannical or harsh; whether he has been indulgent or overbearing; to prevent the occupation of a farm from which, even in the last extremity and to meet his own personal wants, a landlord has felt it necessary to remove a tenant. That is in accordance with the description of boycotting and intimidation given by the Judges in their Report; and I venture to say there was nothing in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman to-night to show why he had absolutely changed in 1890 the opinions on that subject which he expressed in 1881, when this terrible system was in full force, except that he now finds it necessary to constitute himself the apologist for this agitation upon political grounds. We were told to-night that evictions and distress, and the action of the House of Lords in rejecting the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, were the causes of the increase of crime in those years. Yes, but the right hon. Gentleman did not charge the increase of crime to those causes in 1881. In those days what he said was this—and it is what the Commissioners report—that "with fatal and painful precision the steps of crime dogged the steps of the Land League." Then the hon. Member for Cork was denounced as prominent in the attempt to substitute anarchial oppression for the authority of the law, and imprisoned by the right hon. Gentleman as reasonably suspected of treasonable practices, and inciting to intimidation. Now the hon. Member's wrongs are dwelt upon, and his agitation almost applauded, as having given to Ireland the benefits of the Land Act of 1881. Well, Sir, it does seem to me that by the admissions of right hon. Gentlemen upon the Front Opposition Bench in the past the gravity of the circumstances on which the Judges have reported adversely to the respondents is sufficiently proved, and that for this House to adopt a Resolution dealing with only one portion of that Report—that portion which acquits the respondents—and to take no notice of that other portion of the Report which condemns them, would be as far from an act of justice as can well be conceived. Is there any reason why it should be done? There was an argument, stated by the right hon. Gentleman to-night, which was this:— All this conduct happened 10 years ago, and has been condoned by what is called the close treaty and alliance between hon. Members below the Gangway and the Conservative Party in 1885, when all these things were perfectly well known to the country. I demur to both those assertions. I demur to the assertion that all these findings, so far as the respondents in this Report are concerned, were perfectly well known to the country in 1885. I contend that there are important facts brought to light by this Report which were not known to the country at that time. As a sample, I would quote the close connection of hon. Members below the Gangway with the dissemination and production of newspapers inciting to crime and sedition, and the relations between the Irish Parliamentary Party and the physical force party and the Clan-na-Gael in America. In so far as those matters were known at all, they were known to us, who were then out of office, solely by the statements of right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and if some of us—I confess I was one—did not place the fullest confidence in those statements at that time, I think we may be absolved for not having done so when they are so absolutely disregarded by their authors on the present occasion. The other point is this—was there a close treaty or alliance between hon. Members below the Gangway opposite and the Conservative Party in order to turn out the Government of the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian in 1885. No doubt the hon. Members below the Gangway, on the occasion of several important Divisions, voted in the same Lobby that we did, but they voted with us for reasons of their own, which were absolutely and entirely different from our reasons. We recorded our opinions on important matters at that time—the question of Egyptian policy, the question of the relief of General Gordon, the Budget, on which the right hon. Gentleman was finally defeated—we recorded them in Resolutions expressing our own opinions; and if hon. Members chose to vote for those resolutions, how could we help it?

SIR W. HARCOURT

No arrangement?

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

No, none whatever. The right hon. Gentleman asks me whether there was no arrangement. Let me go a little more into that question, because the other day the right hon. Gentleman made a definite charge with, regard to it. The charges of the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian have been indefinite; but the right hon. Member for Derby made a definite charge with which I will deal. He said that the Tory loaders in 1885 gave a pledge to the Nationalist Party that, if they would only turn out the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, the Tory leaders would not renew the Coercion Act, and further, that Lord Salisbury went to Newport and made an apology for boycotting. Now, what are the facts? In August, 1885, the hon. Member for Leeds (Mr. H. Gladstone) said that Lord Salisbury had made a compact with the hon. Member for Cork, and that the noble Lord the Member for Paddington (Lord R. Churchill) and Mr. Winn, now Lord St. Oswald, had promised the Parnellites three things in return for their support: firstly, the dropping of the Crimes Act; secondly, a Bill for the benefit of the Irish labourers; thirdly, a Land Purchase Bill on liberal terms. The hon. Member for Leeds made that statement to his constituents, and challenged a denial; and that denial was immediately forthcoming. It was absolutely and completely denied by letters which were published, in the Press from Lord Salisbury, from my noble Friend the Member for Paddington, and from Mr. Winn.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I beg pardon.

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

Will the right hon. Gentleman wait a moment?

SIR W. HARCOURT

The right hon. Gentleman is mistaken. My statement was founded upon a speech the noble Lord the Member for Paddington made in Yorkshire, in which he stated that a decision was taken by the Conservative Members sitting on this Bench that the Crimes Act should not be renewed; and that was before the Liberal Government was turned out. He made that statement in public.

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

Yes, Sir, but that is not the charge of the right hon. Gentleman. Of course we had considered that matter among ourselves before the Liberal Government was turned out. Of course we had to decide, as far as we could without access to official documents, what might be our course; but the charge of the right hon. Gentleman is this, that we communicated our intention to the hon. Member for Cork, and that there was a bargain between us that he should support us if we did not renew the Crimes Act.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I said nothing about a bargain; I said it was communicated, and I say now it was communicated, to the hon. Member for Cork.

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

The words of the right hon. Gentleman were these—that the Tory leaders in 1885 gave a pledge to the Nationalist Party that if they would only turn out the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian they would not renew the Crimes Act.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I say so now.

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

The right hon. Gentleman says so now, after I have told him that it was absolutely and completely denied by the three parties I have named. But it was denied by someone else; and if the right hon. Gentleman will not accept denials from this side of the House, perhaps he will accept the denial of the hon. Member for Cork. The hon. Member wrote upon this subject a letter to Sir Frederick Milner, which was published in August, 1885. The hon. Member wrote:— Dear Sir Frederick Milner,—I have just received your letter enclosing report of Mr. Herbert Gladstone's speech at Leeds, and directing my attention to a passage in which Mr. Gladstone asserts that there is an alliance for Parliamentary purposes, and also for the purpose of the general election, between Lord Salisbury and Lord Randolph Churchill on the one side, and myself and my colleagues on the other, upon the basis—first, of the dropping of the Crimes Act; second, of the Bill for the benefit of the labourers; and, third, of the passing of a Land Purchase Bill. Your letter also points out a further paragraph in the same speech, in which Mr. Gladstone is reported to have defied me among others to contradict these alleged facts. I can only say that there is not the slightest foundation for any of these statements of Mr. Herbert Gladstone. I have no knowledge of any such alliance, nor have any of ray colleagues. I have held no communication upon any of the public matters referred to with any Member of the present Government, or any of their officials, directly or indirectly, except across the floor of the House of Commons. The first intimation I received of the intentions of the Government in respect of these matters was from Lord Carnarvon's speech in the Lords, and that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Commons. Yours truly, CHARLES S. PARNELL. Irish Parliamentary Offices, Palace Chambers, 9, Bridge Street, S.W., July 31. After hearing that letter, I do hope the right hon. Gentleman will see that his charges have been calumnious, and that when he comes to address the House he will express his regret for having made them.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I repeat them.

Sir M. HICKS BEACH not giving way,

SIR W. HARCOURT

I rise to order. I wish to know whether indeed it has been so ruled in this House, when a right hon. Member addresses another Member across the floor of the House, and states that his charges are calumnious, that Member has not the right upon the instant to repudiate such a charge? I do repudiate it, and I say there can be no order in this House unless a Member is allowed to do so.

MR. SPEAKER

I am the judge of order in this House. I am glad to give the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity, but so many interruptions are inconvenient when a right hon. Gentleman addresses the House.

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

But the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian made another statement to-night. He said the conduct of the hon. Member for Cork and his followers had been condoned by the Conservative Party because—[Sir W. Harcourt rose to leave his seat]—I have not done yet.

SIR W. HARCOURT

Yes, I know; but I am not going to stay to be abused in this manner.

SIR M. HICKS BEACH

Because of Lord Carnarvon's interview with the hon. Member for Cork. Now, I must say that the extraordinary statements which have been made and persisted in with regard to that interview are not warranted by the facts of the case. In the first place, it was never sanctioned by the Cabinet, or known to the Cabinet until long afterwards. In the second place, Lord Carnarvon has distinctly denied that at that interview he promised anything or held out any hopes whatever, or did anything more than ascertain the views of the hon. Member for Cork. Bat the right hon. Member for Derby also charged Lord Salisbury with having gone to Newport that autumn, after the dissolution of Parliament, and made an apology for boycotting, implying, I suppose, that this was an attempt to gain the Irish vote. I absolutely deny that accusation. So far from apologising for boycotting, what Lord Salisbury said was this—he pointed out the impossibility of dealing by law with all kinds of boycotting; he instanced a certain kind—that of declining to sit in the same chapel with a boycotted person, with which he said the law could not deal. That is perfectly true; it was true then; it remains true now. Only the other day I saw a statement relating to several cases in Ireland in which that kind of boycotting had taken place. How had it been dealt with? Not by the law, but by the interference of the Bishop of the diocese, who had closed, or threatened to close, the chapel. After that admission, Lord Salisbury went on to say— As far as boycotting is liable to the law, as far as legal remedies can reach it, do not imagine that the Trish Government are passive in putting remedies of the ordinary law into action. At the present moment there are 35 prosecutions for boycotting, and that alone will show you that the Irish Government are doing their best with what they consider a difficult evil. I believe that Parliament possessing a full mandate and the Government in power are bound above everything el e to exhaust every possible remedy in order that men may pursue freely their lawful industry in any station in life. I have always been reluctant to trouble the House by reference to any expressions of opinion of my own; but at that time I had the honour to occupy the responsible post of Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House, and, therefore, what I publicly said may, I think, have been received in the country as said with some authority. At the end of September, 1885, in a speech at Salisbury, I admitted that boycotting was rife in certain parts of Ireland. I said— Prosecutions have been instituted, and are now being instituted, against persons who were supposed to be guilty of this offence of boycotting, and I can assure you that no efforts will be spared on the part of the Government to conduct their prosecutions to a successful conclusion, so as to punish the guilty and to institute prosecutions in all cases where any evidence can be found to justify them. Then I went on to say— But if these means do not succeed we must look for others. The law must be upheld; a combination against it cannot be allowed to prevail. Just before the General Election, on the 4th of November, speaking at Bristol, I said— The Conservatives had undertaken the government of Ireland at a time of very serious difficulty, and they had undertaken it in the spirit that had always governed the Conservative Party in the matter, and they had resolved that they would not introduce exceptional legislation for the prevention of crime unless it was perfectly clear to their minds that crime could not be prevented by the ordinary law. They were exerting now all the powers of the ordinary law to preserve peace and order in Ireland, and they were exerting them with very considerable success; but he could assure his he are is that, if it should be found that the powers of the ordinary law did not suffice to preserve peace and order in Ireland, the Ministry would not let months elapse, as Mr. Gladstone's Government had allowed months to elapse during their tenure of office, before coming to Parliament to ask it to help them in the matter. I think I may ask the House whether, at any rate, that was not perfectly plain speaking upon the determination of the Conservative Party to put down boycotting and crime, even by exceptional legislation? It is impossible that any one considering such speeches could have supposed the Government would hesitate, as when the moment came they did not hesitate to appeal to Parliament to strengthen the law; and if at the General Election of 1885 the Irish vote was to a certain extent given to the Conserva- tive Party, that vote was not given out of any feeling of affection for us. It was given, as is notorious, because the Irish Party desired to equalise the two great Parties of Great Britain so as to be able to hold the balance between them. I think I have shown that nothing that occurred in 1885 justifies the charges that have been brought against our conduct in that year by the right hon. Gentleman on the Front Bench opposite; and I would add that nothing that occurred then can, to my mind, be urged as a reason why we should condone now matters which, as I have stated already, have been for the first time completely disclosed and authoritatively established by the Report of the Commission. I will go further and say that I can hardly understand why right hon. Gentlemen opposite should object to record the Report in the Journals of the House, and to adopt the conclusions at which the Commissioners have arrived. I do not understand it having regard to the numberless occasions on which they have expressed opinions absolutely indentical with those expressed by the Commissioners. If it be true, that thanks to the "union of hearts," all these things are things of the past that crime and boycotting, and all those evils which are referred to by the Commissioners no longer exist, or, at any rate, are now absolutely discountenanced by those to whom they are attributed in the Commissioners' Report—if that be true, I cannot see why the Motion for recording the Report in our Journals and adopting its conclusions should not be accepted unanimously by this House. Some persons have represented the Report as a verdict amounting to a triumphant acquittal. In my opinion, this cannot be fairly stated as the effect of the Report; but if there be any persons who really believe that to be its effect, they certainly cannot object to the Motion to record it on the Journals of the House. On our side we believe that the Report contains condemnation as well as acquittal, and we think it right and just to record both. If it contains acquittal upon those issues which, as affecting chiefly personal honour, are more important to individuals, it contains condemnation upon those issues which are more important to the country at large. Those evils which were rife in the days to which the Report refers are evils, whatever may be the exculpation or apology tendered for them by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian. They may now be dormant or suppressed; but, however that may be, they still remain evils, and their revival under any form of Government would be fatal to liberty and prosperity to Ireland.

(8.38.) Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

(8.40.) MR. J. O'CONNOR (Tipperary, S.)

As one of those alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bristol in the opening part of his speech, as one of those referred to by the Judges in their Report as having established and joined the Land League organisation with the intention, by every means, of bringing about the absolute independence of Ireland as a separate nation, I desire to say a few words on this debate. The evidence on which this serious conclusion is based is, that on August 21st, 1880, I delivered a short speech reprehending the action of those who passed a resolution in reference to the men who made a raid for firearms upon the ship Juno, lying in the river Lee, at Cork. In that speech I am reported to have said— I recognised the services the League had done, but failed to receive, either in that service or in the period of their existence, anything to give them a right to criticise the action of other people. Now, this is the evidence upon which this serious charge has been founded. For myself, I do not submit the finding to the critical examination of a legal mind; but it occurs to me, as a matter of common sense, that never was a more serious charge based on so flimsy a foundation, and this particularly so because of the fact that, when I was examined before the Commission, I stated that my motive for making that speech was that I was endeavouring to save the new Constitutional movement from the hostile hands of men who looked upon it with jealous and unfriendly eyes. Rut I am not concerned to defend myself against the charge. The Judges, if they like, may feel themselves justified in ascribing tome ulterior and treasonable motives, but I deny that the Judges had any commission whatever to try me for my motives. Was any overt act proved against me for which I could be arraigned before a jury? I have examined the Report, and I fail to find any such act cited, and therefore I assert that I have been judged by the Commission open to this serious charge for motives, and for motives only. Probably, the Judges did take into account my admission that I was a Fenian. I have sworn it in Court, I have admitted it on platforms, I avow it here, and I am not ashamed to avow it here to-day. Sir, I could not help being a Fenian. I cannot fix the hour of the day when I began to hate England; when I began to hate the English people, the English Government, and everything that bore the name of England. To be a Fenian, to be discontented, was a tradition to me handed down through generations of forefathers. I was brought up in the very atmosphere of disaffection. I might say I lisped what you call treasonable language almost when I began to talk. In this way I grew up and read the history of my country. Then I found the Black Chapter that relates the English conquest of Ireland, the confiscation of Irish land, the robbery and murder of the Irish people. I read this chapter until my mind was so affected that the enthusiasm of the boy became the conviction of the man, the conviction that it was the duty of every Irishman, at no matter what cost, to strike at the hereditary enemies of the Irish race and the Irish nation. The struggles of the Irish people, their battles for freedom, were my studies, and the lives and deaths of Irish patriots were examples I desired to follow. I continued in this state of mind even when in maturer years. I arrived at the conclusion that the policy I was pursuing was the policy of despair. It was to me a patriotic duty that demanded the sacrifice, and I was willing to make that sacrifice. I have run a thousand risks for these convictions. For many years my liberty and my life were not worth an hour's purchase, yet I worked on, toiled on without hope, and with no prospect before me but the convict's jacket or the hangman's rope. I now look back at that period of my life without shame and without remorse. Judges may condemn me, and this House may ratify their Judgment, and place upon its Journals the record of that Judgment; but I have nothing to recall, nothing to regret. I have everything to be proud of, everything to glory in. A change came over the land. The hon. Member for Cork, my friend and leader, whose leadership I feel a pride in following, and to follow whom I esteem to be worthy of life itself, started a movement and I joined the movement with an honest desire to further its objects. I had no ulterior motive, as attributed to me by the Judges. It is true, perhaps, as well as I can recall my feelings, that I reserved to myself the right, as even now I reserve to myself the right, should Constitutional means fail to re-establish the Constitutional liberties of the Irish people, to be free to adopt whatever course shall seem to my judgment right and proper. But if that unhappy moment should arrive there will be no deception, no two ways about me. If I commit an overt act of treason I shall be prepared to stand the consequences of my action. I repeat that I honestly joined the Land League organisation with the honest intention to further its programme. I had no ulterior motive beyond giving effect to the objects to be found in the constitution of the League, and I am on those same lines still. I am encouraged to remain on those lines by the proposal that has been brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, a proposal that makes for the granting to the Irish people Home Rule—the right to govern themselves. I will go farther and say that proposal, generously made, and I will say loyally and without reservation accepted by the Irish people, has eradicated from my mind and heart the bitterness I once felt towards this nation and this people. Therefore I say I have adopted in its fulness the Constitutional mode of action, and I have now no desire to depart from it. Whether I continue to pursue that course of action it remains for the English Parliament and the English people to decide. But I will say this much, in conclusion, that whether I strive to serve Ireland by Constitutional means or by an appeal to physical force, my life belongs to my country.

(8.50.) MR. J. FORREST FULTOX (West Ham, N.)

Whatever view may be taken of the sentiments of the hon. Member who has just sat down, on this side of the House, at any rate we must feel that he has acted a frank and manly part. He has honestly confessed that he is a traitor at heart. He hopes by Constitutional means to win the object he desires, and so long as he entertains that hope he will follow these means, but if he finds that Constitutional means do not bring about the desire of his heart then he reserves to himself complete freedom of action. I do not think I in any way misrepresent the statement of the hon. Member made in his place in the House. It is a position he has deliberately taken up, and which it appears to mo he will have to stand by. We are about to consider the details of this Report. It is a very remarkable document, and will have to be examined in very considerable detail. We are asked to affirm the proposition that it shall be entered upon the Journals of this House, and it will be my endeavour to give the reasons that induce me to think it is right and proper the Report should be so entered on the Journals of the House, and before I sit down I shall express an opinion that, in addition to that, it would be well for the Government to consider if stronger and sterner measures should not be taken. In order to appreciate the real effect of the Report of the Commission there are two preliminary facts it is well to remember. In 1877, say the Commissioners, Mr. Parnell became the virtual leader of the Home Rule Party, and at that time, the Report goes on to say, there existed in Ireland an organisation known as the Irish Republican Brotherhood. This interesting association was referred to by the hon. Member for Cork in his evidence when he said he always understood that it was the practice of the Brotherhood to "assassinate traitors." There existed in addition to this body in Ireland a kindred body in America known by the name of the Clan-na-Gael. The Commissioners find that these two conspiracies were one and the same. At page G of the Report I find that in December, 1877, when Mr. Davitt was released from Portland Prison, and the Commissioners insert this remarkable paragraph, to which I would draw very serious attention. Upon Mr. Davitt's release from prison, in 1877, upon ticket-of-leave, the Report says:— A Committee to receive him, together with Charles McCarthy, Thomas Chambers, and John P. O'Brien (three persons recently released from imprisonment under sentences for seditious practices) was formed, and a public address, signed by Messrs. Parnell, Bigga, Dillon, P. Curley, Patrick Egan, James Carey, Thomas Brennan, and others was presented to him. This address contained the following words:—'With a self-denying patriotism, like the patriot Marcus Curtin, you made an offering of life, fortune, and liberty on the altar of your country, and if by such sacrifices as yours her freedom has not been achieved, her honour has been saved.' It is very well to remind the House that Michael Davitt was released upon ticket-of-leave, having been convicted of treason - felony. Then came the "new departure," the ostensible subordination of the Fenian views to Mr. Parnell's constitutional plan. A telegram was despatched to Ireland proposing a union with the supporters of Mr. Parnell's Party and a letter was addressed to the Freeman newspaper in which he referred to this as a "now departure." One of the gravest charges, it seems to me, which has been brought against the Member for Cork is that he was closely identified with the American Fenian Irish Party; that his Party have subsisted for many years on the funds supplied by that party. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian to pass lightly over many pages of this Report, as if they had no concern for the Members of this House, but it seems to me that they should have referred to the findings of the Commission as to what took place when Mr. Parnell visited America. Mr. Parnell and Mr. Dillon were warmly received by all sections of the part yin the United States, and among them by the Clan-na-Gael. And then the Report goes on to say that Le Caron afterwards became a member of the Clan-na-Gael for the purpose of giving information to the British Government. It is desirable to quote this— Major Le Caron, a British subject, who had served in the United States Army during the civil War, afterwards became a member of the Clan-na-Gael for the purpose of giving evidence to the British Government. His evidence, corroborated by the documents he produced, establishes that the Clan-na-Gael endeavoured to arrange and control the meetings held in various places for the reception and hearing of Mr. Parnell. But the evidence does not establish that this was done with the consent or knowledge of Mr. Parnell, who, moreover, stated in his evidence that he did not know, except by rumours in some instances, the antecedents of the persons who organised the meetings which he addressed, and supported him on the platform. But it must be read in connection with other paragraphs, and the Report goes on to say that— Captain O'M. Condon took a leading part on the Committee which procured for Mr. Parnell this hearing before the House of Representatives. Mr. Parnell knew this, and that Condon was a member of the Clan-na-Gael, and one of the released prisoners in connection with the murder of Serjeant Brett. I am very anxious not to state anything in this House which is not stated in the pages of this Report. Here we have a direct and distinct finding that upon the visit of the Member for Cork to America, we find him acting in the closest connection with the members of the Fenian Party. And now, Sir, I come to matters connected with the hon. Member for the City of Cork, to which it will be my duty to call the attention of the House. I come to a matter on which the Commissioners, having on the one hand the oath of the Member for Cork, and having on the other hand evidence pointing in a different direction, deliberately accepted the evidence in preference to the oath of the hon. Member for Cork. The first matter is with regard to the speech which the hon. Member is said to have made at Cincinnati on the 20th of February, 1880. I need not refer in detail to that speech, but only to concluding words which are set oat in the Report at page 21. Mr. Parnell says:— None of us, whether we are in America or Ireland, or wherever we may be, will be satisfied until we have destroyed the last link which keeps Ireland bound to England. The importance of that declaration is no so much in connection with the words themselves, which I am perfectly ready to admit are old and have been quoted over and over again, but the importance is this: that that speech was printed for years in newspaper after newspaper, and was circulated throughout the length and breadth of the land, absolutely uncontradicted by the hon. Member for Cork. It was not until one night on the Second Reading of the Bill of the Member for Mid Lothian for the better government of Ireland, when it became of the utmost importance to the hon. Member for Cork to show, if he could, in the House of Commons, as many were then wavering whether they should support the Member for Mid Lothian or not—that he had not said these words, that he for the first time stated that he never uttered the words which he was reported to have used at Cincinnati. [Ministerial Cheers.] We have that denial of the hon. Member for Cork in this House recorded in the pages of Hansard. Now let us see what the Commission says. I observe that when he was giving evidence on oath he does not deny using the words in the same clear and pointed way in which he denied them in this House. The Commissioners say— Mr. Parnell will not undertake to say that he did not use the expression 'that he would not be satisfied until the last link between Ireland and England was destroyed,' but says it was improbable he did so, and that if he did it must have been largely qualified by other matter, as it is entirely opposed to anything he has ever thought or said. Now, Sir, in this House he utterly denied using the words, but the Report goes on to say— We find that Mr. Parnell did use the words attributed to him, and they certainly are not inconsistent with some of his previous utterances. But his first charge, and the evidence set out in the Report in connection with it, does not merely confine itself to a finding upon that matter. It sets out another matter in which they positively and distinctly affirm that they decline to accept the word of the Member for Cork. On the same page of the Report the Commissioners say— Mr. Parnell left the United States on the 12th of March, 1880, his tour having been shortened in consequence of the Dissolution of Parliament. Before his departure he summoned a conference of prominent Irishmen at New York to which he invited Patrick Ford, for the purpose of forming an auxiliary organisation of the Land League in America, in harmony with the organisation in Ireland, and to assist its objects. In other words, the Commissioners find that as early as 1880 the Member for Cork was in close connection with Patrick Ford, and being compelled to leave America he is careful to invite Patrick Ford to the Conference for the purpose of forming an auxiliary organisation, for the purpose set forth in the Report. Upon this part of the case, we see that in a speech in the Rotunda, Dublin, in 1880, Mr. Parnell said— At one of our meetings in America a gentleman came on the platform and handed me 25 dollars, and said: 'Here is 5 dollars for bread and 20 dollars for lead.' The report of this speech in the Freeman newspaper adds that loud and long cheers followed this. It is not for the loud and long cheers that I trouble the House with this quotation, but for Mr. Parnell's explanation. The Commissioners says— Mr. Parnell stated in cross-examination that his narration of this offer of '20 dollars for lead' was stupid and more than stupid, as there was no object in it, because by lead he understood the person who gave the dollars to mean the Land League. It appears to us, however, that there was an object in it—namely to give his hearers evidence that he had the support of those who advocated the use of lead, and that his hearers were not intended to think and would not be likely to understand that by 'lead' the Irish Land League was signified. These matters are a little important, because the House is asked by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian to extend our sympathies to the hon. Member for Cork.

MR. SEXTON (Belfast, W.)

He does not require your sympathy.

MR. FULTON

I did not say the hon. Member required sympathy, but that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) had asked us to extend our sympathies to the hon. Member in consequence of these allegations. The Commissioners go on to make this very significant observation— After this meeting at the Rotundo, Mr. Parnell does not appear to have encountered any hostility from the physical force party. I am not at all surprised after that speech that the hon. Member for the City of Cork did not meet with any hostility from the physical force party, because the impression left upon their minds must have been that the hon. Member was in entire unison with their opinions and regarded them as being in the highest degree praiseworthy. On page 23 of the Report I find another instance in which the Commission have failed to agree with the views of the hon. Member for the City of Cork— Mr. Parnell, indeed, asserts that the organisation of the Irish Republican Brotherhood constantly and consistently opposed the Land League from the first, but the account of his views given in the Nation newspaper of the 2nd October, 1880, does not agree with this; and they set out a remarkable interview the hon. Member for Cork had with Redpath. The Commissioners go on to say that Mr. Parnell stated in cross examination that the opposition of the Fenian Party became stronger after this, hut we find no evidence of it. On the contrary, Mr. M. Harris told us that had it not been for the Fenian organisation the Land League never could have assumed the proportions it did, and he added, 'I know that what I am saying will tell a good deal against what has been put forth in the witness-box, but I want to tell the truth.' The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian passes over as one of no importance the finding of fact that In our judgment the charge against the respondents collectively of having conspired to bring about total separation is not established. But we find that some of them, together with Mr. Davitt, established and joined in the Land League organisation with the intention, by its means, to bring about the absolute independence of Ireland as a separate nation. We think that this has been established against the following among the respondents:—Mr. Davitt, Mr. M. Harris, Mr. Dillon, Mr. W. O'Brien, Mr. W. Redmond, Mr. J. O'Connor, Mr. Joseph Condon, and Mr. J. J.O'Kelly. It is well we should not forget what that finding amounts to. It is not merely a finding, as the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian would have us believe, that these persons named in the Report were lighting for the repeal of the Union. It is not the question of the repeal of the Union which is connected with the finding. It is the question of the total separation of England and Ireland, and the establishment of Ireland as a separate nation. That is the matter upon which the Commissioners report. There is a further point on this finding which affects each and every one of the persons named who are Members of Parliament, I mean in connection with the oath of allegiance which they have taken at the Table. A Member of the House of Commons when he takes the oath of allegiance is not entitled to join in a criminal conspiracy, having for its object, not the repeal of the Union, as the right hon. Gentleman would have us believe, but the total separation of England and Ireland.

MR. SEXTON

None of these Members had taken the oath of allegiance at the time when these things occurred.

MR. FULTON

I am glad to hear that none of these persons had taken the oath of allegiance at that time. I was under the impression they were all Members of the House of Commons. Will the hon. Member deny that the Member for East Mayo was a Member of the House at that time?

MR. SEXTON

No; the League was formed in 1879, and the hon. Member became a Member of the House in 1880.

MR. FULTON

At any rate, the Member for East Mayo was a Member in 1880, and the Commissioners do not find that this conspiracy ceased in 1879. On the contrary, a proper reading of the Report will show it as a continuing conspiracy, continuing through 1879, 1880, 1881, and 1882, and probably until 1885; and if that be so, I think the hon. Member will, at any rate, admit I am entitled to argue that the Member for East Mayo, and all the other Members, if they were engaged in 1880 in the conspiracy', which the hon. Member seems to admit, they were engaged in it in 1879.

MR. SEXTON

The Commissioners find nothing whatever of an intention, they find no act, and whilst they fix the period when the combination began, they do not say that it continued for any length of time.

MR. FULTON

My contention is a fait reading of the finding of the Commissioners in regard to the first charge is that this was a continuing conspiracy. I pass to the second charge—a very remarkable and important charge brought against them— The second charge," say the Commissioners, "we have to investigate is that one of the immediate objects of the conspiracy was, by a system of coercion and intimidation, to promote an agrarian agitation against the payment of agricultural rents, for the purpose of impoverishing and expelling from the country the Irish landlords, who were styled the English garrison. The Commissioners give a very interesting account of boycotting. The right hon. Gentleman for a very long time past has spoken of boycotting in a manner which would lead us to suppose he always regarded it as a praiseworthy occupation. This is what the Commissioners say about boycotting:— It will be seen from these instances of boycotting, which might be largely added to, that it constituted a system of intimidation of a most severe and cruel character. … We are of opinion that the combination of which I boycotting was the instrument is illegal, both in its objects and in the means which were adopted. Elsewhere the Commissioners describe boycotting as "an elaborate and all pervading tyranny." But what the Commissioners say with regard to boycotting is certainly not stronger—perhaps not so strong—as the condemnation which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian made of that abominable practice in 1882. I am not going to detain the House with the numerous instances which the Report contains of the abominable system which was at that time carried out in Ireland. I desire, however, to refer to one case, which is a comparatively light case, but it is important because there is a finding of the Commission upon it with regard to the Member for West Kerry (Mr. B. Harrington.) The Commissioners say:— Herbert's father, an old man of over 70 years of age, was stoned and wounded; his child, ten years of age, was pursued and terrified; and on the 24th June, 1886. Herbert himself was attacked on his way home from the County Court Sessions at Tralee by three or four men, who fired at him, riddling his coat with bullets, one of which struck him on the right arm, causing him to be confined in the infirmary for about six weeks. Mr. Edward Harrington, M.P., when these extracts from his paper were put to him, upon cross-examination, suggested for the first time that he did not believe Herbert had been wilfully shot, but that the wound had been accidentally inflicted by Herbert himself. This suggestion, however, in our judgment, is entirely unfounded, and, moreover, Mr. Harrington had, in the Kerry Sentinel, of the 25th June, 1886, published an article narrating the outrage with great particularity, and stating that a most determined and desperate attempt had been made on the life of Edward Herbert, and, never suggesting that the injury Herbert received was self-inflicted, the article added that no arrests were made. Then comes the finding of the Commission on the second charge. In our judgment the leaders of the Land League who combined together to carry out the system of boycotting were guilty of a criminal conspiracy, one of the objects of which was, as slated in the second charge, by a system of coercion and intimidation to promote an agrarian agitation against the payment of agricultural rents for the purpose of impoverishing and expelling from the country the Irish landlords, who were styled the English garrison. We consider that this charge has been established against the following respondents—C. S. Parnell, Jeremiah D. Sheehan, and forty others. I come to the fourth charge made against the Member for Cork and his followers. This was passed over by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian as almost beneath his notice— We now proceed to consider the fourth charge, hut the respondents disseminated the Irish World and other newspapers tending to incite to sedition an t the commission of other crimes. … During 1880, 1881, 1882, the League disseminated throughout Ireland a paper called the Irish World. It was edited by Patrick Ford, who, in conjunction with O'Donovan Ross a had originated the Skirmishing Fund. During these years Patrick Ford was requested by Messrs. Davitt, Egan, Quinn (Secretary of the Land League), and Brennan to send this paper to Ireland, and it was proved that it was disseminated by the League, marked for 'free distribution.' Down to the middle or autumn of 1882 this paper was admittedly favourable to the League, and we hive been told by Mr. Davitt that three-fourths of the news coming from America were Subscribed through the instrumentality of the hundreds of branches of the Auxiliary American League, by reason of the appeals made by Ford in the Irish World. Mr. Parnell stated to us, that up to 1882 the Irish World had most actively supported the Land League, and that, till then, it never wavered, and that it then ceased to co-operate with the Land League; but that since the introduction of Mr. Gladstone's Bill (of 1886), Patrick Ford again changed his policy. … On the 5th of May, 1880, Davitt telegraphed to Patrick Ford as follows:—'Copies of the Irish World shall be sent to all parts of Ireland. Bishop Moran of Ossory (a nephew of Cardinal Cullen) denounced it and the Land League. May Heaven open his eyes to the truth! Spread the light.' The Report sets out an atrocious article published in the Irish World, on the 28th August, 1880, advocating the destruction of London, of the House of Commons, and other public buildings, by dynamite. On the 30th Oct., 1880," the Report goes on to say, "Mr. Davitt, speaking at Leadville, in America, characterised the Irish World as one of the noblest friends of the Irish people. Michael Davitt, who is in the most intimate connection with the hon. Member for the city of Cork, who was received when he came out of Portland with an address, signed by the hon. Member for the city of Cork, and I think we may reasonably infer that the hon. Member for the city of Cork did not disapprove of the language Michael Davitt so used in speaking of the Irish World as one of the noblest friends of the Irish people. Quinn, the secretary of the League, who was in Ireland, telegraphed on the 5th October, 1881, to Patrick Ford— Numerous applications are daily received at the Land League Office for copies of the Irish World. I appeal to our friends in America to furnish us with as many copies as they can, so that we may he able to meet the constant demand for it. Its circulation just now can he of immense service to the cause. The Report goes on to say— It would seem that from October. 1881, till December, 1883, Patrick Ford suspended his advocacy of the Skirmishing Fund policy, but in December, 1883, he opened an Emergency Fund, the object of which he thus described in his paper: 'The object of this fund will be to aid the active forces on the other side in carrying on the war against the enemy. It is unnecessary to enter into details. I can only say in a general way what I believe in myself. I believe in making-reprisals. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I believe that every informer ought to die the death of a dog. I believe that all the material damage possible ought to be inflicted on the enemy, and that the war against the foeman ought to be persisted in, without quarter to the end. I believe that England ought to be plagued with all the plagues of Egypt—ought to be scourged by day, and terrorised by night. I believe that this species of warfare ought to be kept up until England, hurt as well as scared, falls paralysed upon her knees, and begs Ireland to depart from her. This is my idea of making war on England.' I find it also said by the Commissioners— Mr. Davitt told us that whenever he went to America after 1878, Patrick Ford's was the first house to which he bent his footsteps upon arriving in New York, and that Ford was a man altogether misrepresented in England, and that he (Davitt), knew a large number of people in America and in Europe, and that he had yet to meet a better man morally, both as a Christian and as a philanthropist, than Patrick Ford. That is the description of Mr. Davitt, the man who is responsible for the matter circulated throughout the length and breadth of Ireland in the Irish World, and that is the gentleman whom the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone) thinks worthy of the sympathy of the House. Then there is another matter to which I wish to draw the attention of the House. In the Irish World of 18th December, 1880, the following' appeared:— Outrages, outrages! They haven't begun yet. Out ye vipers of darkness! Out ye hungry wolves! Ye bloodhounds! Out from God's holy isle ere ye are overtaken by that punishment which caught the wicked land-wolves of France from 1779 to 1793. If any Member of the House will turn to pages 81 to 85 of the Report he will find that miserable prophesy has been fulfilled. Outrages were bad enough in 1880, but they were worse in 1881 and 1882, and I think we may fairly presume from the findings of the Commissioners that those outrages were certainly not diminished by the teachings of these newspapers. There is yet another newspaper mentioned: United Ireland. Hon. Members of this House are so familiar with its contents that I need not trouble them with extracts from that paper; but as there is an attempt by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian to ignore the facts and appeal to history, I should remind the House; that the editor of that remarkable journal was the Member for East Cork, Mr. Win. O'Brien. The Commissioners state that— A large number of extracts from United Ireland were read in evidence before us. We do not think it necessary to set out many of these extracts. The obvious intention of many of them was to appeal to men of extreme views. Then the Commissioners give an extract as an example:— On the 26th May, 1883.—Mrs. Curley Fund.—Sir,—As the strangling Commission is over, and honest Pan Curley is killed off by the British Government, I enclose 10s. for his helpless family. I only wish it were pounds. Daniel Curley was one of the persons convicted of the Phœnix Park murders. In a leading article of the 22nd December, 1883, O'Donnell, the murderer of Carey, is described as Having slain a monster for whose destruction he would, in most civilised communities, have been esteemed a public benefactor. On the 30th of June, 1883, we find Mr. Finnerty described in United Ireland as an "Irishman brave and daring almost to a fault." In the Nation of 31st of March, 1883, it was reported that Mr. Pinnerty had said, in regard to the blowing up of the Government buildings in London, that "he was very sorry that it was not more successful." Then I come to the paper which the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian dismisses with the most contemptuous notice. He apparently obtains his facts from the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Asquith), who said it was a wretched organ, only about 4,000 copies weekly were sold, and it was a matter so insignificant that it was quite unnecessary to take notice of it. If the House of Commons will read what the Commissioners point out about the Irishman, they will find it is not quite so insignificant as the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian would have us believe. They say:— The Irishman newspaper, which was purchased by Mr. Parnell and others, as above mentioned, first appeared under the editorship of Mr. William O'Brien, M.P., on the 6th of August, 1881, and was continued down to August, 1885, notwithstanding, as we learn from Mr. Parnell, that its publication involved a loss. Mr. Parnell stated in evidence that he purchased the Irishman because it was a disreputable paper which he wished to get rid of, but the editorial notice of the 6th of August, 1881, upon the change of proprietorship, contained these words: 'The Irishman has changed hands but not minds. The history of its past is the programme of its future. Thrice in its career a transfer of management has taken place, but not once has it swerved from the great principles for the advocacy of which it was first established. As there has been, so there shall not be, any change in its spirit.' Now that is one of the organs—

MR. GOSCHEN

Edited by Pigott.

MR. FULTOW

Yes, as I am reminded, that was one of the organs edited by the patriot Pigott [Home Rule laughter and ironical cheers]. Hon. Members opposite, I think, still regard him, as they regarded him then, as a patriot. The Irishman newspaper had been the organ of the Physical Force or Fenian Party, and the Commissioners say— We draw the inference from Mr. Parnell's purchase of that paper, coupled with the manner in which it was conducted until its extinction in 1885, that Mr. Parnell's object was to address his Fenian supporters through that medium, while United Ireland was more particularly the organ of the Land League organisation. This is the third instance in which the Commissioners, having on the one hand the oath of Mr. Parnell, and on the other hand evidence pointing in a contrary direction, have deliberately accepted the evidence as the more worthy of belief. On this point we have this finding in the Report— No denunciation by Mr. Parnell of the action of the Physical Force Party, either in Ireland or America, has been given in evidence, and Mr. Parnell stated before us that he could not say that he had, by speech or action, found fault with the Fenian organisation. We think that the articles from the Irishman above cited were deservedly characterised by Archbishop Walsh as most abominable. Upon this part of the case we find that the respondents did disseminate newspapers tending to incite to sedition and the commission of crime. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone) may think that a trifling accusation to bring against Members of this House. He may think that the real interpretation of the facts does not altogether support that finding; but if it be admitted that the evidence given before the Commission was true, and that the charge was made against hon. Members, then I think it must be also admitted that the conclusion to which the Commissioners have arrived does not reflect any particular credit upon the persons against whom these charges are made, and the findings are made against all the respondents. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) said—"I dismiss this from my consideration, because it is not direct but constructive." I say it is direct. I say it is not constructive. The worst of all these newspapers was the Irish World, because it advocated murder in its most atrocious form and it was circulated by "free distribution "at the request of the Secretary of the Land League, the President of which was the Member for Cork. Now, Sir, I come to another point which I think is of very great importance. That is the effect of speeches and agitation upon the amount of crime. I desire to remind the House of what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone) said in a very important speech which he delivered, I think, in the County of Lancashire, in 1879. At that time the Conservative Party were holding Office, and were occupying the same Benches as they are occupying now. The Member for Mid Lothian was holding them up to ridicule and denouncing their policy, and generally conducting a crusade against them. At that time there was in existence an Act known as the Peace Preservation Act, which was about to expire, and the question was whether it should be renewed or not, and an agitation was being got up in the country against its renewal. In 1879, in Lancashire, the right hon. Gentleman said— That in the whole of his political experience, then approaching to 50 years, never was Ireland so peaceful as it was at that time. It was quite true that was so, for in 1877 there were only 236 reported outrages; in 1878 only 301; and in 1879 only 863. But it was a very remarkable coincidence, to say the least, that the moment the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian became the Prime Minister of this country and responsible for the government of Ireland (whether it was due to the fact of his becoming Prime Minister or for some other reason) the fact remains, that the previously peaceful Ireland became a sea of crime. That was a fact that could not be denied. The hon. Member for South Hackney (Sir C. Russell), in his eloquent and exhaustive speech before the Commission, was most desirous of convincing the Commissioners that that stupendous outbreak of crime, which began in 1880 and continued until the passing of the Crimes Act in 1882, was due to other causes than to which it was contended it was due, and amongst other causes he was anxious to show that it was due to evictions. It is interesting to see that the Commissioners say— That the landlords in such circumstances should oppose the League and resort to the only weapon they had for their protection, namely, eviction, is not to be wondered at, and, in our judgment, the increased evictions which began in 1879 and continued during subsequent years was the result of the agitation against the landlords. It was sought to liken the crime of 1880–1–2 to that which existed in the years following the great famine of 1846–48, but when the figures as to these years are examined the analogy fails. Having set out the figures for those years this is the conclusion to which the Commissioners come— So that with 3,415 families evicted in 1881 there was more agrarian crime (4,439) than in all the four years together (1849–52), with 58,423 families evicted. In that way, and by reference to figures and facts, the Commissioners find, in spite of the eloquence of the hon. Member for South Hackney, that— We are not able to accept that as the explanation of the crime of 1880 to 1882. Then I wish to refer to another suggestion of the hon. Member for South Hackney—that crime was caused by secret societies acting in antagonism with the Land League. On this the Commissioners say— As to the suggestion that the crime was caused by secret societies acting in antagonism to the Land League, Mr. Parnell, in the House of Commons on the 7th of January, 1881, stated that secret societies had then ceased to exist in Ireland. Mr. Parnell was then alluding to secret societies other than that of the Fenian conspiracy, and in our judgment Mr. Parnell was accurate when he made that statement. Mr. M. Harris has also stated in evidence that no secret societies except that of the Fenians then existed. We find no trace in the evidence of the League, or any of its chiefs or officers, suggesting that the crime which existed was the act of any such societies. It appears to us that this suggestion was first made during this inquiry. Mr. Louden, when in the box, slated that the crime in his part of the country was perpetrated by a society called the Herds League; but upon cross-examination it appeared that he had no facts on which to base his suggestion. As to the third suggestion, namely, that the throwing out of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill in August, 1880, was the origin of the increase of crime, we are of opinion that it was not the effective cause of that increase, but that it arose from the agitation of which the rejection of the Disturbance Bill was made the occasion. So that it follows front the findings of this Report that the Commissioners rejected each and every one of the suggestions made by the hon. Member for Hackney as accounting for the agrarian outrages during those years. Now, with regard to the fourth charge, namely, that the respondents, by their speeches, and by payments for that purpose, incited persons to the commission of crime, including murder, the Commissioners find— That the respondents did not directly incite persons to the commission of crime other than intimidation, but that they did incite to intimidation, and that the consequence of that incitement was that crime and outrage were committed by the persons incited. Then comes this very remarkable finding, upon which I wish to address a few remarks to the House— We find that it was not proved that the respondents made payments for the purpose of inciting persons to commit crime. In a few moments I will endeavour to show the House that the reason why it was not proved that the respondents made payments for the purpose of inciting to crime was that they declined to produce the books which might have demonstrated, I agree, their innocence, but which might, and probably would have demonstrated their guilt. With regard to the question of the Land League books, let me refer to page 56 of the Report. It is stated by the Commissioners that the Land League was suppressed on October 18, 1881, and that most of the books were removed to London by Messrs. Campbell, M.P., and P. J. Sheridan, a gentleman who had been concerned in getting up outrages in the West of Ireland

SIR C. RUSSELL (Hackney)

Where is the paragraph saying that P. J. Sheridan was engaged in getting up outrages in the West?

MR. FULTON

I may be wrong as to that. If I am, I withdraw that statement; but there is no doubt as to who he was.

SIR C. RUSSELL

Where is it stated? Where does the hon. Gentleman find it stated that P. J. Sheridan was engaged in the commission of outrages?

MR. FULTON

I do not know that there is such a statement in the Report; but in the voluminous pages of the evidence I believe it will be found to be so stated. I shall be glad if anyone will get up and deny that the P. J. Sheridan referred to in page 56 of the Report is not the person constantly referred to in Debates in this House in connection with the Kilmainham Treaty. Now with regard to the funds of the League, I see the Commissioners Say— Of the item of £148,000 mentioned on the expenditure Bide, about £40,000 has been accounted for in the evidence before us; of the remaining £108,000, over £70,000 went to the Ladies Land League. No account has been given in evidence of the expenditure of the money handed over to the Ladies Land League, or of the residue of the £108,000. Thus we have over £100,000 of Land League funds received, but no details of the manner in which it was expended. During the progress of the inquiry, Mr. Justin McCarthy stated that he had obtained a list of the books relating to this League which he was willing to produce, the Commissioners adding— During the progress of the case, the production of these cash-books and ledgers for the years 1881 to 1883 proved to be of importance. When called for Mr. Justin MacCarthy was unable to explain the reason for their non-production. Mr. G. Lewis, the solicitor for the respondents, stated that a mistake had been made in the affidavit. Mr. Brady was in Court, but was not called; and how and in what way the suggested mistake arose, if any did arise, has never been explained, nor have the books for 1881–83 been produced. The finding of the Commissioners generally with regard to the non-production of the Land League books is given on page 97 of the Report, and is as follows:— In the course of the inquiry into the accounts of the League it appeared that after February, 1881, Egan kept an account in Paris at the bank of Messrs. Monro and Co. We appointed a Commission to examine the books in Paris; but Messrs. Monro declined to allow them to be seen, and as they were not subject to our jurisdiction the Commission was without result. We therefore requested Mr. Parnell to give authority to Messrs. Monro to produce the accounts relating to the Land League. This he refused to do. We have therefore been deprived of evidence upon the question how the monies of the Land League were expended in the years 1881 and 1882. On this subject we may say generally that we have not received from Mr. Parnell and the officers of the Land League the assistance we were entitled to expect in the investigation of the Land League accounts in order that it might be seen how its funds were expended. It is in regard to these findings of the Commission, anent the non-production of the Land League books, that I say we must attach particular importance to particular words in regard to the fifth charge, where the Commissioners find it was not "proved" that these respondents found money for the commission of crime. Therefore, it is practically found that these persons who had in their possession these books deliberately refused and declined to produce the books. Now I come to the ninth and tenth charges—the last I shall have to trouble the House with—but they are not unimportant, although they were lightly passed over by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian. The ninth charge is as to the respondents having invited and obtained the assistance of the Physical Force Party in America; and the Commissioners have come to a conclusion not altogether favourable to the hon. Member for Cork as to that portion of the evidence, which sets out the remarkable interview between the hon. Member and Le Caron and the hon. Member for Roscommon. In the summer of 1881 Le Caron visited the House of Commons, and this is the account of the interview given in the Report— Le Caron assorts that Mr. O'Kelly on that occasion suggested to him that on his return he should use his influence with his friends on the other side to bring the Organisation into line on that side of the water. That they were all working for one common object, and therefore there should and need be no misunderstanding. Le Caron states that after Mr. O'Kelly left Mr. Parnell, who was present, continued the same line of conversation that Mr. O'Kelly had introduced, and said, 'You furnish the sinews of war; you have them in your power; if they do not do as you tell them, stop the supplies; the whole matter rests in your hands.' That he (Mr. Parnell) wished him as soon as he returned to New York to see John Devoy, to say to him from Mr. Parnell that he believed John Devoy could do more than any other one man in the Organisation to bring about an understanding such as was desired, and he wished to secure his presence as soon as possible on this side of the water, and would meet him in Paris on his arriving there, and that so far as his (Devoy's) expenses were concerned he (Mr. Parnell) would guarantee that he would defray them. Mr. Parnell states that he never sent any message either to the Clan-na-Gael or to any of the persons mentioned by Le Caron, and that he neither directly nor indirectly communicated with any of these persons for the purpose that is suggested by Le Caron. We think," say the Commissioners, "that these passages tend strongly to confirm Le Caron's testimony; and we come to the conclusion that Le Caron has given a correct account of the message he was requested by Mr. Parnell to convey to Devoy. Is the House prepared to accept this finding of the Commission? We ask that the whole Report of the Commissioners should be adopted by the House, in order that it may be a matter of reference hereafter. Then, as to whether the hon. Member for Cork had no intimate or close connection with what is called the Irish-American Party, I will read the telegram which was sent by Mr. Parnell to Patrick Ford, and which was published in the Irish World on October 1, 1881— I heartily thank the Land Leaguers throughout the United States for their glorious work. I thank you for the invitation to visit America; but the movement will probably claim my constant attention and presence in Ireland this winter, rendering a visit to the States improbable. Mr. T. P. O'Connor will start for America early in October, and will represent my views and those of the Irish Organisation.—CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. I find that modest patriot the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) did go to America, and arrived there in October, 1881, and during his visit he appears to have been on terms of the greatest intimacy with those whom I do not for a moment hesitate to describe as some of the greatest scoundrels in the United States—Patrick Ford, Finnerty, and Alexander Sullivan. If any proof were wanted as to the real ends and objects of these scoundrels we find it on pages 116 and 117 of the Report. One of the precious circulars sent by the Clan-na-Gael to its camps, dated as late as 18th December, 1885, shows how far they regarded this Constitutional movement as of any use.

MR. SEXTON

Will the hon. Gentleman state what ground he has for the inference he is now drawing?

MR. FULTON

I have it in every single one of the pages of the Report, which deal with the ninth charge of the Times, and which show that day by day, week by week, and month by month, during the visit of the hon. Member (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), he appears to have been in daily communication and intercourse with Patrick Ford, Finnerty, and Alexander Sullivan. That is the ground I have for the inference I have drawn. The hon. Gentleman may draw what inference he pleases, lam now dealing with pages 116 and 117 of the Report, which shows what importance the Americans attached to what is called the "Constitutional Movement." This circular of the Clan-na-Gael says:— The achievement of a National Parliament gives us a footing upon Irish soil; it gives us the agencies and instrumentalities of a Government de facto at the very commencement of the Irish struggle. It places the Government of the land in the hands of our friends and brothers —hon. Members opposite— It removes the Castle's rings and gives us what we may well express as the plant of an armed revolution. From this standpoint the restoration of Parliament is part of our programme. I have always been of the opinion that establishment of a Parliament in Dublin was only a step in the direction indicated in this passage of the Report. The circular proceeds— When that is attained, if agitation will not go further, we will still go on with our forces unimpaired and strengthened. We therefore deem it advisable that you secure the election of as many delegates as is practicable or possible to the Convention of the Irish National League to be held in Chicago. I would remind the House that the accusation has been made against hon. Members and followers of the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) that they were maintained and supported by money coming from a tainted source. Let me refer them to page 118 of the Report, where the Commissioners say— We are of opinion that the evidence proves that the Irish American League of America has been, since the Philadelphia Convention, 25th April 1883, directed by the Clan-na-Gael, a body actively engaged in promoting the use of dynamite for the destruction of life and property in England. It has been further proved that while the Clan-na-Gael controlled and directed the Irish National League of America, the two organisations concurrently collected sums amounting to more than £60,000 for a fund called the Parliamentary Fund, out of which payments have been made to Irish Members of Parliament, amounting in the year 1880 to £7,556, and in 1887 to £10,500. Well, now, I want to know what hon. Members opposite are going to do with this money. I have no doubt it is still in existence. I cannot for a moment beliove that they have expended it, and if they have not expended it, now that they know by the finding in this Report that the Clan-na-Gael directed the movements of the Irish National League, are they prepared to repudiate that League in this House or in the country? Are they prepared to repudiate it, or will they say "We cannot return this money because we have spent it, but we will never receive another farthing from the same source." Will they do that, or will they continue to receive money from this tainted source? The source of the Irish-American League, controlled by the Clan-na-Gael, which, I think, everyone will agree was and is a murder society, is a tainted source. Will they go on receiving money, week by week and month by month, for the purpose of supporting this agitation? At page 119 of the Report comes this passage— It has been proved that they invited and obtained the assistance and co-operation of the physical force party in America, including the Clan-na-Gael, and in order to obtain that assistance abstained from repudiating or condemning the action of that party. It has also been proved That the respondents invited the assistance and co-operation and accepted subscriptions from Patrick Ford, a known advocate of crime and the use of dynamite. I think I have shown that this man Ford was in close connection with the hon. Member for Cork ever since 1879, when Mr. Davitt was released from prison. Unless it be said that hon. Members can be accused of want of intellegence, and I for one should not accuse them of that; it must have been manifest to them throughout the years 1881 and 1882, and afterwards, what was the character of the movement advocated by the Irish American Party. Yet they deliberately allied themselves to this Party and received money from it, and in no single instance did they condemn the action of those advocating outrages or abominable crimes. I think I have established, by these observations I have addressed to the House, these propositions. I think I have established from the Report that as to certain persons who were Members of this House that they were engaged in a treasonable conspiracy. I agree that I am at issue with at least one Member of this House as to whether that conspiracy continued after 1879. I say it continued in 1881, 1882, and probably longer, and that it continued after these persons had taken the oath of allegiance at the Table of the House of Commons. I agree that they have been acquitted of directly inciting to murder. No one supposed it possible that by the Commission hon. Members could be proved to have directly incited to murder in 1881. [Sir W. HARCOUKT: Hear, hear.!] I should imagine that even under the emasculated rule of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt) if they had incited to murder some attempt would have been made to bring them to justice. Although they knew that their policy did load to crime and outrage they persisted in it, and disseminated this abominable newspaper the, Irishman, throughout Ireland. Further it is proved that at this time they wore in, more or less, constant communication with the physical force party; and though it is not expressly found that they provided money in 1881 and 1882 for the purposes of outrage it is found that they did not produce the evidence in their possession, which would have been able in the most conclusive way to disprove the charge. [Cries of "No, no!"] Why did you not produce the books. Or at any rate if you did not produce them why did you not give some reason for not producing them?

MR. SEXTON

The Report does not say that we had the books.

MR. FULTON

No; but a Member of this House made an affidavit setting out certain books which he said could be produced, and which the Commissioners find no satisfac- tory answer or explanation was given for not being produced. Each and every one of these, circumstances establishes against hon. Members opposite a very strong case—a case which is very well worthy the consideration of the House and of the country. All the findings of this Report ought to be entered upon the Journals of this House, for these reasons. Firstly, they closely and intimately affect the honour of hon. Members opposite; and secondly for the much more important reason that they are closely connected and associated with the great movement of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone) for the establishment of a separate Parliament in Ireland. I know not what possible shape that measure may take if in over comes into existence again, but this much must always remain—that the Executive must be controlled by the hon. Member for Cork and his associates, who have been the mainstay of this movement, and therefore it is important to see how and in what way this Constitutional agitation has been carried on. It is for that reason I am of opinion this Motion has been rightly brought before the House, and that we ought to enter upon the Journals of the House, not merely the findings of the Commission, but each and every word of the Commission Report, which throws a flood of light upon the real character of this movement, and a flood of light upon the motives which have actuated hon. Members opposite from the time they first commenced this agitation.

(10.20.) MR. R. T. REID (Dumfries, &c.)

If I had consulted my own inclination I should not have taken part in this debate, but inasmuch as the Report is very voluminous, and the evidence is not accessible to hon. Members, and as the Attorney General is perfectly certain to take part in the debate, I will endeavour to address the House as temperately as I can. I do not think it necessary to say much about the speech of the hon. and learned gentleman who has just sat down. It consisted in so far as I could observe of the reading of a variety of extracts, selected indiscriminately from the Report, without much regard to the context, and certainly I thought the hon. and learned Gentleman would conclude by proposing the expulsion of the Irish Members. I cannot understand how the hon. and learned Gentleman can continue to sit so comfortably, or that he can observe us sitting easy, in close proximity with person, of so abandoned and profligate a character. The speeches delivered from the Government side of the House show the necessity for a right understanding of what the Report does and does not contain. Charges were made by the Times of writing the forged letters, of taking part in the Phœnix Park murders, of assassination carefully calculated and coolly completed, of the personal hiring of bravos for £20 or £30 to commit outrage, on the ground that my hon. Friends had not time to commit it themselves, of arson, and of the mutilation of men and cattle. Except upon the matter of the forged letters there was not the least evidence produced in support of any of these charges. Mr. T. Harrington was indeed charged with paying £7 for a midnight outrage; but the only witness called broke hopelessly to pieces in cross-examination, and finally made an affidavit in which he confessed that he had committed perjury. The Attorney General, I think somewhat hastily, went to Oxford recently. There he said he rejoiced that these personal charges had not been proved. I am not quite sure that is an appropriate attitude for the Attorney General; but I am inclined to think that an ounce of apology would have been worth more than a ton of thankfulness. It is much to be regretted that in the Report there is not one poor word of apology for all these frightful charges. I do not doubt that is because the Commissioners had been by the terms of the Act of Parliament, which was carefully framed—I do not know whether I may say contrived—prevented from inquiring into the conduct of the Times. The advisers of the Times knew from the first that all these charges could not succeed, and therefore they brought forward others involving the whole of the Land League. And if the latter charges were true of the Members of Parliament, they were also true of two-thirds of the Irish nation—Archbishops, Bishops, parish priests, and I suppose Catholic curates, together with a vast number of respectable persons, who were all members of the Land League. The only point in these charges in which I feel concern is the personal complicity of hon. Members with crime. I never supposed that a great social revolution, extending over a period of 10 years, could be carried on without a good, deal of crime, trouble, and agitation, or that hon. Members were always going to be wise in action or temperate in language, or that they never would be betrayed by agents or misunderstood by followers. But I am concerned to know whether there has been proved against hon. Members any moral obliquity or complicity with crime. Therefore I will deal with those charges which may be said to have been found adversely to the Irish Members. The first is the finding that many of the respondents established and joined in the Land League, intending by its means to bring about the absolute independence of Ireland. For my own part, though I should resist separation to the last, I do not think that there is any moral stain upon a man involved by him wishing to see his country independent of another country, unless he desires to effect it by criminal means. But, as it is, the finding relates to a period 11 years ago, and amounts to this: that 11 years ago seven out of the 85 Irish Members are believed by the Judges to have intended separation at the time they joined the Land League. The next finding is that the respondents defended persons charged with agrarian crime, and supported their families. Some of the Irish Party confess to having done that, and their reasons were, that there were indiscriminate arrests in Ireland, and that there was no confidence in the administration of justice, and that jury-packing in Ireland was habitual, inveterate, and deeply resented by the people. Was there, in such circumstances, any moral wrong in procuring counsel and solicitor to defend prisoners, provided that nothing dishonourable was done? It was found that nothing dishonourable was done. There does not appear to be a single case of spiriting away a witness, or of procuring perjury; and yet we find so high an authority as Lord Selborne considers it a grave matter that gentlemen should provide solicitor and counsel to defend prisoners in a country where justice is believed to be habitually prostituted, and in a country where the packing of juries, which I consider the poisoning of the fountain of justice, is habitual and constant. That is all I have to say in regard to the charge of defending prisoners. The third finding is that I the respondents made payments to compensate persons who had been injured in the commission of crime. I regard this as a very serious matter. But what is the evidence, for the Judges very particularly drew attention to it? In my view it means that the Land League did on one occasion give money, said to be for medical relief, to three men injured in the commission of crime. According to the doctrine of constructive responsibility, all members of the Land League were, therefore, responsible for this act. But there is not a fragment of evidence to show that any one of the respondents personally did this thing, or knew of its being done. Hon. Gentlemen will find the evidence set out, and it consists of this: There was a letter written in 1881 by a person named Timothy Horan, secretary of the Castle island branch of the Land League, referring to the fact that three men had been injured, and asking for a grant for them. The letter was addressed to the Central Executive of the Land League, and was initialed by Mr. John Ferguson, of Glasgow, upon whose order, dated October 12, 1881, a sum of £6 was paid for compensation. It was not proved, however, that any one of the respondents was present at the executive meeting, or had any knowledge of the incident. It was true that Mr. Ferguson was reported to have said that on two or three occasions similar grants were made, but he challenged that statement; and if hon. Members would look at the evidence they would find that that was not a true construction of what was said. In addition to that, there is the absent e of means to which the Commissioners refer. But it is found by the Judges that 65 of the respondents did pay money to compensate persons injured in the commission of crime. They must have arrived at this conclusion with difficulty, as only one such payment was made by the League, and there is not a fragment of evidence to show that the respondents, personally, knew anything about it. I do not wish the House to do any injustice to the Judges in regard to this matter, and I would, therefore, infer that what they meant was constructive responsibility. The Land League made only three payments of £2 each, which amounted to this one payment of £6; and inasmuch as those gentlemen are prominent members of the League, I suppose the Judges thought they must be held responsible. I will now say a few words about the League books. There seems to be a general impression principally pervading Cabinet Ministers and gentlemen of their way of thinking who prowl about the country making wild statements as to the conduct of this agitation, and it seems to be their impression that those books are all missing, and that there has been a general conflagration of the books and papers of the Land League. There never was a greater mistake. The conspiracy, as it is called—and I do not care whether it is a conspiracy or not—started with the foundation of the Land League in October, 1879. It was followed by the Ladies League and the National League, and has been in existence down to the present day. Ever since October, 1882, this organisation has been carried on by a system of books; as accurate, as complete, and as full as the books kept in the Bank of England. Moreover, these books were in all their completeness from October, 1882, down to the date of the Commission. They were submitted to the examination of a skilled chartered accountant, who, on being asked by me, stated that all the books were kept which he would expect to be kept, and were all in perfect order, and further that he got every book and document he thought fit to ask for. These books of the National League; wore not adverted to in the Judges' Report. They say nothing about the books which were produced, bat a good deal about those which were not. It was some books of the Land League which were not produced. The cash books of the Land League, during 19 out of the 24 months of its existence, were produced; but other books and correspondence were not produced. And I will state why they were not. What was the evidence on that subject? The House must not suppose that the Land League was a regular and orderly body like the National League. On the contrary, I say it with a keen memory, not untinged with regret, the Liberals so hunted, chevied and bullied the Land League during a portion of its existence, that it can hardly be said to have had any sort of settled habitation. In the month of October, 1881, a raid was made on the offices of the Land League, and in the expectation of the raid a large number of books were sent over to England, only a few being left in Dublin. Those which were left in Dublin were sent to the Commissioners, but those sent over to England were dissipated, though I do not know where. Gentlemen who were examined before the Commissioners said they did know where. They may not have told the truth; but, at any rate, the Commissioners did not make that finding. It may be that those books were dissipated in a sort of whirlwind, consequent on the raid from Dublin Castle. At any rate, a great number of the books were produced, although it so happens that the ledgers and cash books of from 1881 to 1883 could not be examined. As to the books of the British National League, it was stated by Mr. Justin M'Carthy, who, I am sure, the House will not think likely to have indulged in gratuitous misrepresentations, that he had those books during two years. When he was called, however, he said he knew nothing about them; and although he had made affidavit, as a good many persons do, without looking very particularly at the schedules, he found when in the witness-box that what he had so deposed was a mistake. And Mr. George Lewis said there bad been a mistake in his office which had led to this error. The only other books which were left in Paris in the hands of Messrs. Monro and Company, Mr. Parnell point-blank refused to allow to be inspected, and there were intelligible grounds for this refusal. He stated that those books contained an account of the investments and resources of the League, and that he was not prepared to disclose, either to friends or foes, the financial resources of the Organisation of which he was President. This, again, is not referred to by the Commissioners, and I do not think the House will attach much importance to that part of the subject. I pass now to another finding of the Commissioners and that is, that those respondents advanced newspapers tending to incite to crime. I hope I may be allowed to put this matter somewhat in detail, as the finding is rather an important one. To my mind, if it be shown that individuals circulating newspapers containing matter intending to incite to crime, that was a very cowardly and villainous proceeding, and those persons should have less sympathy than the men who were thereby led to the commission of crime. It is for this reason that I wish to draw particular attention to this subject. The Judges referred to three newspapers. First of those is the Irish World, published in New York, the tone of which was very hostile to Great Britain. The Judges set forth articles appearing in the years 1880, 1881, and l882. They consist of letters, reports of meetings, and one leading article. Of these, three or four recommend the provision of arms for the purpose of fighting against Great Britain. Seven or eight speak in tones of hatred of this country, and one expresses an opinion that an appeal to dynamite is justifiable. The question here is, what is the responsibility of those gentlemen who were connected with the Land League? As the Irish World is published in New York it can hardly be pretended that any of those gentlemen, can have exercised the slightest control over it. It is stated that it was distributed by the Land League, and that is perfectly true; but why, and how was it distributed? It was in this way—it had a fund of its own called "The Spread of Light Fund," a fund which was for free distribution; and it so happened that consignments were sent from America to the Land League in Dublin, because the secretary of the Land League happened also to be the correspondent of the Irish World. There were 11 articles in the years 1881–82–83 which may be said to be of a reprehensible character, and which are set forth in the Report; it amounts to this—that, assuming the paper was published once a week, there are, roughly speaking, in about 150 sheets only 11 articles alleged to be objectionable, seven or eight of them being somewhat objectionable, and those even are not placed in a prominent position. If you wish to deal fairly with our brother Members in this matter, the point you would look to in connection with the Irish World is this, Was it shown during the inquiry that in those three years the respondents knew of the publication of those articles? It is not shown or proved that any single one of the respondents had brought home to him a knowledge of these objectionable paragraphs. In the year 1882 the Irish World ceased to support the Land League; it adopted a dynamite policy during 1883, 1884 and 1885; and in those years it was not even pretended in evidence that any one of the respondents had any knowledge of the contents of the paper, or that any copies of it were distributed in Ireland. The next paper I have to refer to is United Ireland, which was owned by Mr. Parnell and three or four of the other respondents as trustees of the Land League, and was edited by Mr. W. O'Brien. A good many extracts are set out by the Judges from this paper as objectionable, for a period extending over 10 years—indeed, practically speaking, all the extracts which could in any way be regarded as objectionable were set out. The first complaint made in regard to them was that they appeared under a column headed "The Campaign," or "Incidents of the Campaign," or a similar phrase—"the Land War," and so forth; and the Judges thought that outrages by being so recorded were treated as incidental to the agitation. I think it rather far fetched to come to that conclusion, for there was nothing except in one sentence in the whole column that was at all reprehensible; and the facts published simply record occurrences that have taken place. The objection was in the heading, and the House will find in the Report that Mr. Parnell took the same view. He objected to it, and although it began in 1881, it was stopped in February, 1882, having appeared for about six months only. After all it is a matter eight years old, and it should be remembered also that at the time Mr. Parnell and Mr. O'Brien were in prison, and it was only by sending a message in some subterranean manner that they were able to indicate their desire that this form of paragraph should cease. There are only nine other articles set out for the whole 10 years in the Report. Three of them, are disrespectful to the Queen, or hostile to England, having nothing to do with dynamite or outrages; one is an attack on Lord Spencer, and I must admit a most violent and unjust attack, but not nearly so violent or unjust as the attacks which habitually appeared in the Times and the Scotsman on the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian. Two others consists of letters from correspondents about the Phœnix Park murders, and those letters speak in sympathy with the criminals, but in detestation of crime itself. But if those letters are to be brought forward as evidence of bad spirit on the part of the editor and on the part of the other respondents it must be on the suggestion that they had sympathy with the phœnix Park murderers. The Judges, however, have expressly found that they sincerely condemned and denounced the Phœnix Park murders, and therefore they were entirely acquitted of all insincerity in their copious denunciations of that crime. Another of those articles is one that has been referred to by the hon. and learned Gentleman, in which it is stated that O'Donnell, for the murder of Carey, would, in most civilised countries, have been esteemed a public benefactor. I, of course, think that a most improper observation, and I will leave it without further comment. The last of the number is a leading article in September, 1885, violently hostile to England, but in terms condemning outrages and dynamite as being mad and sanguinary conspiracies. There, then, is an end of all the objectionable articles which are set forth in the report from United Ireland for over a period of 10years, and it has been practically found that there are nine objectionable articles, only one of which can be said to be really objectionable during the whole of the nine or 10 years. It is sufficient for me to add that during the same time the paper abounded with denunciations of crime and exhortations to the people to live peaceably. The other paper was the Irishman, which lasted four years—from August, 1881, to August, 1885—and I confess that, in my opinion, the articles in it were most reprehensible. But the question is—how far were the respondents responsible for them? The paper was bought by Mr. Parnell and published—not edited, as the Judges stated—nominally by Mr. O'Brien. But the point before the Commission, and the point for the House to bear in mind, was that no one ever said that these articles were defensible; but it was said by Mr. Parnell that he never knew of these articles, that he never saw the paper, which, in fact, was a very obscure rag, and had, indeed, escaped the notice of the Government of Lord Spencer. Mr, O'Brien also said that the paper was edited by a man named O'Connor, not a member of this House; and that he (Mr. O'Brien) was not aware either of the contents or the character of that paper, having enough to do to attend to his other duties. Now, Sir, there are 14 articles from this paper set out by the Judges, and I put it again to the House whether there is anything in the Report intimating that any one of the respondents was cognisant of the publication of the articles. It was not even suggested in respect to 63 of the 65 Members of this House, and the two others swore that they had no knowledge of the issue of those articles. This, then, is the general result of the charges in respect to the three newspapers—that 63 out of the 65 members were not responsible in any way for the Irishman; and certainly as regards the 65 they were not in any way responsible for the Irish World; but as regards all of them I think that, to a great extent, they were morally responsible in regard to United Ireland, and as regards two of them, one was owner and the other editor of United Ireland, and one was owner and the other publisher of the Irishman. I believe that if hon. Members will consider the articles referred to in United Ireland they will come to the conclusion that, though strongly worded, they did not incite to crime. As regards the other two papers, there was no such responsibility. Therefore, it is a case of constructive responsibility as regards 63 at least out of 65 of these respondents. The next finding of the Judges to which I wish to allude is that the respondents invited the assistance and co-operation of, and accepted subscriptions of money from, Patrick Ford, a known advocate of crime and the use of dynamite. This relates to the receipt of money collected through the means of the Irish World. In 1881, and down to October, 1882, Patrick Ford and the Irish World supported the Land League, and the Irish- Americans who subscribed chose Ford as the medium through whom they sent their money to Ireland. No part of this money, however, went to any of the respondents, unless it was about £2,000 spent in 1880 in election expenses; all of it was spent in the relief of distress and for the general purposes of the Land League. During this time, as I have already pointed out, the Irish World had occasional articles, in perhaps 15 or 20 numbers, of a reprehensible character, although it was not found that any of the respondents saw those articles, and when asked if they had seen them, they denied it. I am aware that opinions may differ as to the propriety of receiving money for charitable or even political purposes through the hands of persons who are themselves of notoriously bad character, but if the persons who subscribed the money are respectable, and the objects such as you honestly approve, I think moralists would fairly hold that, at all events, in a great emergency, it would be justifiable to accept money under those circumstances. Now, the actual subscribers in this case were millions of the Irish-Americans—persons of excellent character, though it is really almost presumptuous to speak of the moral characters of millions, which will include, of course, the righteous and the unrighteous. The objects for which the money has been received are, in their view, objects of transcendent importance, the emergency being one of the greatest in their history; and it was received for innocent purposes from innocent people. In October, 1882, and down to the end of 1885, the Irish World had preached dynamite consistently. It had received in that time no support from the Irish Party, and no money was during that time received by them from it. But at the end of 1885, and in 1886 and 1887, and since then, the Irish World absolutely ceased to advocate dynamite, and adopted a policy more in sympathy with that of the Irish Party, and no objectionable articles have appeared in it since then; while, since then, the League has received money from America. It was found by the Judges that the Irish Party had received money from it at that time, but, in point of fact, they had not, the real reason of the mistake being a very curious one. There had been an entry in the Irish World of money sent to the Land League in England, but, in point of fact, that had been an entry copied from other papers, and money had not been received and transmitted as in the previous times of 1881 and 1882. The next point is that the respondents— invited and obtained the assistance and cooperation of the physical force party in America, including the Clan-na-Gael, and in order to obtain that assistance abstained from repudiating or condemning the action of that party. Now, I must point out that the physical force party in America and the Clan-na-Gael are here treated as being different, one from the other. I mention this in order to prevent confusion, because in some parts of the Report the two are mentioned as being convertible terms. The physical force party, which means the Fenian Party, have existed since 1867 in America. Undoubtedly it has always advocated insurrection, and has been in favour of a fair fight whenever an opportunity might arise, but until the middle of 1881 it has not been suggested that they have made themselves a party to dynamite or outrage. With the physical force party before 1881—before it had taken any part in dynamite—the respondents had undoubtedly had dealings. What their policy has been is plain from the following sentence in Mr. Parnell's evidence:— With regard to the question whether I ought to have forbidden these men to enter our movement, I have always thought that in the history of Ireland there has been much justification for the views that they have taken up from time to time, and particularly their view as regards the inutility of Parliamentary action, and I should have considered it an unreasonable course on my part to pursue at the threshold of our movement, when we were yet untried, when our movement was yet untried, to ask these men to abandon their views, and to accept unhesitatingly mine, and to shut the door of the Constitutional movement in their face at the very commencement of this movement, unless they agree to forego definitely, and to make public declarations definitely against any contingent recourse to physical force hereafter. It is undoubtedly the case—and the Irish Party have never denied it—that they are anxious, if they can, to disarm the hostility of the physical force party in America as well as in England, and to bring them into a common alliance, working for what they believe to be a Constitutional policy, without requiring any open or formal renunciation of their former views. But it is suggested by my hon. and learned Friend that it was found that the respondents had associated with the Clan-na-Gael, and that the Clan-na-Gael were undoubtedly a dynamite faction. That has been found, but in point of fact, for my own part, I do not say that it was so. But it is suggested that the Irish Party had, knowing this, associated with them and sought their co-operation. That would be a very different matter, but it is not the case. The Report said— It has not been proved that the respondents or any of them, knew that the Clan-na-Gael controlled the League or was collecting money for the Parliamentary Fund. Nor did the Report find that in associating with them the respondents knew the operations of the Clan-na-Gael; indeed, it found that the operations of the Clan-na-Gael were secret. The ninth finding does not apply to the dynamite party at all, and I entreat hon. Members before they go about the country condemning these gentlemen for associating with dynamiters to realise that it has been found that they did not associate with any notorious criminals. The evidence did not refer to any association with criminals or dynamiters. The last finding to which I have to refer is that which finds that the respondents incited to intimidation. That finding crops up in various parts of the Report. Now, the facts are these: The respondents have admitted boycotting before the Commissioners, as they always have done. Now, of course, boycotting, as every one must feel, is a very severe weapon, but in rural England there is plenty of boycotting. What I cannot endure is the cant and hypocrisy on this subject of well-fed and well-dressed men who practise boycotting through the Primrose League.

MR. R. G. WEBSTER (St. Pancras, East)

Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order. The hon. Member has stated that the Primrose League has been guilty of boycotting, but he has not mentioned any instance.

MR. R. T. REID

I beg to say that more than once complaints have been made to me by people, who said that they had been pratically boycotted by the Primrose League. Of course, I am not going to give names. I did not mean to get into a conflict with hon. Gentlemen opposite, though I stand by every syllable I have said. Now I hope I may be allowed to proceed with my observations. I do not defend boycotting. I mean that I think boycotting is one of those things that ought not to be resorted to except under the gravest necessity. Whether such a necessity existed in Ireland in 1879, 1880, and 1881 was a thing the Judges were not, in their opinion, commissioned to inquire into. The result is, that we have in the Report a picture of boycotting, but no picture of the miseries which led to that boycotting. A few references to the evidence will explain the state of things out of which boycotting has arisen. On page 4869 will be found the evidence of the parish priest of Bantry, of whom, I am sure no one who took part in the proceedings before the Commission will speak in terms other than respect for an honourable and upright man. He tells how a parishioner named Macartney, of Ballycorey, was evicted with his family. Five of his children were ill at the time of measles or scarlet fever. They were put out in that condition, and one of the children died soon afterwards. Then, to take another case out of four within this priest's parish, in 1884 Charles Davis was evicted and lived for some weeks beside a ditch near by; and under these circumstances his wife gave birth to a child, she having crawled into an outhouse unprotected by a door, and there she was delivered. Near by a brother, Eugene Davis, had a holding from which he was evicted, with the result that he became insane, and is now a raging lunatic. However," says the witness, "I must observe he was insane some time before, but at the time of the eviction he appeared quite sane. In another case Daniel Sullivan was evicted about 1882 or 1883. He lived on the border of the parish adjoining Bantry. He was evicted at a time when his child was on the verge of death, and the child died on the following day. His wife from that day became insane, though up to then quite sane, and is now in a lunatic asylum. The references to these four cases in the Parish of Bantry will be found on pages 4868–9. No attempt was made to contract these facts sworn to by the reverend gentleman, and I ask any hon. Member, if he were one of the persons treated in this way, would he condemn boycotting with as much energy? It will be found on reading the Report that the Judges treat boycotting and intimidation as convertible terms, and, reading the Report in that light, it will appear that what the respondents are found guilty of is boycotting, and boycotting alone. None of the respondents are found to have taken part in any other act of intimidation. There is a case reported of Mr. Condon on page 48, but the Judges do not say whether he did or did not commit the act. There is no case reported of any branch of the Land League taking part in any act of outrage, except the case of the Killoo branch at Long ford (p. 80), and it is there stated that the order to commit the assault, which ended fatally, was given at a meeting not of the Land League, but at a meeting of members of the Land League. The Judges do not report that the respondents, as members of the Land League, had any participation in the murder; they find that the respondents did not directly incite persons to the commission of crime other than intimidation. There is no case reported of any of the respondents committing any crime other than incitement to intimidation, which, as I have said, is treated as equivalent to boycotting. They also find that some of the respondents did express bonâ fide disapproval of crime and outrage. Only some of them made speeches at all, but none of them are reported to have been insincere. Again, it is said, they did not denounce intimidation, which is equivalent to boycotting. Turn it which way you will, if boycotting and intimidation are convertible terms, you find that the Report holds them responsible for boycotting alone. If boycotting means intimidation, they are responsible for intimidation, otherwise they are not. I will not examine for a moment the statistical and other arguments by which the Judges come to the conclusion that boycotting led to crime. It is well-known that the respondents have maintained (I do not enter into that controversy for the moment) that boycotting, far from contributing to crime, tended to diminish it. I do not enter into that, but I wish to point out that the finding of the Judges is founded on a variety of statistical and other arguments which show that the question in hand was never contemplated to be submitted to the Commission at all. For my own part, I must say if I were put to choose between the opinion of the people of Ireland and that of the Judges as to whether boycotting was warrantable or tended to increase crime, I should prefer the opinion of the people who live around these scenes, and amongst whom Irish Members come and go. It was proved by witnesses on both sides that most of the respectable people in three-fourths of Ireland belonged to the League, and that parish priests, curates, and Catholic Bishops supported it or sympathised with it. To say that the operations of the League increased crime is to condemn three-fifths of the manhood of Ireland. It is a direct condemnation if the League consists—as by all testimony it does—of the most respectable persons in Ireland, and is supported by the great Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. I must say myself when I find that all these classes support this Association, I find it very difficult to believe that the League is the author of the crimes and intimidation the Judges seem to think. I might further add, the composition of the Irish Parliamentary majority is inconsistent with the view that the League is exercising intimidation. I have gone through every one of the separate findings of the Judges, and the result comes to this: As to the charge that seven Members of Parliament have favoured Separation, that was several years ago. As to defending prisoners, I say that was nothing but honourable employment of solicitor and counsel. In regard to the finding that payment has been made for compensation for those who have suffered for commission of crime, there is only one case in which it is proved that compensation was paid by the League to those who had suffered injury, and in no case is it shown that Members of Parliament had any personal knowledge of what was done. In regard to newspapers, there was undoubtedly a want of supervision in some cases, but it is not proved there was any knowledge of the objectionable articles on the part of the respondents. I have said all I have to say, and I need not advert to these things again, as to the obtaining money from Patrick Ford, of the Irish World, from the physical force party, and in regard to boycotting, which is equivalent to intimidation. I do not say I have gone through every line, but I have gone through the substance of the Report, and I have few words to add. The House is is entitled to expect from the Government a somewhat different attitude in this matter. The charges were made by the Times; but, in fact, the Times had the Government at its back from beginning to end. Whether any political persons were mixed up with the finding of money for the forged letters I cannot say. If there were any, I do not say they had any idea they were conniving at forgery. One thing, however, is quite certain, and that is that the Bill was so framed that the accusation against the Times could not be entered upon. Further, the Government offices were ransacked for the benefit of the Times, and all accessible information was placed at its disposal. I would take me some time to establish that, and I am not going to attempt it now. The Home Secretary must know something about it. Take an incidental illustration. It could not be without the sanction of the Home Secretary that records of searches for arms and of searches for letters by the police were placed at the disposal of any litigant. Does the right hon. Gentleman not know that the records of many searches for arms—15 or 20, probably more—searches for arms and letters by the police in England in our great cities were put at the disposal of the Times? It will be an interesting subject when it comes up for discussion. I do not wish to enlarge upon it now, for time forbids. I say we are entitled to have from the Government something different from their present attitude. Every private Member has the right to say to the Government: "Do you believe that Members of this House are guilty of moral complicity with crime, or do you not?" If you do believe it, it is your duty to move that they be expelled from the House. If yon do not believe it, then, inasmuch as you were the authors of this ill-starred Commission, it is your duty to say so in plain and unmistakable terms. You are not entitled to do as certain Cabinet Ministers have done—to go about the country reading passages from the Report without explanation and context, and so to defame colleagues outside the House, when you have not the courage to make good your words in the face of your political adversaries. This is what you are doing—you are taking a pride, a foolish pride, in the humiliation of Members, in degrading the character of the House, and in lowering the standard of political life.

(11.30.) MR. A. ELLIOT (Roxburgh)

I think every man in the House must have recognised that the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just spoken, though he has ceased his labours before the Commission, yet has not altogether divested himself of wig and gown. Though he has given us an able argument upon the evidence given before the Judges, an argument that might have been, and probably was, delivered to the Judges, yet we in this House of Commons, however distinguished and honourable the counsel may be, prefer to take the Judgment of the Judges rather than the judgment of the counsel engaged. Some of the arguments, I am hound to say it does not surprise me to find, had little weight with the Judges. To go shortly into matters touched upon, I will take, for instance, the incident of the books. The hon. and learned Gentleman says these were not forthcoming. But what say the Judges? They say they were entitled to expect greater assistance from the hon. Member for Cork and his friends than was given them in this matter. How do the words of the counsel in the case weigh in the balance against this? My hon. and learned Friend said he did not care whether or not the hon. Member for Cork and his friends were actuated by the desire to obtain the absolute separation of Ireland from this country. The hon. and learned Member may not care, but the people of this country do care; and whether or not this is a crime, it is most material in the great controversy in which we have been engaged for the last four or five years, and in which we shall probably he engaged for years to come. It is of importance that the British public should understand the motives which actuated those who founded and supported the Land League and the National League of Ireland. Of the moral character of the hon. Member for Cork and his Colleagues we have, I think, heard too much to-day; for the Report of this Commission contains findings against them, as a body of politicians, such as have no parallel or precedent in the history of this country. A more serious indictment has never before been made against Members of Parliament, though in the course of the debate we may perhaps have some precedents a little more recent and a little more apt than those cited by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, who has gone back to the time immediately preceding the Civil War and the fall of the Monarchy before he could find an instance which was at all parallel to anything which has recently occurred. In those trying times 200 years ago, unfortunately, many things were done which no hon. Member could do now. The name of Algernon Sidney is respected by the Whig Party, and history makes it clear that he was free from any connection with crime. But what happened in those days cannot be made an excuse for hon. Members in respect of those matters as to which they have been held guilty. We have to deal with our own time and with the circumstances of this case. I am bound to say that when I heard the address of the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian I felt something like a pang of regret that he should use the rhetorical force of his magnificent eloquence for the purpose of white washing these persons and minimising those offences which a few years ago, when sitting on the opposite side of the House, he was the loudest and most strenuous in condemning. Let us see what has been established by the findings of the Judges. It has been established by the evidence of the most strenuous of its supporters that the Land League was intended, by means of agitation against the landlords, to bring about the absolute separation of Ireland from the United Kingdom. That was what Mr. Davitt said. We were told a short time since that all this happened 11 years ago, and in times of distress in Ireland, and that the men who were then trying for separation are doing so no longer. But has that programme been departed from? Gentlemen go about the country telling the electors it is an absurdity; yet Mr. Davitt, the founder of the Land League, himself told the Commission that he was still of the same opinion as he was then. I maintain that such an object for politicians to set before themselves as the end to which they are working has never been known before—it is new to oar political life that we should have a political party working for an end absolutely unconstitutional. But when I come to look at the means by which that end is sought to be attained, I regret still more the speech of the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian. The object of the supporters of the League is, I maintain, hostility to the British Crown and people; and, according to the finding of the Judges, they adopted the most active and energetic means to carry it out. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian has complimented the Judges upon their learning and their ability; but he has omitted altogether to compliment them upon that which is their most conspicuous merit—their impartiality But I will now go back to the instruments which this Party used to bring about their ends; the first was boycotting, the second and most important instrument was the use they made of the Press, and the third was the assistance they received from Irishmen in America. Too much attention cannot possibly be devoted by the people of this country to those three instruments which the ton. Member for Cork and his friends used to attain their ends. My hon. and learned Friend was not ashamed to stand up in the House of Commons and compare the boycotting, which was practised by the hon. Member for Cork and his Colleagues, with the action of the Primrose League. How can the hon. and learned Member justify the comparison between the action of the Primrose League and a boycotting which was Illegal both in its objects and the means which were adopted, and the object of which Elaborate and all pervading tyranny was not only to injure the individual landlords against whom it was directed by rendering their land useless to them unless they obeyed the edicts of the Land League, but to injure the landlords as a class and drive them out of the country? In the opinion of the Judges, the leaders of the League, who include almost all the well-known men in the Party, were guilty of a criminal conspiracy, the object of which was, by a system of coercion and intimidation, to promote an agrarian agitation against the payment of agricultural rents, for the purpose of impoverishing and expelling from the country the Irish landlords, who were styled the English garrison. Yet it is this abominable system which hon. Members are not ashamed to compare to the action of the Primrose League. The second instrument made use of by the hon. Member for Cork and his Colleagues was the Press. We are told that the Land League was only constructively responsible for the circulation of the Irish World in Ireland. In June, 1880, the Irish World published an article suggesting that London should be fired in 50 different places simultaneously; and afterwards attempts were made to fire London, the schemes of the scoundrels being only defeated by the vigilance of the police. Over and over again the Irish World advocated the use of dynamite. Why, then, was it sent into Ireland? Because Mr. Davitt, the chief of the Land League, wished that it should circulate there. In 1881 Mr. Davitt telegraphed his thanks to Ford for the services of the Irish World. We are told that these things are repented of, but what says Mr. Davitt? He was acquainted with the writings of Ford, he knew that Ford had advocated the firing of London in 50 different places, and yet, in the witness box, he declared that he had seldom made acquaintance with a better Christian and philanthropist. Surely here the connection is close enough. As to the Irishman, the hon. and learned Member for Dumfries says that it was an unimportant publication, and that Lord Spencer hardly knew of its existence; yet we know it was established to carry out the designs of the Land League. Unimportant or not, the hon. Member for Cork knew of it. He bought it from Pigott just before the appearance in its columns of the rascally articles which all must condemn. The Irishman, owned by the hon. Member for Cork City, and edited by the hon. Member for North-East Cork, was used for carrying on the work of the Land League. In this paper an article headed "The Strangling Commission" likened the preliminary inquiries into the circumstances of the murder of Lord F. Cavendish to inquiries under the Spanish Inquisition, and in the same journal paragraphs were published about the wonderful heroism of Joe Brady, one of the murderers. In 1885 the Irishman praised the hon. Member for Cork for not denouncing the use of dynamite. The methods which were disclosed in this and other publications are disgraceful. Bearing them in mind, it is very difficult to understand how hon. Members can come to this House and say that after all they were only politicians taking part in a political movement. These are not the instruments which Members of Parliament have hitherto used in this country, and they are not the instruments which the British electors think ought to be adopted. And now I come to the third means ruthlessly and recklessly adopted by hon. Members for Ireland in order to attain their objects, the use made of the League in Ireland, and its connection to the Clan-na-Gael. I was much struck by a speech recently, in which Lord Spencer alluded to his gratification at finding that the hon. Member for Cork was weaning deluded Irishmen from nefarious practices and immoral methods, and inducing them to adopt Constitutional means for effecting their objects. Let the noble Lord, and those who are of the same opinion, read the last 15 or 20 pages of the Commissioners' Report. There they will find described and laid bare a hideous conspiracy—a conspiracy as hostile as any could possibly be to the Queen and people of the United Kingdom. Those pages do not show that the hon. Member is weaning the Clan-na-Gael from their nefarious practices. What they show is that year after year the Clan-na-Gael kept control over the National League, moulded it to their own purposes, and used the hon. Member for their own ends. The right hon. Member for Mid Lothian has said that the Report of the Judges does not extend to matters later than 1885. In one very important matter, however, that limit is overstepped. With reference to the receipt of money the inquiry extended to 1886 and 1887, long after the "Union of Hearts" had become established. In those years some £18,000 or £19,000 were transmitted to the Nationalist Members from America, and it is well that the British electorate should know that so recently as this Irish Members received thousands of pounds which had come largely out of the pockets of the Clan-na-Gael and other enemies of this country. The Judges found that in 1886–7 nearly £19,000 was transmitted by Irish-American organisations which were under the control of the Clan-na-Gael, in aid of the objects promoted by Members of this House, who profess their zeal for Constitutional methods. Whatever the knowledge of hon. Members may be, that money came from the enemies of the Queen and the British people. I do not care so much about the quibble as to what is personal in these charges. I will not argue on the distinction between what is personal crime and what is not. There is something more important than the personal characters of these Members. It is infinitely more important that the British electorate should know the means by which this controversy for Home Rule is being carried on. It should be known that in 1886 and 1887, as in 1881 and 1882, the sinews of war have been found and the movement kept going by enemies of the British people. You talk about the terrible criminality of the Times newspaper, but whatever was the criminality of the Times, it has paid £5,000, the amount assessed by the hon. Member for the City of Cork as his own damages. No one contends that the Time was guilty of deliberate fraud, though it may have been guilty of reckless conduct. I should, indeed, be surprised to hear any hon. Member say that Mr. Walter of the Times knew the letters were forgeries. But whatever its recklessness or folly in trusting Pigott, it was only guilty of involuntary mistake, and its conduct was not comparable in point of criminality with that which has been brought home to those who are fellow-workers of the hon. Members below the Gangway.

Debate adjourned till to-morrow.